Somehow…

This morning as I was sitting on the patio reading @annelamott ‘s new book Somehow it hit me - well, actually, it didn’t hit me. It was more like watching the water level in the estuary rising - slowly, gently, but steadily and very definitively. In this case it was not a rising water level but a knowing that came over me.

What was that knowing?

It was a realization that this morning time, this time to read, and sometimes write, is actually not an optional event for me. It is essential. In the same way that ‘you are what you eat’ (I remember the PSA that played along with the Saturday morning cartoons - “You are what you eat, from your head down to your feet..”) I believe that we are what we read. Just reading a chapter each morning of Anne Lamott’s witty but poignant observations on life and meaning and spirituality and the everyday is like soaking in epsom salts for my soul.

I have what I’ve jokingly referred to as a ‘tender psyche’ - I prefer not to watch much of any violence in tv or movies and even the visual intensity of many shows is a bit much for me. I’ve often seen this as a defect - if only I could have thicker skin then I would be able to keep up with it all.

But this morning as I was reading and soaking in all the goodness of Somehow I realized the reverse is also true- my ‘thin skin’ allows what sometimes feels like almost a direct transfer from the written words on the page into the very heart of my being. It is life giving, reading these words each morning. I soak them up like the dry ground hungry for the moisture of the first rains.

Here are a few words from this morning’s reading for you:

“As civilized people, we rarely notice how our will to live, our love of life - no matter how hard it can be - pulses inside of us. We are so busy; we have our families, to-do lists, fixations, striving. Our will to live, our life force, gets submerged under thoughts, busyness, regrets, ambition.

The question is, how do you notice your own life force now?”