Looking Up...

Today is the first day of my 36th year.



Life sure sneaks up on you. With every birthday, time seems to move its metronome up a few ticks... exponetially. Each of my anniversaries sends me further into spirals of doubt, fear, angst... and the realization that I don't spend enough of my time in the NOW.


Erin's photo assigment this week was "Look Up." I thought about this in two different ways:



What first came to mind was a lyric from Ani DiFranco. "When I look down, I miss all the good stuff. When I look up, I just trip over things." When I go hiking, I often recall this quote... and remind myself that tripping a little is better than missing all of the beauty around me. I also remember something Deepak Chopra said about trying to look out to the horizon... keeping our focus wide... and how that would utlimately help us to live in the present moment.


How often am I driving, walking, living... in this sort of tunnel vision? I no longer watch television largely because it freaks me out how easily I slip into the landscapes someone else has created... how readily my focus is sucked away. (If I get too emotional/scared/anxious during a movie, I remind myself to just look away from the screen for a moment... look up to the ceiling and remember that I'm just in a regular sort of place.)


While Look Up became another reminder to get outside of that laser beam sort of seeing, it also reminded me to... be smaller... to look at little things as if they are the biggest things in the universe... to get down on my hands and knees or lie on my back... and look up at the trees, the flowers, the grass... like a little child... like a squirrel or a snail.

Cats become mountains.
Weeds become jungles.
Flowers become skyscrapers.

And seconds become days.


Today is my 35th birthday, and it is my intention to do more looking up. Time moves too quickly if we stop paying attention... and I don't want to miss any more of the good stuff!