Look Closely

Hokusai Says, by Roger S. Keyes (excerpted)
Hokusai says look carefully.
He says pay attention, notice.
He says keep looking, stay curious.
He says there is no end to seeing.
He says look forward to getting old.
He says keep changing,
you just get more who you really are.
He says get stuck, accept it, repeat
yourself as long as it is interesting.
He says keep doing what you love.
He says keep praying...
He says everything is alive–
shells, buildings, people, fish,
mountains, trees, wood is alive.
Water is alive.
Everything has its own life.
Everything lives inside us.
He says live with the world inside you.
[read the full poem here]

Summer breathes life into my spirit, both with its nostalgic reminders of joy and with its breathtaking abundance in this exact moment. I mean, local strawberries? For me, that really says it all.

“Love is a long, close scrutiny,” John Hawkes wrote, and isn’t this true? Deep love calls for appreciation. Which one leads to the other? Is it love that comes first or appreciation? I imagine it’s never one or the other, but always both, and.

I have a long love affair with, and appreciation for, summer, with its sunshine and fruits bursting with sweetness, early sunrise mornings, the scent of lavender and roses. I can’t get enough of the smell of basil as I rub it between my fingers and garnish fresh, deeply red tomatoes from the garden. But this season also breaks my heart with memory and the season’s brevity.

This time of year can pass me by in a breath. Faster even. Sometimes I catch my breath and find it’s August. Why is it summer goes by so much faster than any other season when they’re all allotted the same actual amount of time?

What I recognize is how deeply we thrive when we celebrate with our full attention and senses, how much more life is able to live in us. It is true that there is no end to seeing, but seeing ends in part when attention fades. And having lived 52 summers makes it all too easy to let my attention to its glorious details fade.

Off and on, I find myself not at all looking forward to getting old, yet in consideration of the alternative, I am deeply grateful for another day, another start to summer. I find myself nostalgic for summers when my kids were actually children and the fun we had splashing in the Potomac river, eating drippy ice cream cones on porch steps, catching (and releasing) fireflies in our yard. I find myself nostalgic for my own youth, too, riding in a friend’s car with the windows and top open, singing along loudly to Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians. Or all those nights staying up too late under the stars, then drinking Slurpies for lunch.

Beneath the nostalgia, it’s the sense of abundant life having lived through me, freedom pulling me out into sunshine and song, river current and twinkling star-speckled sky, that is the true love I appreciate. Abundant life has not ended, though my attention is often pulled elsewhere.

Perhaps nostalgia is an impetus, then, pushing me toward an abundance I don’t want to miss, edging me away from that which doesn’t require my attentive gaze at all. I will keep doing what I love. I will keep praying. This season, I will let life take me by the hand.

Five Guiding Principles for Summer (with thanks and credit to author Kristi Nelson and her book Wake Up Grateful):

• Life is a Gift: I know, sometimes it doesn’t feel that way to me either. But every time I forget, I remember my dear friends, my father, so many others, who were given 40 years (or less) and remind myself that I get to appreciate this gift not only for myself, but also for them.

• Everything is Surprise: It’s true that wonder is a superpower that keeps us appreciating life’s sweetness.

• The Ordinary is Extraordinary: Did I mention local strawberries yet? I just ate a whole quart this morning, and oh my!

• Appreciation is Generative: Love truly grows exponentially with appreciative scrutiny and observation. Notice, notice, notice.

• Love is Transformative: Today is known as Imago Dei Sunday, also Pride Sunday. Imago Dei means the image of God. We can embrace our own finitude by embracing life and recognizing that each one of us and all creation is made in the image of the Divine and that we are made to love. Fall in love with that understanding and let it transform you.

What is abundance? Every time Jen and I (now ViviYogaRetreats.com), travel and lead a retreat together, I find myself thinking, this is it, this is the very best retreat we’ve ever led, the very best group of people, the very best yoga space, the very best food, the very best country. It can’t get better than this. And then it does. Not better, actually, but life-altering, cup-filling, inspiring, delicious, companionable, laughter-flowing again. And then the nostalgia. Oh, how can it be, I wonder, that traveling and exploring and settling into body and soul is just better in community? It really just is.

Nostalgia makes me long for what’s been and pulls me toward imagining what’s next. What is next? How can it be possible that there’s more yoga and travel and food and laughter this September in Sagres, Portugal? Oh, the abundance. Yes, I say, yes, life, take me by the hand.

Learn more, register here: Embracing Delight with Christa and Jen in Portugal

Share