Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash
When you make it simple, when you take it all away.
The people, the phone calls, the errands and every single thing that comes into your life rendering a tiny blow that chips at you in some way that hardens your soul just a little further.
The smells, the traffic, the ugly boss and cynical people. Take it all away, all of it.
Imagine a quiet place, a phone that is turned off. A decent meal, quiet lighting and people who are more like you.
Thoughts render more clearly. Vision is hazy (you’re trying to look everywhere all at once) but it’s a feeling where life feels majestic, finally. You feel the magic and soak it in.
And, it takes you. To museums and natural wonders, to long walks and exploding gysers. To phenomena and stories and magic and wonder.
To meeting people you will know the rest of your life, to swimming and dancing and thinking and laughing so hard that you know, you just know, that the world is a magical place and this is only the beginning.
My eyes open voluntarily (no alarm).
Two vertical windows framed by long gray black out drapes. They were parted open so the daylight would wake me and help adjust my internal clock to the local time zone.
I looked outside and saw a sky the color of baby blue slate. Nothing more, nothing less.
It seemed to thumb its nose at the persistent mental chatter of my mind that occurs even in sleep. My brain refreshed. I am in Iceland.
My body rolled over, away from the window. I was very conscious of the action.
‘What are you doing? Don’t turn away from it,” I thought to myself.
“No, it’s not what you think. This is my meditative state. I’m thinking and mentally preparing for the day,” was the counter-argument.
“Okay, you get a under a minute. Then it’s time to embrace the day. You turn away from many days, most days, really – but of all the days this is not one to turn away from.”
I put on some music and got ready, feeling my real metamorphosis into a writer happening with each stroke of makeup, with each action and thought. Either, I was changing into a costume, or stepping into who I really was.