project gratitude: day twenty.

Disclaimer: My quote choice today does not reflect a pro-bullfighting opinion.  I am commenting on the quote that directs attention to what is happening within the arena.

project gratitude_day 20

I am grateful for the pause.

Sometimes the pause is forced.  Sometimes it is self-imposed.

This morning, my husband and I sat at the beach just before the sunrise (which technically happened behind the clouds) and watched and listened to this spectacle:

Waves

It was abrasive and almost violent.  No pauses.  An overlapping cacophony of crashes and booms.  But I couldn’t help feel a visceral reaction, a stirring, a quickening.  After many minutes, I wanted to hit the pause button.  I needed a respite from the onslaught.  I was smothered by the constant fluctuation with no ending.

As a mother, I have felt times where I thought there would be no pause, constantly bombarded with needs and requests.  But eventually, the pause comes.  It always comes.  I am grateful for the pause: the moment that sick child is finally asleep, even if only for a few minutes; the space between breaths as you contemplate your next move; the brief silence as everyone buries their heads in their foods, famished from a day out; the waiting in the car for children to finish their programs or appointments.  Today I sat at our dining table watching all my children have lunch together.  They were laughing at brother’s jokes.  It was a pause.  I was able to sit back and watch it all, a silent spectator enjoying my outside seat.

At other times, I am the bull finding my querencia.  This comes from the Spanish verb “querer.”  According to wikipedia, Querencia “describes a place from which one’s strength of character is drawn, a place where one feels at home.”

My refuge and renewal come from writing here and completing my Book of Hours. I pause.  I drop everything and recharge because nothing else matters if I lose my strength or give my power up.  In that pause, I can choose again.  I can choose to take more time.  I can choose to say sorry.  I can choose to shut my mouth.  I can choose to hug instead of holler.  I can choose to live with the unanswered question. I can choose to breathe and stay in that tiny pause between breaths.  I can just break long enough to find what I thought was missing and to return to centre.

What do you do to pause and reclaim your strength?  

***

42 days of gratitude…being grateful for it ALL.

 


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