I always enjoy the feeling of the sun on my skin. I absorb it’s warmth as if I were a battery recharging. I feel invigorated and alive when take the time to slow down, relax and let the moment dominate my thoughts for a few minutes. It’s ironic, I thought, that I feel most alive when I’m doing the least. These times are so few and far between that I really cherish them. Oh, I know, I said to that part of my mind that keeps track of the bills and how much the lawn needs mowing, that there will be plenty of time later today to attend to them, for now, at the very least, I wanted to prolong this feeling of warm summer. This endless summer that that I love so much.
I let my head sink back deeper into the cushion of the sofa and stretched like a cat and sank into a pool of liquid relaxation, and allowed my mind to release all the cares and worries that seemed so important only 30 minutes ago. My attention floated like a butterfly across my body. Resting ever so lightly here and there as the gentle breeze took it this way and that. My knees, which usually complain from the years of physical labor barely registered and didn’t hurt at all. This was unusual, but in my current state of mind it wasn’t a fact worth noting. I was content. Though it had been hours my stomach wasn’t hungry nor clamoring for a cup of that freshly brewed coffee I could smell coming from the kitchen – the coffee would, like the bills and the lawn, be there waiting for me when I got up.
I closed my eyes, not because I was tired, but because it felt like it was the right thing to do. I wasn’t even sure that was a conscious though, I just did it. Instead of reducing my sensory input I felt like I was experiencing more, expanding my universe with a simple thought or feeling. I thought first of Rascal, my nap time companion. Lowering my had to the floor, I found his furry body and stroked his back. There was reassurance in knowing that he was where he belonged, and I was where I wanted to be. I smiled – that nameless, wordless feeling of contentment that no other living soul could understand, and in a thousand years, I could never explain.
My mind reached out to Martha who left this home years ago and left me behind. All the anger and tears were long ago shed, all the energy, both good and bad had been naturalized, like an old watch spring that’s fully uncoiled. Again, that inner contented smile that needed no physical display. I could see her smiling and happy now as she was when I first saw here 40 years earlier. Without thinking the words, I knew she was happy in her new life, and I was happy for her.
I could feel Rascal and Martha, her perfume, mixed with millions of flowers interspersed with giggling 3 year olds swirling in music and dance around me, enveloping me in the dance of the universe and I unhesitatingly joined them. I joined them for eternity.