Some day I will travel to a monastery that overlooks the ocean. I will unpack a small bag that contains a pair of faded jeans, an old blue cotton plaid shirt, a pair of flip-flops, the Bible I've had for forty years with dog-eared pages, yellow highlighting and important thoughts scribbled in the margins. I will spend hours in meditation and walk by the sea, speaking to no one save God and the occasional seagull. I'll write uninterrupted thoughts in a soft leather journal and go to sleep listening to the waves breaking on a deserted shore.
Today I will have a sabbatical of a different sort. I will wash my sheets and hang them in the sun. Then tend to the baby nasturtiums I've been growing on the patio. I'll scrub my kitchen floor until it shines then stand back and look at it with deep satisfaction. There will be moments of thanksgiving; humming an old favorite tune, taking the dog for a walk around the neighborhood, and a few hours stolen to work on my novel. Maybe a conversation or text message to one of my children. The jumbled pile of tangled earrings will be cleared from my dusty dresser-top except for the sparkly amber ones. Those will go into a clamshell I found on the beach last summer. To remind me of glittering waves and a sandy shore. And tonight I'll sleep in freshly laundered sheets that smell of fresh cut grass and summer breezes.
Some day.
Until then, I have today.
Today I will have a sabbatical of a different sort. I will wash my sheets and hang them in the sun. Then tend to the baby nasturtiums I've been growing on the patio. I'll scrub my kitchen floor until it shines then stand back and look at it with deep satisfaction. There will be moments of thanksgiving; humming an old favorite tune, taking the dog for a walk around the neighborhood, and a few hours stolen to work on my novel. Maybe a conversation or text message to one of my children. The jumbled pile of tangled earrings will be cleared from my dusty dresser-top except for the sparkly amber ones. Those will go into a clamshell I found on the beach last summer. To remind me of glittering waves and a sandy shore. And tonight I'll sleep in freshly laundered sheets that smell of fresh cut grass and summer breezes.
It's not as romantic as a stay in a monastery.
But it is, nonetheless, holy.
In an everyday kind of way.
***
2 comments:
Perhaps not as romantic as that monastery - but beautiful, productive and healing just the same.
And if there was a clean sheets fairy I would ask for fresh sun dried bed linen - every day.
This is so lovely...and so soothing to the reader.
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