Mindfulness is certainly easier when you live alone and need
to only pay attention to yourself. Being
able to practice mindfulness wholeheartedly without interruption except of my
own devising is one of the reasons I like living alone. I like people and I like spending time with people. Some days, like these four days at home, I
just prefer being with only myself more. I have
lived with people and I enjoyed it. I
would enjoy living with a roommate again or a boyfriend who becomes my partner
again, but right now, as Henry David Thoreau states, I haven't “found the
companion that [is] so compatible as solitude.”
Each morning I woke up
at 5 a.m. without an alarm clock.
I felt refreshed and optimistic and at ease. I sat in front of my fireplace, drank two cups of coffee, and read five
chapters from Walden, my favorite book ever since I first read it when
I was in the tenth grade and my high school English teacher and drama coach, Mrs. N. (Peggy Noskowiak nee
Killoren), gave it to me in 1986. It's
her copy from college, complete with
sentences she underlined and paragraphs she bracketed and asterisked. I've read the book five times, more than any
other book I've read. I'm a Thoreauvian.
Before each morning dawned,
I went upstairs to my bedroom where I keep my meditation cushion and I
sat mindfully for twenty five minutes. I
paid attention to my breathing, the steadfast sign that we are alive and the
ready reminder of the present moment. I
listened to the clock ticking in the nearby master bathroom. I silenced my mind when it began to wander,
relatively quiet from the tranquility I had created and the early morning
stillness of thought. I watched the
morning light slowly and softly fill the room.
By choice, I had no company.
I talked to only one friend on the phone for about twenty minutes. I texted only seven friends and family
members on New Year's Eve and Day. I
stayed offline. I watched TV once—CBS
Sunday Morning. I watched the last
four episodes of Doctor Who: Season Seven, Part One on DVD, my favorite
TV show ever since I watched my first episode in 1985. I've seen every episode
and many of them multiple times. I'm a
Whovian.
I drank tea. I read. I
wrote. I prepared and ate meals with
mindfulness.
On New Year's Eve day, around two o'clock, I opened a bottle
of my favorite white wine, Kim Crawford's Sauvignon Blanc and kicked off my Zen
party for one. I listened to my current
favorite CD, Ultra Lounge Bossa Novaville.
I made habernero enchiladas. I wrote in my journal and reflected
upon and celebrated the past year. I
took my last sip of wine right before midnight, wished myself and the
universe,happy new year, and went to bed, falling asleep quickly since it was
two hours past by bedtime and I was up late partying zen style.
On New Year's Day I spend most of the day reading and I also wrote in my journal again, this time looking
forward into 2013—milestones I hope to create, things I hope to do,
accomplishments I hope to achieve, things I hope to be thankful for, and what I
hope to learn. It's all about hope. Hope for a happy new year and hope for a
happy life. Hope is the seed of a plan
and a plan is the seed of action and action is the seed of reality. Or as George Bernard Shaw wrote, “Imagination
is the beginning of creation. You
imagine what you desire; you will what you imagine; and at last you create what
you will.”
We only take delight in what we have when we notice it; when
we become mindful of the moments. I
attempted to do that as often as possible during my four day retreat. Sequestering myself from the world——from
other people and screens and online reality—time slowed down, and at the same
time, time seemed fleeting. Either way,
those four days were a drop of water in the bucket of water called my life, and
I'm glad I got the drop.
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