Sunday, April 09, 2006

Enough

Sometimes I choose a bath with bubbles up to my ears, Dixeyland music and berry scented soaps, but today the simplicity of the underground spring is what I need. Lying back in the pool beneath the standing stone near the old monastery, it's enough to merely feel the warmth of the water on my skin and to breathe in the mist rising from the steam. It's silence my soul longs for and, in almost every way, the freedom of less, not more. I need a relief from too much.

It's my nature to acquire and accumulate: books, blogs, projects, ideas, old greeting cards, art supplies, problems, hobbies, interests, bills, internet sites, bad habits, clothes, paper, knickknacks, to-do lists, chocolate, novels in progress, -----more and more of more and more until I've reached a point of being overwhelmed. It's too much: I can no longer clean it, put it away, care for it, solve it, think it, finish it, or even begin it.

Oh, the people in third world countries who would envy the plight of standing in the dairy department puzzling over whether to purchase one percent, two percent, whole, or skimmed! And yet, it leaves me paralyzed in confusion.

I breathe deeply and soak in the quietness of my surroundings. A cluster of stubby, white candles drip and flicker in an alcove casting gentle, comforting shadows in this room of stone and water. Stone and water, a few candles, and me. It's enough.

Then I hear a sound barely there; my heart beat, or the taut spring inside me winding down? A candle flares and a brief image of an old dresser drawer appears. I know what's inside, a sweater my mother was knitting before she died. It lies there still, an unfinished project, front and back waiting to be blocked, sleeves waiting to be set in place, a metaphor for her mortality and, I've often thought, for mine.

I see her face and hear her voice saying words my over-achiever, shop-til-you-drop mother never would have said in life. "Do with less, bless others with your abundance, don't mourn what you'll leave undone--it's already been ordained, finish what you can. Whatever you do in kindness will be good and it will be enough."

2 Comments:

At 5:34 PM, Blogger Heather Blakey said...

You have managed to send shivers right up and down my spine Barbara. Seems the old magic of last year is back. This is just exquisite.

 
At 10:07 AM, Blogger Believer said...

Thank you all so much. When writers I admire like my work it means a great deal.

Right on target, Faucon, my introspective writing really is centering prayer.

 

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