This afternoon I took advantage of the sun in my back garden. I'm trying to be more in the moment and doing
that requires me to stop the clamour of musts, have-tos, shoulds and shouldn’ts
in my head. Since I've been keeping my creative anxiety awareness journal I've
realised that those racing thoughts are like rubbish strewn across the road. My
thoughts can't travel straight and they collide with one another, tripping me
over my own thinking. Instead, I choose to sit with a faint sting of heat on my arms
and despite dark sunnies, my eyes narrowing slightly against the sun’s intensity.
The water I sip is tart with a generous squeeze of lemon juice. It only takes
a few minutes for a pleasant drowsiness to come over me. I want to lean back
against the outdoor chair and enter into the relaxation—the thing that goes
missing most often in this frantic thought world. I sense the tension draining
away from my neck and shoulders. In a dreamlike state, the warmth soaks though my flesh and
bone until the even the anxious thoughts in my head melt away.
In the stillness I become aware of sounds:
a distant broom scraping a neighbour’s concrete driveway; the grunt of trucks
straining against the speed limit and the spirited debate of birds. If I close my
eyes and concentrate, I can hear the rhythm of the ocean waves just a few blocks
away from home. A hint of fresh paint glides past with the breeze; there’s the scent of
the local burger joint and freshly cut grass from the adjacent school oval. My drift into that safe zone continues; into the place where I'm not asleep
yet far from awake. Time becomes shapeless.
There is nowhere else I need to be in this
moment. In this moment, there is everything I need. It's full of thoughts of my
family and friends and stories I want to write. That’s what matters to me. Even
an indignant car horn and the high-pitched shouts of children leaving the
school grounds across the way, don’t break my calm. I remain in the stillness
until my body, alerted by the breeze stroking my forehead, says it’s time to
move. The peace of the moment accompanies me as I
enter the dull light of the house. The remnants of the outside brightness blur
my vision but I can see where I'm going. I'm taking those moments to my desk.
To the empty page that’s been waiting to be fed.
