Present Moment, Wonderful Moment
Yesterday, the impulse to unclutter grabbed hold of me. I sorted through stuff Barry and I hadn’t used for five years or more, and made piles of unwanted books and magazines, frayed clothes, and chipped kitchenware. I discarded torn, stained, or broken items and donated usable items to charities.
Winnowing through my files, I discovered two lined sheets of paper in an unmarked vanilla folder. What was this? Turns out it was a snippet I’d written about Vic that hadn’t made it into my book. I sat on the carpet surrounded by stuff, crossed my legs, and read:
“One rainy afternoon, when Vic was hanging out with me in the alarm room, we were talking about the negative attitude of an assistant chief who always complained about everybody. ‘The way I look at it,’ Vic said, ‘there’s at least two ways to look at everything.’”
“How’s that?” I asked. “Pray explain!”
“The up way or the down way.” He contorted his face into an expression so ridiculously silly I giggled. “Shame of it is, plenty of folks turn the up side down. I just think it’s more fun to look at things the up way.”
Vic was a great role model for me. I admired his positive outlook and wished more of his happy self-confidence would rub off on me.
Returning the papers to the folder, I marked it, “Vic on positivity.” Then I turned my attention back to my stuff, deciding to sort through it with the same looking-at-the-up-side mindset Vic had applied to the world.
A thin, blue book titled “Be Free Where You Are” fell off the file cabinet. Wow! I smiled. The universe must want me to read this book. The book had fallen open to a transcription of the words of Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. Called Thay (teacher) by his followers, he embodies mindfulness.
When Barry arrived home from work, I showed him my blue treasure. An admirer of the monk, he quickly read the book from cover to cover. “This is deep,” said my magnanimous other half, “Thay says, ‘To be able to breathe in and out is a miracle. I smile at my outbreath and am aware that I am alive.’
This gifted teacher offers a breathing exercise to follow in difficult moments: in, out; deep, slow; calm, ease; smile, release; present moment, wonderful moment. I wondered if Thay’s way was the answer I’d been seeking on how to stay present and positive like Vic.
“Awesome,” I said, leaning across the sofa to read over Barry’s shoulder. Pain shot up the right side of my back and hip. “Auwie!” I yelled. “Darn. I screwed up my back.”
“Thay would say to smile at your low back pain,” Barry said, grinning to give me an example to follow.
I frowned. “I guess I’ve got a long way to go. I don’t think I can smile at it right now.”
My magnificent other grabbed an ice pack from the freezer and handed it to me. “Putting ice on it will reduce the swelling.”
“Thanks, babe.” I pressed the ice pack to my hip.
“No worries.” Barry moved some books off the couch so I could sit beside him. “Something good will come of it. Something always does.”
I winced. Chanting, “I am breathing in, I am breathing out. I am breathing deeply. I am breathing slowly,” I practiced breathing in and smiling, and breathing out and releasing. I thanked God for the good that would come out of my back injury. I prayed the pain would soon disappear along with my outbreath.
Today, I performed the breathing again, and tried to smile at my back pain. Not only did I reconnect with Thay and Vic this way, my prayer was answered. My magnanimous other half is not only a deep thinker, he is a gifted chiropractor. That compassionate man worked overtime to adjust me.
