Breath by breath

I finished a story. I will have to put some finishing touches to it and then I’ll try to submit it for publication. It’s a story I started a few years ago. A short story, dear to my heart. Writing is a long game of leaving and returning, and by now I have realized that I operate in the space of letting go, let it breath and return to it. Hammering down has never been my thing.

I started meditating again. After a hiatus in which I found myself out of my meditation orbit. Could I even call myself a meditator anymore? It’s the same question I have been asking myself when I wasn’t writing. Can I call myself a writer?

I don’t know and honestly, I have never cared much about labels.

In this sense meditation is a lot like writing. Both are contemplation practices, both are a way of processing life. And to process life you need its raw material. And so I leave the contemplation space and I go live. And I experience all the silly (and not so silly) little things daily life is made of and that sometimes make you feel alive. Planning a trip, Korean skincare, cat videos, walks at dusk. Early mornings, like this one.

Life’s raw material can bring joy and sometimes a little anxiety too. And so this morning I sat, 5.30 am, I heard my breath rising, falling. Birds chirping outside, dawn cracking through the darkness. The gift of another day. The most delightful fog moving over Malveira da Serra in the distance.

My anxiety melting, breath by breath.