Taking stock

I had a quiet day, took stock, paid attention to the body. I saw how concentrated my life has been for the past decade. I've taken a few short holidays, I've been sick a few times, but for most of the past ten years I've been connecting. It's all been splendid, and I'm grateful, and yet it's no wonder my heart forgot how to slow down. Knock-knock! Who's there? Your heart. 

In 2008 I retired and moved to a city where I knew no one. In 2009 I had less than 150 friends on Facebook; now I have nearly 2000. In 2010 I started on Blip. In 2011 Bella was born, I joined a meditation group and met Sue, and I joined the Occupy Portland media team. In 2015 I began organizing the Portland Buddhist Peace Fellowship. All these years I've been networking, growing relationships, reaching out, learning people's stories and names and their partner's stories and names and their heartbreaks and intentions. Every day has been full of commitments. Coffee dates, lunch meetings, meditation, childcare, book groups, therapy, fitness, romantic weekends, workshops. Facebook, Blip, Twitter, Medium, Instagram. I've been connected. My heart has been pounding and pounding. Today I sat down and said yes, heart, I'm here. I'm listening. Let's take a walk together. Knock-knock. Who's there?

It was a perfect afternoon--gentle sun, breeze blowing wisps of cloud across a baby blanket of sky, neither hot nor cold. We went for a long walk in our shirtsleeves, my heart and I. Thirty blocks or so, checking to see what would happen. Would I get breathless, dizzy? Would I need to sit down? Knock-knock!

On this day, no protests to organize, no rallies to photograph and label by date and subject, no meetings, no need to be tactful nor strategic. Silent as a whisper, I strolled through acres of new apartment blocks to Tanner Park and the waterlilies. Light through the reeds barred the lily pads, lit the wings of tiny black insects. I circled back past more new apartment blocks. Light bounced off glass and onto concrete. I hardly know this neighborhood, its growth has been phenomenal in the years when I wasn't looking. Nothing is familiar. But everything, in the afternoon light, is beautiful. (Extras.) Hooray. I'm still here. For a while longer. 

My heart, which has been pounding like fury for most of this month, is slowing down, and life is returning to this body. By the end of my long walk I was tired but only a little breathless, pleasantly dizzy. Tipsy. Some people like this feeling. I think I'm going to make it. I hope I can scale back from all that non-stop connecting, take more days like this one. Knock-knock.