The seasons, when they call you

My posts are dense and wordy sometimes. When I am lonely, I comfort myself with words. Today, I feel like the girl in this picture, given everything but trying to hide empty eyes.

Courtney Love, you know me so well.

I'm finding this lenten practice more difficult than in previous years. I believe I have nothing to say. My life is simple now, no more backpacking or sailing, just the things that are necessary to get through the day: dishes, work, food, snowshoeing and yoga for survival. When I have nothing to say, I generally find myself yearning for adventure, which leads to Google searches for Wharram catamarans in Thailand.

I try to remember what Thich Naht Hanh said about the simple life, about saying to myself as I wash the dishes: I am washing the dishes. I am dipping my hands in warm water. I am here in this moment.

I am here in this moment, reaching out across the binary universe, late-night television on mute to my left, K. snoring on the couch, Shadow lapping water, two dirty bowls emptied of fish and rice on the kitchen table. It's such a simple thing, accepting a simple life, accepting the life of this moment and no other. But so complex. If I could really accept now, really be in the cold, in the snow, in the waiting, I'd achieve enlightenment. And I would be tempted by sailboat searches in tropical climates.

But enlightenment's a long way off. The most I can do is move through each day and do the work I'm called to do. It's all any of us can do, and it doesn't feel enough. If I think of my faith, the reason I make the pilgrimage to worship on Sundays, on the days I can convince myself not to hit snooze, it's to remind myself of that. To pray for faith, to accept the life I've been given. None of us get another shot.