We cannot stay home all our lives,

We must present ourselves to the world

and we must look upon it as an adventure.

~Beatrix Potter

and my own heart is a mystery these days…

inquiry for today~ measure your love against your doubt…

for seasoned hope dwellers…

What’s in my control? What’s out of my control? I ask myself these questions when the latter takes the forefront. I pull back and reassess. What is important? What are my values? Where can I make a difference, and where will I be hitting my head and heart against the proverbial brick wall? And that’s when I wander off into a list of the little things that matter, which, of course, are the big things. The smell of my morning coffee. A fresh jar of jam. Toasted raisin bread. Pink slippers in the shape of bunnies. Two cookies, midday with a cuppa warmth. Round and round the list grows into this lovely tendril of kindness.

I can’t control everything. Okay! This is a solid start to self-awareness. I must learn to work within this marathon, and go with the flow, or the rapids will drown me. I must take breaks. My inordinate need for quiet stuff is part of my constitution. Of course, it wasn’t always this way. I was at the helm of a busy household and outside work and back home, running the mom’s taxi services, helping with homework, and monitoring the pots on the stove. Yet now? I had no idea this massive swath of passion could curl inward and sort through villages of thoughts, stories, and meaning. Maybe that’s where our wisdom is born. We slow down long enough to feel into it. We realize less is more because more distracts us from what is real to ourselves. We didn’t forget. We just got distracted on the way.

~Carolyn Riker