All in a Day

I’ve been wanting to write today, knowing I would write today, yearning to write today. Because three things happened today – all in this one day – that I want to make sense of on the page.

Chapter One: I woke up sad. I woke up at 5:30 am and thought I should get up and work. I didn’t. I woke up at 6 and rolled over. I woke up at 6:30 am and said ‘just look around, breathe, be grateful.’ I closed my eyes. My son Dylan called me at 6:40 and I reluctantly left the warmth of my bed. I spent a lot of the early morning thinking about how hard it was going to be to work out later, how I felt weak, how I was going to barely make it if my wonderful trainer Kendra (http://https://www NULL.facebook NULL.com/profile NULL.php?id=602411098) asked me to do more than run for 30 seconds. And Kendra always asks for WAY more than that so I was worried.

Chapter Two: I came back after working out feeling emptied and full and oh so much better. I went inside to sit with Dylan and Carmen (his babysitter) for a minute. He was eating soup. He’d been putting ice cubes in it to cool it off. He put his spoon in the soup, caught a big ice-cube and put it in his mouth just as I was thinking ‘no, no, too big, don’t do….’ And then he looked at me terrified and started to gag and I grabbed him and pounded him on his back and he wasn’t breathing and I turned him upside down and hit his back again and Carmen was asking if she should call 911. And Dylan was shaking and reaching for me and everything in his face was saying ‘help me, help me’ and all I could feel was helpless, helpless. And then I heard a wheeze – some air, and I thought maybe it’s going down. Maybe it’s melting. Another wheeze and he coughed the remaining ice out and I fell to the floor and cradled him and he was sweaty and scared. And I rocked him and I thought I’m not letting go. I’m not letting go. I’m not letting go. And we got him something to drink and I rocked him and couldn’t stop shaking.

Chapter Three: Two hours later I went out. I should have been working. I couldn’t work.I couldn’t face it. Dylan was playing and was as if nothing had happened. I went out into the day in search of a cheap, pretty summer dress. And in search of a Vanilla Latte. Something inside was still shaking but also something inside had let go and I just wanted the simplicity of slipping something on that made me soften and be in my body on a Monday afternoon.

And that’s how a day unfolds. I found myself feeling such compassion for the complexity of each day — of each person trying to make it through the day — trying to live well, choose goodness, feel freer, love more. And every moment is a ride and every moment is a choice. And I so often fail to choose something that improves things. But I suppose one of my gifts is that I’m stubborn and innocent and I just keep trying to live a simple day with greater ease and greater love and greater freedom. I just keep trying to wake up and greet the day, flowing into it, leaving any weight right in the shape of my body on the mattress and moving lightly, softly, swiftly into a day I create.