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August 5, 2015

Relaxation Without Guilt.

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It wasn’t an extraordinary day, just a day ripe with ordinariness that had melted into something striking.

I couldn’t put my finger on what made this mundane afternoon feel so goddamn delicious.

Maybe I didn’t want to know. Knowing gets exhausting, tangled and twisted, like snarled wisps of sea-salt kissed hair.

I wanted this day for myself. For me. Maybe that’s what made it feel special.

Magically, the crowded slate of endless doing and going, and blah, blah, blah, all of life’s exhausting demands, was wiped clean. I swooped in and claimed those spacious moments, almost arrogantly, greedily, in a way I usually wouldn’t dare to claim time.

Relaxation without guilt. Is that what this was? It felt indulgent as hell, like eating chocolate cake for breakfast.

Yummy.

I sat facing the sun, smiling devilishly, perched like a little bird on an ugly white lawn chair.

Cool gusts of wind blew at the right moments, ensuring the sun didn’t scorch my fair skin; ensuring I was sun-kissed, rather than sun-bitten. The sky was so deeply blue I could hardly stand to look at it. Cars zoomed past, unnamed faces going somewhere, doing something, singing loudly to the radio, framed like a moving picture in the driver’s side window.

I glanced over at my sandals, abandoned in the grass near where I was sitting. Only bare feet were allowed here.

This space, this sweet little afternoon—it was my secret solace from the world. A retreat from being compulsively busy and trying so hard. A mysterious wormhole into another dimension, one filled with silent possibilities and dripping with truth.

Relaxation without guilt.

My worries and cares nagged at me like tiny, screaming children, but after awhile, they quieted down, gently surrendering to the peacefulness that poured from the pristine blue sky. That same peacefulness poured delicately into my heart.

It wasn’t that I felt completely at ease; I didn’t. I felt lonely, anxious, and insecure, just enough so that my skin crawled and my heart pounded, uncomfortably. But, even this discomfort didn’t feel so uncomfortable; it felt like something that needed to just be. It was a part of this moment. Maybe even a part of me.

I held my hungry heart wide open for this experience—hell, I wanted to taste any experience. I was thirsty; my soul was parched. I had been a politely numb zombie all week, carrying out tasks, thinking too much, and feeling too little.

To feel in itself, was my medicine.

Emotions came like waves, cascading in and out, splashing me with their quiet wisdom—whispering simple truths in my ear.

Goosebumps fanned out across my skin, tickling me like pinches of a fine fairy dust created in another dimension.

My eyes grew heavy; not necessarily tired, just heavy; ready to look within rather than without. Ready to receive rather than give.

With one more gust of wind and a single sway of the trees, my eyes closed slowly.

I smiled.

My journey had finally begun.

 

 

 

 

Author: Sarah Harvey 

Editor: Renée Picard

Photo: FlickrMateus Lunardi Dutra

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