Hello! Welcome to the blog party! We'll be rockin' out, posting all day long, about all things good and creative. I've got some amazing guest stars posting soon, too. Since I'm just coming back after a long hiatus (aka The Walkabout), I thought it only appropriate that I'd start out with this post I wrote about my time away. (By the way, if you're viewing this in a reader, check out the site makeover here). Enjoy!
Welcome to the first installment of Postcards from a Walkabout, where I'll be sharing moments and musing from my summer of zen.
It is the end of July. I am floating on my back on a rubber mat in the Carribbean, in the protected turquoise lagoon of a tiny island. I lean back, feel my body submerge slightly, and bob up and down with the waves while the sun warms me.
It feels. So. Good.
There is nothing to do. Nowhere to be. Nothing to think about. I even forget that tomorrow involves eight hours of travel back to New England. As far as I know in this moment, I am already home.
Rewind a few days. Same island, same beach. I am decked out in full snorkel gear and doggedly searching out tropical fish in a roped-in, snorkelers-only area of the lagoon. I might as well be looking for sea life in my bathtub, because the water is empty--save one sad, gray fish who swims by me over and over in a lame attempt to seem like a multitude.
Entrenched in my search, awkwardly stomping the sea floor in giant black flippers, I gaze out at all the people beyond the rope, just floating on mats, in tubes. “How lazy! They’re all just...FLOATING!” I think, before I stick my face in the water to stare at some sand and seaweed for awhile.
I didn't understand the floating. Yet.
Vacations are like that: it takes time to slough off the dead skin of day jobs and stress, errands and tile scrubbing, pent-up wishes and not being in the moment. I know I'm not the only one who's experienced this molting process. Shrugging off those layers is a discovery. My thoughts become different. What I care about in the moment is different. What’s normally a pretty focused and happy mind suddenly runs clear with waterfalls and mango juice and disinfecting sunlight.
But it seems that when I finally start to hit that sweet spot of peace and relaxation, of deep attunement, it’s time to grab the passports and go back to New England.
After the boat docking, van ride, plan ride, shuttle ride, and car ride, my husband and I were finally home from our trip and taking a walk around the neighborhood. As much as I love my home, I felt crushed and disappointed to be there. I needed to get back! To the waterfalls, and mango juice! To the floating.
We walked hungrily, stretching our legs, breathing real air for the first time all day, as I tried to verbalize my thoughts. "How do I get back there?" I asked my husband, plaintive. "It takes so long to get there, to feel like that, and then I have to leave."
"You don't get there," he said. "It's always there. You just tap into it."
I was floored. The floating is not a place. It's a state of mind.
Like most things that are new to me, this was not a new concept in the world. But I was shocked. I come from a place of striving, trying, going. That something so powerful as floating mind was always there, accessible but unseen, just waiting beyond a magic little elf door in the universe, was shocking to me. All I had to do was knock. Or "tap into it." No passports, travel, time, trapeze or other special skills required.
So I've been practicing my gentle knock, my tapping. Whenever floating mind seems to be floating away, I just tap in. "I can tap into it!" I say, and return to the moment with a breath. It takes a moment, a reminder to get there. I'm just as capable of being expansive and free here, as there. Now, as then. It is, of course, a practice. I often forget, and my clarity can still feel a little muted by the cacaphony of daily living.
I know this is more of a letter than a postcard. Either way, from the heart.
Tell me, what is your "floating mind" like? In what places and situations is it likely to show up spontaneously? What ways do you tap into it during your daily life?
xoxo, Maeg
