Slow Down | Tracks In The Dust

Archive for the tag “Slow Down”

15 Jun 2012

Hit the Reset Button!

Go ahead. Push the reset button. It may be hard to find, your own personal reset may be in a complicated place in your mind. It may be in a complex set of your own personal wiring that will be hard to find. But go ahead. Do it.

A while back my wife and I spent some time with some friends in this cabin in Oklahoma (pictured here) and just kind of stopped the pattern we had all been following for so many months before. Like taking a deep breath and exhaling back out, just some times you have to stop. It was so needed we didn’t even recognise it until we were there.

Sit back in that quiet cabin in the woods, or take a bit of time to stroll through the park, or sit on the steps outside of where you live. Watch the world go by, because it doesn’t stop just because you did. But you have to be good with it anyway. You aren’t really missing anything that can’t wait for you to hit that “reset” button.

Just like when your computer gets so bogged down, or your wireless network stops transmitting the way you expect. You can hit the button and hope for the best. Let it all out. I know that we can, but then I know that often I wont. Keep insisting that I’d better plow forward with the “to do” list, to get those things done that have made me the “pro”-crastinator ( not an amateur believe me). Oh that reward of a feeling of accomplishment… feels good. So in this case, the accomplishment: Hit the button. Reset. It will still all be there to sort out. But maybe it will be much clearer than it was before…

Where ever it is, however you get there. Just take that time to make it yours and make sure that you clear the cache memory (for you geeks out there – you’ll get it). Then you can move on… it’s your time.

08 Jun 2012

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Celebrate Milestones

Milestones.

Measuring the passing of things can sometimes bring sadness, because it serves as a reminder that we are all getting older. It’s a fact of life we cannot deny, and as long as we are alive on Earth it is a reality we will experience.

Over the years I have changed my view of things. When I was younger, milestones like birthdays, anniversaries, and those significant days that help to provide keepsakes that will live in our memories…were all fleeting by at a very high-speed. Perhaps friends and family would gather together, while other times life just got too busy to really make time to celebrate or pause. That seemed okay because after all it seemed, “it was just another day” on the calendar to mark time.

As I have gotten older (not “old” by-the-way) I have become much less cynical about the milestones, they need to be observed. They need to be cherished for the place they signify on the timeline of our lives. Sure some of that can generate melancholy that can just bring the tone down on the very thing we should be celebrating. But it doesn’t have to. And if we let it , we are missing an opportunity to be thankful for the occasion to count it. What are we observing/counting anyway?

Our milestones (however small or significant) are there to provide us the chance to remember. Remember the good, the bad, the joyful times and the struggles that we have lived through. It is part of life, so in fact we are celebrating life in all of its detail. We are also celebrating the people and loved ones in it, and that simple fact that God is there to surround you in the moments each and every minute of them.

So this weekend my wife and I will celebrate 33 years of marriage. I used to think that sounded like something just old people would be happy about, but I don’t consider myself “old”. I enjoy the same humor, same music, same movies, same books, same food, same need for relationships and life’s validation as my children and their friends. I can feel older since my body has certainly begun to show wear. I can know that I am wearing out because of a date on the calendar, but it is the collective experiences I have had over the last 33 years that make me the richer person for it. I love my wife and the children we raised as the most Earthly rewards either of us could ask for. I look forward to eternity with them someday.

I am also positive that someday it will end, and as someone who fights cancer everyday there are special anniversaries to celebrate with my loved ones and with God. They are everyday milestones. It’s the reason and need to keep going and enjoy the passage of time. Like the ads say “celebrate more birthdays”.

So it seems – everyone has milestones to pass along the calendar of our lives. Some we may not observe but should, others may pass with little celebration. For some souls, time is too short and they leave us behind to keep time. For those of us that get more – we need to grab hold of the minutes and make them be the best.

Here’s a song that says it all from one of my favorite musicals, RENT.

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life, Life's Sound Track (Music) and tagged Anniversaries, being remembered, cherish, choices, Compassion, God, Marriage, Memories, Milestones, relationships, Rent the musical, Seasons of Love, Slow Down

06 Jun 2012

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The Music of a Rainy Day

It was a rainy day today. A long rainy day. The kind of rain that paints pictures in your head.

Colors the day.

It makes for a glossy picture that can make somethings seem much smoother and take away the sharp edges. Like a painting from Monet. These kind of days always seem to have a soundtrack with music in my head. There are those days that aren’t so musical, but this was.

I love storms and rain, lightening and rolling thunder that comes with it. Some days anyway. It washes away the dust and dirt (and living in Texas, there’s quite a bit of that). Today I could feel the ozone in the air, the change of weather that feels like electricity in the air. Maybe it is the change in the pressure or something. Maybe it is just what comes with the wind that carries on before it. But it can be good.

