Pay Attention

Seasons go by seemingly in the blink of an eye. Sometimes lifetimes do the same. Another year of my life has flown by. This week I celebrated my 71st birthday. How can that be? I often feel my age in my body’s various little aches and pains, but my mind still feels young. And I wonder how I can be becoming “old” already. Though I watched my parents, aunts and uncles, and mother-in-law age, somehow I never imagined that I too would age. Or perhaps I didn’t imagine the reality of getting older and the changes in my body. But now I realize that getting older, while not inevitable (death is always possible), is a blessing. Every day still offers a new opportunity to be astonished at life.

So I remind myself to

Pay Attention

to each day, each hour, each minute of this precious life I am living. The blessings of my life are too many to list. So I say a simple, “Thank you,” to the source of all there is. And I seek out awe, wonder, and joy every day.

Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

― Mary Oliver

Mostly I pay attention to the circle of life, often through the viewfinder of my camera. This week I’m still moving slowly, recovering from Covid, and helping my husband, who caught the dratted illness from me. But I still noticed the beauty of life all around me. And I was able to make photographs through the windows of the beauty that I saw all around. I also played with photographing some leaves and feathers indoors when I got bored with reading.

I’ve moved my hanging basket of begonias to the deck for a little TLC, as the plant was beginning to look pretty ragged. It’s begun to form new leaves and blossoms and I am enjoying its September rebirth. Every day I’m noticing more leaves turning to gold on the cottonwood tree in the backyard. And there is scattering of gold leaves on the surface of the pond and a few in the backyard. All around the pond the greens of the tree leaves look a bit more subdued, maybe a little bit tired and worn.

The Seasons Turn

Squirrels and birds are storing up food for winter. Several times each day I see a squirrel burying something in the backyard lawn. It’s amazing to think that squirrels actually remember a large percentage of the places that they hide their winter stores.

Ten times a day something happens to me like this – some strengthening throb of amazement – some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.
― Mary Oliver

With the abundant rain this year the pine tree behind the house is covered with tiny pine cones. And there is an abundance of seeds on most of trees in the backyard as well. This morning I saw a couple of warblers flitting in the basswood tree that shades the deck. They were finding the many seeds that the tree formed during this year of abundant rain. The hummingbirds have been making more visits to the feeder outside the kitchen windows, often chasing away other hummingbirds that infringe on what they see as their food source.

It has been lovely to spend time out on the deck swing almost every day this week, swinging, resting, gazing at the beauty all around me. It’s a kind of dream-time for me, swinging, feeling the breeze, listening to the birds. What a blessing it is to be able to spend time out here gazing at and soaking in the beauty of the world.

These days of recovering from illness are as precious and filled with beauty as any other day. However many days, months, years, or decades remain for me I will choose awe, gratitude, joy and amazement, embracing the wonder of living in this world.

…

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

   — Mary Oliver

Enjoy these warm September days.

May you walk in beauty.