Clouds (April 1)

I’ll be upfront—this may feel a little disjointed and all over the place. It’s a blog. And a bit of a confessional.  A lot of mornings,  I wake up and do the first thing they say not to do.  I pick up my phone.  I check to see if anyone texted while I was asleep.
If there’s an email I missed.  And then… I scroll. Just a little.   Just enough to see if anything happened in the world overnight that I need to know about.  Or didn’t need to know about, but looked at anyway.  I’ll own that.

But this morning was different.

I saw something last night about not picking up your phone first thing in the morning—about giving yourself space before letting the world in.  So I thought, okay… let’s try it.

I hadn’t closed the blinds before bed, and when I opened my eyes, I could see the sky.  Cloudy. Wind already moving.  The clouds were going by quickly—one after another. I could tell it was going to be that kind of day.  And for whatever reason, it brought to mind that teaching—usually attributed to Buddha—about thoughts being like clouds.  That if we could see our thoughts that way…not something to hold onto, not something to fix or wrestle with…but just clouds passing through the sky of the mind…they don’t have to stay.

Good thoughts.  Bad thoughts.  Regret.  Nostalgia.  Fear.  Even joy.  Just clouds.

It struck me because my mind has felt a bit scattered lately.
A little all over the place.

I’ve been traveling alot this past month—New York City, where I lived for a year about 30 years ago. Santa Monica. Venice Beach.  Same time frame.  Places that hold versions of me I barely recognize and somehow still am.  And being there… it all came up.

Who I was then. Who I’ve become. What I chose. What I didn’t.

What would have happened if I had stayed?  What would have happened if I never went at all?  And then the quieter knowing underneath it all…that I surely wouldn’t be here, in this life I have now.  With Danny and the dogs.  With this version of peace that didn’t exist back then.

And there’s also just the truth of the passage of time.  Something shifts as you get into your 60s. You feel it.  In a world that often celebrates youth, beauty, visibility…you start to notice your own fading from certain rooms.  Or at least, it feels that way sometimes.

And yet—
I’m still here.

Still in this body, still breathing, creating, still aware enough to even notice any of this. And that feels like something to make note of.

So this morning, instead of picking up my phone, I watched the clouds.  And I started naming them as they passed.

There goes New York.
There goes Wiseguys.
There goes Venice Beach and rollerblades.
There goes Dallas and piano bars and musical theater.
There goes that feeling of being a little less seen than I used to be, whether it’s true or not.

And one by one…they moved on.  Some faster than others.  Some followed closely by another cloud right behind it.  But every once in a while—there was a break.  And I could see it.  A patch of blue sky.

And it hit me again—the sky is still there.  The sky doesn’t go anywhere. It’s not disturbed by the clouds.  It doesn’t chase them.  It doesn’t hold onto them.  They pass. That’s what they do.  And maybe that’s what my thoughts are doing too.

Maybe none of it is as solid as it feels.
Maybe it only has the meaning I give it.

So before I reached for my phone this morning,  I just stayed there a little longer.  Watching. Breathing.  Letting go of who I thought I should have been.  Letting go of who I used to be.  And gently…making space for who I am becoming.

Maybe a little more of a sage.  Or at least someone willing to sit still long enough to notice the sky.  I took a breath.  And for a moment—I was at peace.  Just like Buddha said I’d be, and like the post that encouraged me not to pick up my phone first thing this morning.

And I could feel the value of not filling the day before it even begins.

Oh…and it’s April 1.  So maybe the joke is this—that nothing I’m worrying about is as real as I think it is.

April Fool’s! :)