So there is this song, really not a rain theme song. But it was spinning around in my head, like the world that spins around and creates the illusion that the sun goes down. Be certain I am not sad, but I am sure that I am in love with my wife, and that I am happy to tell everyone that they should be sure to take every moment as one that they can they cannot get back and cherish it with the grace of God. Don’t waste it because everyone eventually dies, hopefully comes to be in the place that is promised by eternity ahead.

Do You Realize by The Flaming Lips

Do You Realize – that you have the most beautiful face
Do You Realize – we’re floating in space –
Do You Realize – that happiness makes you cry
Do You Realize – that everyone you know someday will die

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes – let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It’s hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn’t go down
It’s just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Do You Realize – Oh – Oh – Oh
Do You Realize – that everyone you know
Someday will die –

Do You Realize – that you have the most beautiful face
Do You Realize?

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life, Life's Sound Track (Music) and tagged cherish, Grace, life is precious, Rain, Rainy Day Music, Slow Down, The Flaming Lips, Truth

29 May 2012

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Some Days are Movies, Some Days are Books

Some days are movies, some days are books.

There are those days that seem really fluid, like some sort of compact movie with a plot that has a beginning in something simple and builds to an ending all balled up in 2 hours. It is like some director is moving the characters in and out of the scenes ( of which you all seem to be in). Or you are hearing the storyline unfold through a strange set of circumstances. Things are registering, things are happening, but in some way you are still connected in a distant way. There is a soundtrack complete with meaningful and selected subject matter intended to shape the mood. A lot of background is out of focus, but you don’t mind. You are seeing it as a sweeping story of your life.

Yet, there are other days that seem like a book. Each and every detail is carefully drawn out to get you to turn the page. The details are descriptive, intense and in some crazy way going in slower motion than you would expect. There is dialog that is meaningful, there are surroundings that have significance. But the whole thing feels like an author ( you actually) is building the plot like some final distant conclusion on a page near the back cover. And the characters are deep and move in and out of the pages like a rhythm that is comfortable, with room enough for several sub-plots.

So I know that I don’t always get to choose. It can be a surprise that can somehow be pleasant, or cause a lot of frustration. It’s like that feeling of being distracted when watching a movie with a lot of dialog, or looking up from a page in a novel and having to go back and read it again- just to keep the story in context.

Today was a movie. And now that it is nearly the end of the day and the credits will be rolling, thinking about tomorrow…well who knows? Kind of okay with that, brings itself some adventures that will always be adding to the plotline, always be making a new soundtrack or revealing a new twist in the characters with in.

Either way, I can make it work.

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged Acceptance, Books, Change, coping, life is precious, Memories, Movies, Slow Down, Who Are You

26 May 2012

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Summer Begins

In the US this weekend is special, it is Memorial Day weekend. On Monday we are to observe a holiday that is dedicated to pausing to recall our veterans of the military who have fought for our freedom. It is one of the most important holidays we have as as a federal holiday, as there are so many fallen men and women who have blazed the trail for our country. They should not be forgotten.

It is also the unofficial beginning of summer. Even though summer solstice isn’t until June – this holiday weekend seems to be the launch of summer, and for all things that it means. My memories of this Memorial Day weekend have always been steeped in tradition and anticipation. Over the years it came to signify the end of the school season and the beginning of some serious length of days off. Of course once you are out of school it’s different. But the ghost of that feeling is still there.

Other summer memories of smells, sound and sun kick in as well. Barbeque on the grill meant that smell of lighter fluid and briquets that had a pungent petroleum smell that always ended up in good eats! The sun-tan lotion that smelled like coconut. The cold brew taste of beer and the music that was pure-pop, originally on some little tinny radio on AM but later blasting thru the latest size of boombox. The Beach Boys begat the psychedelic pop of the late sixties, that brought on the dancing music of the seventies and the punk of the eighties and grunge rock of the nineties, but there was always something that would wrap the sounds of the summer in a package.

So for me the summer begins, not so idyllic as it once was, but summer none the less. Some promise of some “summer vacation” where there could be some “summer fun” (cue the Grease song). Some days when it will be too hot to go out but we will anyway to take in the summer. Nites on the patio with a cold sweating drink, time around the pools or at the beach. Perhaps some time onboard a boat on the cool water of the ocean or lake of your choice. What ever it is, summer is here.

The bookend to that will be that weekend at the end of summer. The unofficial end on Labor Day weekend in the US when we all begin our journey to the fall season. Bring out the warmer clothes in anticipation of those crisp autumn days where we can enjoy trees changing colors and fire pits with a warm glow. But until then, it is time to soak up the sun. May it be a wonderful summer.