 Listen ~ 10 minutes 2 years ago after driving down here to 0 Avenue to check in on Bill, I drove back home to New Westminster packed my car and drove back down here. 2 years ago we had recently been asked to go into isolation to try and curb the spread of the Covid 19 virus. And everyone was in this new moment. Retreat for many people, and fear, particularly those who could not retreat. There were differing messages about whether to mask, how far away to be from each other, the necessity of washing everything that came into your home. But for me in that moment what I realized was that my 90-year-old father-in-law who was experiencing clear signs of dementia would really not be able to navigate this time on his own. And so I came. Imagining, in that moment, that it might be temporary, although I did wonder if Bill could not manage, manage what the long-term, longer-term living arrangement for him might need to be. But like all of us, on that day I was simply responding to the moment. It's an interesting thing to consider. So often we're told, particularly for those who follow mindfulness, to be in the moment, not to be thinking of the past, of the future, but just to, even for moments, even for small amounts of time, to draw yourself back into what is happening right now. I wasn't being that intentional about this. However, when I was here and was in the moment it was abundantly clear that me simply coming here and being present was probably the most helpful thing I could do right then. Not thinking about my past relationship with Bill, not thinking about what happens after 2 weeks or a month but it's just right now .... It is, today, 2 years since that day and I'm still here and Bill is now in a care facility that can better meet his moment to moment needs than I can on my own here. And I am here with the house and the cat .... And wondering about the future .... Thinking back to that day is such a good reminder to myself about the power of simply being in the moment that I am right now. And while, particularly in the world and the culture in which we live we can't never think about what's going to be coming. And certainly we are always walking out of and holding with us at least some part of where we have come from, our journey before this, there is such power in just being present. And so this morning I got up and stepped out into the new day, the new day of today like I had done 2 years ago and I looked towards the rising sun .... And felt the temperature of the air, smelled the freshness of this morning. This morning the trees in the park are pink with blossoms. The Rhododendron Bush has buds that look big and full not yet ready to burst open but so alive with Spring. The early mist was burning off by then. I had intended to step out perhaps a little bit sooner than I had and the sun was a little bit higher. And yet that moment created its own beauty. That sense of the point where the road disappears on the horizon .... I could feel something arising within me just looking down that stretch of road toward the rising Sun. At this moment I can't name it, but I wonder. I wonder .... Is that the road that stretches ahead of me? Is that the road that is behind me? What is there on that vanishing point .... ? These kind of days, marking time passing, call me to reflection. I have decisions to make .... And yet, right this minute, just being here and noticing Myself and feeling the energy of Spring .... That is what I'm holding now .... And carry with me for at least a few more moments as I head into the day .... ~
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Kimiko Karpoffmusings of someone spiritual and oddly religious 
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