Not enough

I don’t LIVE enough. 

Alive, but missing. 

Missing in action.

Missing out.

Missing the point.

The moment.

Sunlight is wasted on me.

I walk oblivious of the gold in my hair.

Of the glowing in my skin I know only when the chill of nightfall replaces it.

Why do we know better through loss?

Why not stand and feel that one simple golden thread of breath that links the sky, birdsong, the sun, the incense of Spring flaming in purple petals?

So much goes on while we draw air and dispense of it. In that small unconscious act of survival a world stands at attention to witness it.

Breathing cannot be solely for this. We are made exquisitely sensuous. To go through a day and not be able to recall a scent, a colour, a touch, a feeling, a sound, a taste, is to be dead.

The door to life  nailed shut. Each breath one closer to the last I’ll take.

How often do I think this? When I write the date in my journal. One day closer. 

I panic. When I think of the things I make too little of.  I refuse Spring’s inviting hands, sitting with my back to the window, writing this.

Yet I refuse the words pushing to be born when I tumble mad with fragrance into the bed of purple iris.  

I refuse the books I don’t get to read, the clay I don’t get to touch. The many hours not spent truly relishing the people that I love. The causes I feel strongly about, but don’t defend. Years of feeding, clothing, teaching, fetching and taking my children. Not aware of the time that runs out while we do little more than breathe together.

How? How do I fit LIVING into my life? How do I not only accept the gifts so lavished on me, but unwrap them and truly

Truly

enjoy them?

I will forget this soon I know. I will forget to LIVE.

But in this moment I know: outside the breeze is teaching new leaves to dance in brilliant sunlight. A robin keeps the tune. I have a nice little laptop to write these words on. A glass of clean water stands next to my hand. Pictures of my beloved look me in the eye over the edge of the computer. I smile back at them.

I am aware of my clothes. The crisp feel of cotton, the leather thong between my toes. I have bitten my nails again. My fingertips are tender and some of them are sore.  I smell the lavender scenting my hand cream as I massage it into the hurt.

This is a moment I am not missing.

Matilda