Ralph Waldo Emerson said that we are always getting ready to live, but never living and it occurred to me that it isn't so much that we don’t live as that we don’t catch ourselves being alive. By that I mean that we fail to notice when it is that we feel most alive, or most connected, or most content, or most happy, or in the flow, or most whatever aspect it is of being truly alive that matters to us.
Looking around at the magazines and the on-line media I see how "living simply" has become a thing…and to be fair it's one I bought into. I love the Satish Kumar quote that "whatever the question is, the answer is simplicity" but when simplicity itself becomes a "thing" – an aim, an objective, an aspiration, then we are being pulled off-track, we find ourselves getting ready to live, rather than actually living.
The point isn't to live simply. The point is to simply live. Feel alive. Notice your life. Tweak it if you need to do so, but don't get bogged down in the mire of fixing this and waiting for that and wondering whether and if and how. You only get one today like this one.
Time is a one-shot technology. You cannot re-run it.
Talking to the people in my circle, I find that too many don't even know what it is that makes them feel alive. I flinch whenever anyone tells me they don't know what they want, because that tells me they are not paying attention to who they are right now. They are not noticing what is good and not-so-good in their life. They are not living, they are merely existing.
I don't believe anyone who tells me they don't know what they want. I know that they do. All they are really telling me is that they are not prepared to claim it. They are not prepared to admit it. They are not prepared to face the prospect of falling short of achieving it. They are not prepared to do the work. They are not prepared to understand that the trying, the reaching, the doing, the process, the learning, the creating, the failing, the falling, the bruises, the tears, the hugs, the support, the laughter, the getting up and giving it another go…is the only point of it.
The achievement – if you're lucky enough for that to fall your way – that's the by-product. The wealth and the fame – they're just the price you might be unlucky enough to have to pay. The bliss: the passion, joy, frivolity, health, freedom, peace and wisdom – the rainbow of living – that is all in the doing, not in the getting it done.
Where do I fall into all of this? Am I preparing to live? Am I prepared to live? Am I actually living?
Yes.
The answer to all three questions is yes, because I am human and I slip and slide and backslide. I move forward, and stall, or back-slip, or realise I need to detour. I move forward, and catch a following wind and move forward more than I could imagine. And then… not so much.
This is the way life is, even when we are prepared to live, especially when we are prepared to live, because that means we do live, and in doing so we take risks, leaps of faith, make good calls and dubious ones and downright bad ones. That's what living is. It isn't waiting for the time to be right. Time has better things on its mind than waiting on you waiting on it to meet your definition of "right".
One way to find out what living means for you is to play games with yourself. Ask yourself questions and don't think too hard about the answers.
What games?
How do I know? You know you better than I do.
I only know what games work for me. Yours may be different…so…if you really don't know, there's your first game: ask the question: what do I want to play? Sit quietly (or sing loudly, or just go about your day) for a while…and then make time to hear or write or draw or sing or build or speak or cook or plant the answer. We only have to ask the question and then look for the answer.
I play word games. And I play hide-&-seek with synchronicity.
I found synchronicity this week in Jackee Holder's column in Psychologies magazine. Last week I was talking about re-claiming my name, and here she is this week introducing me to the name game* which invites me to re-invent my name. I followed the prompts and found…
My real name is... LUL,L
Yesterday my name was...Timidity
Today my name is...Midnight Blue
Tomorrow my name will be...Freedom
Secretly, I know my name is...[ah, well now, that would be telling!]
My name once was...Selkie
On that basis, today my name is Freedom. And as I look at the cumulus racing across the deep blue, knowing that for this day I am answerable to no-one but my higher self, I can believe that I am indeed free. Seagulls call, in confirmation.
I am free and I am content.
I think about the many I have known who lost their way in retirement, whereas I feel that in mine I am finding it…have found it. I look around at my life and if I were to ask the question (which Idon't) is this it? I think my answer wouldn't be yes, it would be I hope so.
I love that I can get out of bed at whenever o'clock, pull on a pair of shorts and take a coffee and a notebook into the garden. I love that I can see the abundance in having a home and people who care about me. Of course there are things I would want in addition, but that is the icing, and I am loving the cake!
I love that there is wine in the fridge and food waiting to be combined and cooked (or not).
I love that there is sunshine. I love that there is a breeze. I love the certainty that sometime, there will also be rain.
I love the luxury of time, of being able to listen to my body and heed what it says. I could do more heeding to be fair!
I love that I am being gifted so many opportunities to learn things that never impacted my life before and to see how beautiful they are when I allow them to do so.
I note that sometimes I lose track of what day of the week it is, and I note how quickly the weeks are flying past and I realise that this is the thing about living, about just enjoying what is – how soon it slips past.
But then there is always a next moment to be savoured in this never-ending now, another cloud to follow across the sky, another path to explore, another loving action, another kindness, another poem to write, another book to read. There will always be flowers and birdsong. The wind chimes will sing their own differing songs. There will be another sunrise and another sunset. There will be another full moon and another new one.
And I am grateful.
*The name-game prompts that Jackee quotes come from Susan Woodridge Goldsmith's book Poemcrazy which is now on my must-have list!
