It’s my birthday. So here is a little gift for you. Feel free to download it and use it personally for your notes and lists or whatever makes you happy. 
This is a watercolor I made a few months ago which I thought would look nice on notes. Let me know how you use it, if you do.
Every morning 9am comes. It rounds the globe with the sun perched just above the roof on your eastern neighbors’ house. You can count on this daily event. But sometimes 9am comes as a surprise as you suddenly remember that you are supposed to be at a classroom thirty minutes away with three dressed humans in your company. This discovery will be a frantic experience if you are currently sitting on the couch eating an apple in your pajamas with your three humans still in bed.
If you value emotional balance the sudden discovery that you are late is about as stabilizing as an earthquake.
Sit down with your journal in the morning. Learn to love the list. Don’t be tempted to believe that list making is something that Type A people do to maintain control.
See my list below which lists the
things a list is:
There is no guilt in an unfinished list. Life happened to you today and your plan said, “I’m right here on this list. You’ll get back to me as soon as you have a moment’s peace.”
Bond with your list. Give it a doodle, a sketch or a poem to keep it company. Let it know that you don’t find it mundane. It is the sacred documentation of your most valued tasks– this work of yours. The glorious minutes of the names of your friends, your valuable meetings, your unique vocation and place on this Earth. Sit with it. Meditate on it. Let it live on paper and outside of your brain so that your brain can be free to engage with this singular moment. To give every happening its due time.
I wrote a piece about ashes and Brittany to post tomorrow for Ash Wednesday, but I don’t think I’m ready to publish it yet.
But I can post this: Now I know what Lent is for. Today is still supposed to be Fat Tuesday, but I’ve been feeling ash Wednesday since April. I’m looking forward to Good Friday (or is it backwards to Good Friday?) and even more to Easter. And to the greater Easter which is yet to come.
Maybe I’ll change my mind tomorrow and 4 paragraphs about Lent will show up here instead of this. I feel very strongly that I should be writing about my experience. That it will help people. But I’m not brave enough yet. My words don’t give voice to what I’m actually experiencing. I think this is because my writing voice is not yet as mature as my life experience.
Living is harder than anyone ever told me it would be. Pain is not something you can scrub off with sarcasm or ignore until it evaporates. This is the beauty of it all. The joy, the hope, and the suffering is exactly the point. Be with it. Let it be real. Don’t ignore it or scrub it away. Embrace it, because it is there whether you give it attention or not. But if you don’t get down with experiencing it, you will be missing out on what Life is.
Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.