Coffee in a not so cold climate

It is morning of week 9 of the Spring Quarter. It is Becky lying on the floor of her room listening to Morcheeba. It is being hotter than ever - a space where it is difficult to think or focus, but also being deeply cold and gloomy - as this room sits in the shade of a few towering redwoods. It is midday - but it is also timeless - as the last few weeks of a term always seem to be. It is high time I was getting down to my readings and writings. Yet it is also a time of no frantic stressed out ness. The work will happen and in the meantime there is nothing more important then having friends come for dinner, then flinging wide the door of the apartment to entice those who wander past inside, then listening to music, then watching plays, then laughing. Time is more precious than maybe we can ever know. There are no pinnacles, no final victories, points that we reach when suddenly everything is understood, we want no more, our hunger is satisfied, all our work is done. But that is why we must stop forever running towards these pinnacles. That is why sometimes we must stop running altogether - for fear that we've forgotten why we do it. Because, there are moments, there are moments when we are aligned - when unexpectantly we know that it is not important to get that work done. They are never the big moments, they are the simple ones. Looking up from here on my floor - to the spiderweb of sunlight on the bark of the redwood outside, the feel of the rain on my bare feet and the boiling hissing tarmac beneath them as I walk home in a rainstorm, having a friend touch your arm or give you a hug because what they are saying is not translateable in words, dancing when there is no music but when your body knows it must dance to express its delight in a phone call, smiling because someone sent you a postcard, laughing because you spoke to a man who was further down the road than you, who did not possess the answers but could give you inspiration that he is fighting for them, smelling God in the earth and on the breeze... and it seems as though those dazzling, glimmers of hope are sometimes the best that we have, and can only be seen in those brief segments of life when we stop running. So, I have stopped running - just for an hour or so - I am sat with my cup of coffee and the sunlight on my redwood - I am trying not to see my life in peaks of mountains that must be reached - the end of a quarter, the beginning of summer, the start of a roadtrip, the end of the degree -- instead all I want is to know that I can stop running and enjoy the glitter of sun on the ocean.

Speaking to a friend yesterday - she knows who she is - though I don't know if she ever reads this - - she told me about learning to be happy. Not learning to cope. happiness isn't about coping, it is about enjoying, about becoming one with your body, about sensing the fun in the world, about embracing people who others don't like, about seeing the good in the world. About loving and accepting.

That is my goal - today I am happy - today I am living a moment - and enjoying and sensing this body of mine as it lies on this floor, grounded and conent. Today is about a host of glittering moments - about the feel of water on your skin as you shower, about a sentence that is perfect, a line, a touch, a glance. There are never pinnacles, only moments.