beauty and breath and bodies and rhythm

listening to people counting

carbs, calories, grams of protein

makes me sick.
but sometimes I do it too.

Then i feel the wind blowing through my hair.
it whispers: there`s something more than that. life is bigger

love is bigger.
God is bigger.

stop counting. it´s eating you.



Today I´m on sick day numero 4. It is old. I´d like my body back please, and maybe a yoga class.
But - alas - I am not ready for that yet. Yesterday I made progress on my book list. I read ALL of Girls of Riyadh in about 4.5 hours. It was glorious. This is why I am terribly near-sighted. Because I read books like a fiend and my eyes don´t have time to adjust to looking far away.

Anyway, I am totally captivated by the stillness I´ve slidden into while being sick. I don´t think slidden is a word. Whatevs. I like it. And so today I almost took a nap on my car just to be outside in the humidity that carries me back to a million other humid memories... strolling along a beach in Spain, one unseasonably warm day in a January of my childhood when my grandparents were visiting, and even my a service project I did in Texas my freshman year of college. I ended up getting a little chilly, so I retreated inside.

This post is pushing close to rambling, but it could be because I just want to get out of being sick, even if that means sending only my words into cyberspace.

Bringing me back to focusing though, I believe life is threaded with meaning and depth and a heartbeat we can feel if we just take the time to settle ourselves out of counting calories or money in the bank or days till Thanksgiving (4!!) or facebook status updates, or whatever it is that I´m keeping tabs on that day. I read in the newspaper today that a large number of my generation is actually addicted to social networking sites. I am not innocent of this. But I do think it´s a little sad, just for our souls, whenever I get a chance to experience the fullness of life outside of a dark room with a bright screen. As I´ve laid in my bed, I had the chance to thumb through a website that reminded me of this beauty - artandmotherhood.com It´s the story of one mother as she captures beauty, pain, and everyday life as an attempt to remember that
she
is
an
artist.

And so are we all, weaving our various tapestries of days and weeks and months into a life.