Restless Saturday

I am restless at the moment. It's an aimless kind of restlessness -- there is not one thing that I can think of that can truly, fully satisfy me right now -- not climbing, not reading, not working, not talking, not partying, not eating, not sleeping (though it might help), not the sun nor the moon, ....

But, on the less pathetic side, I must say what is making me smile is every time I hear owls hooting from neighborhood trees. Watching small treasure blue birds hop up the trunk of the Ponderosa Pine in front of my office window is also a treat. Today is not particularly warm even in the midst of Central Oregon's high desert summer. In fact, cool breeze takes away the heat and raises chilly goosebumps. I am here, not alone -- with little 1-year-old Aeva Bellie -- but feeling a little bit lonely. I once proclaimed -- perhaps in exaggeration -- that I never feel true loneliness because I have friends as companions and, if nothing else, the air around me. Well, maybe I had envisioned loneliness to be a lot like Greek tragedy plays -- dramatic in pathos -- that's worthy of soliloquies before the lonely tragic heroine falls into a never-waking slumber. In reality, or at least mine, loneliness is much more subtle than that. Loneliness is exactly this sort of aimless restlessness that creeps into your waking moments, making you pace up and down the hallway, wander around the neighborhood, click on internet links that seem to spark a hazy slice of memory, but not clear enough to know what it is that you are really looking for.

Maybe I'm waiting for the day that I can let go and be content. No, I'm not greedy enough to be waiting for happiness yet, for it is never free; happiness requires work, lots of work, and care. Contentment is just the opposite; it is when you let go and care less. So perhaps I was wrong before: I thought that happiness is achieved after reaching contentment, when it could very well be just the other way around.

Maybe I'm just restless because I'm not sure yet how to just be.