This morning I went for a walk. It was an especially beautiful morning here in Claremont. The air smelled so clean…unlike the usual burnt smog smell we often get being downwind from L.A. and backed against the wall of the San Gabriel Mountains. The temperature was a perfect 70 degrees. Birds were singing, fish were jumping, the cotton was high…all that. I walked through our neighborhood to downtown Claremont. Here is a picture:
Here is a picture of the outskirts of downtown Claremont:
It really is a wonderful little town. Lots of people walking around. Some good looking dogs too. They looked happy. And I felt happy.
As I walked I thought about a poem by Walt Whitman I came across in a book I am reading. Here it is, written at age 70:
Not from successful love alone,
Nor wealth, nor honor'd middle age, nor victories of politics or war;
But as life wanes, and all the turbulent passions calm,
As gorgeous, vapory, silent hues cover the evening sky,
As softness, fulness, rest, suffuse the frame, like fresher, balmier air,
As the days take on a mellower light, and the apple at last hangs really finish'd and indolent-ripe on the tree,
Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all!
The brooding and blissful halcyon days!
Sometimes I think about where I've been, what I've done, what I've been successful at, what I've failed at, what I've wished for, people I've loved and love, people that disappoint me, believing this, believing that, concepts about everything ad-nauseum, etc. etc. etc. Lately though, I'm having these periods of mellowness. Do I need to think so much? I really don't need to judge everything I see or try to relate everything to myself, do I? Do I need to fear getting older? Do I need to worry about the natural deterioration of my body? Goals I didn't accomplish? Crap I don't own? Crap I do own? Ha! What about the rest of this living world? Do plants worry? They are alive. They grow, reproduce, mature, die. Thinking they worry is a funny thought. How about animals? They go through their life cycle and don't seem to worry about much. They just live in the moment. Don't we all just live in the moment? Except for this moment, isn't it all just history, rumor, and speculation? Why should I drive myself crazy with all this thinking? It seems to me that living this way just makes you feel separate from life…alone. BS.
So lately I've been noticing that more and more I have been relaxing into this moment. Or I consciously just try to do that…sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Just looking at the world, feeling one with it. I don't need to understand anything really, and I don't need to be understood. My "turbulent passions calm" as Whitman writes. Happy that I can experience this perception/being at times. Trying to be there more often.
I read in Smithsonian magazine recently that of the billions of cells that make up our bodies, only 1 in 10 are actually human cells. Now THAT is something to think about.
As I walked I thought about a poem by Walt Whitman I came across in a book I am reading. Here it is, written at age 70:
Not from successful love alone,
Nor wealth, nor honor'd middle age, nor victories of politics or war;
But as life wanes, and all the turbulent passions calm,
As gorgeous, vapory, silent hues cover the evening sky,
As softness, fulness, rest, suffuse the frame, like fresher, balmier air,
As the days take on a mellower light, and the apple at last hangs really finish'd and indolent-ripe on the tree,
Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all!
The brooding and blissful halcyon days!
Sometimes I think about where I've been, what I've done, what I've been successful at, what I've failed at, what I've wished for, people I've loved and love, people that disappoint me, believing this, believing that, concepts about everything ad-nauseum, etc. etc. etc. Lately though, I'm having these periods of mellowness. Do I need to think so much? I really don't need to judge everything I see or try to relate everything to myself, do I? Do I need to fear getting older? Do I need to worry about the natural deterioration of my body? Goals I didn't accomplish? Crap I don't own? Crap I do own? Ha! What about the rest of this living world? Do plants worry? They are alive. They grow, reproduce, mature, die. Thinking they worry is a funny thought. How about animals? They go through their life cycle and don't seem to worry about much. They just live in the moment. Don't we all just live in the moment? Except for this moment, isn't it all just history, rumor, and speculation? Why should I drive myself crazy with all this thinking? It seems to me that living this way just makes you feel separate from life…alone. BS.
So lately I've been noticing that more and more I have been relaxing into this moment. Or I consciously just try to do that…sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Just looking at the world, feeling one with it. I don't need to understand anything really, and I don't need to be understood. My "turbulent passions calm" as Whitman writes. Happy that I can experience this perception/being at times. Trying to be there more often.
***
I read in Smithsonian magazine recently that of the billions of cells that make up our bodies, only 1 in 10 are actually human cells. Now THAT is something to think about.
© Steve Stewart and See Next Rock,
2013
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