Ponderence

 I'm staring out my window. 

That's all, drinking coffee, and staring at cars on the highway. All morning. I can't get motivated to do shit. I just stare out the window,

Pondering. Wondering. Worrying.

I can't get out of this funk that I've found myself in many times before. Over the years I've done the same thing, I think everyone has. There's a point where we become philosophical and spiritual, looking inward and outward at the same time. There's a point in all our lives where we begin to ponder the implications of our own existence, and wonder what it all means, to ourselves, our family and our friends. Then we worry about the future.

I can't not do this some days. The traffic on the highway is strangely intoxicating. Not to mention the change of the season visible in the trees. Winter is coming, more change. For me, fall is not my favourite time, but one of depression and low spirits. Even with the beauty it brings, the coming winter does not make me happy, only aggravated and spiritually empty. More cars and trucks rumble down, and once in a while a cruiser pulls someone over in front of my house.

Then it all stops for a while, the road goes quiet, and I can hear the roosters next door for a while. That's usually rudely stopped by a very loud vehicle. I won't hear the roosters again until tomorrow morning, when I'm trying to sleep. The old wives tales about roosters making a ton of noise in the morning is a misnomer - you hear them all day, unless they are drowned out by life going on around you. 

The same goes with our frame of mind. Sometimes we can't hear the positives for all the negatives that drown it all out. We can't find our centre because someone or something has knocked us off. The traffic on the highway is the same. Sometimes a truck will pull in, or a car of a friend, and you can take your focus off the rest of the highway for a while while you deal with whatever is about to happen. Again, the same goes for our centre. We get interrupted by life events. Dates, meetings, appointments, errands, weddings, funerals, work. Then, we go back and watch the traffic again.

That's where I'm at now, watching the traffic. Now and then a vehicle will pass carrying a boat, or an ATV, canoe. Now and then a bicyclist will meander down the road. Now and then an RV will pass. These change my perceptions of life to one of rest and relaxation, and makes you wonder why it's not you in those vehicles, on my way to some pleasant valley, or mountain lake somewhere. Then a semi rolls past, knocking me back to reality, and I stare out the window again, waiting.

In the country I regularly hear the staccato of gunshots from the hunters over at the river. Another allegory for life, serenity interrupted by chaos. Gotta find the balance, gotta find the peace, gotta ignore the shots. Focus on the cyclists, the peace. It's hard to do, but I have to manage.

When I lived in the city chaos was everywhere, you had to look for the peace. The rat race, the constant comings and goings of everyday existence, all of the allegories transferred to a different situation, but still all the same. Raising a family, caring for a household, people closer than here, busier times, most good, a lot bad. And the traffic. Oh, the traffic. Always going, never pausing, endless streams of distractions, endless reasons to stare out the window and ponder.

I moved out here in part to remove myself from that pace of life. For the most part it worked, I found peace and serenity amongst the lower levels of humanity and noise. Or should I say, peace found me. On the river in my canoe, or walking thru one of the area's parks, and even in my own backyard, by a fire at night, with friends. The pace of life slowed and I had many moments of clarity. Again I had the opportunity to smile and thank God for my life, my family, my friends, my job. Things are so much simpler here when you see just how much the wildlife outnumbers the mass of humanity of the city. The birds and the deer do their thing, the frogs that live in the marsh just live their lives, that's what this place has taught me. Just live my life, go with the ebb and flow of it all, go with the traffic.

Again I took a pause while writing this to stare back out the window. Another cyclist went by, as the lawn mowers and trucks took over the sounds of the day. You can't hear the peace of the cyclist, only the calamity of humanity. You have to ignore that and find the serenity.

Life is like that. Find the peace. Find your centre, find your serenity and centre in the midst of all that which tries to deflect your focus and destroy your peace.

Be the cyclist, not the truck.

Cheers.