For the last few nights, the desert air has whispered its breath through our windows. A defined chill passes through the pores of our screen. I hug my Jaipuri blanket and sink into the warmth of our bed. Outside cars hurry by even though it is almost ten o’clock at night. Chimes ring with a faint echo. Coyotes howl their stories. Overhead I hear the swooshing of a helicopter that strums a little song. Within minutes, a change steers the air in a different direction. It is quiet. I hear my own rhythm. A silence glides in just as easily as the noises from this out-of-tune symphony go.
To read more of this essay please visit First Day Press.
Image: “Little Sable Lighthouse” by Charles Dawley via Flickr.
Welcome! I am a lawyer turned freelance writer, essayist, and editor. On staff at Literary Mama and the co-founder and co-editor of the literary journal, The Sunlight Press, my essays and reported work have appeared in The Washington Post, The Lily, Saveur, Civil Eats, Brain, Child, ESPN and elsewhere. I am currently at work on a memoir on grief and culture and how it provides perspective on life’s ordinary graces. I invite you to appreciate the ordinary with me. I hope my daily practice of seeing the magic in the mundane helps you celebrate and find more of these moments in your life too.
I went over to First Day Press to finish reading this post. After I entered my 40’s, I remember a day when I was looking at old photos at my mother’s house. I saw a photo of me as a teenager and I didn’t recognize myself. Had I changed so much physically that I no longer recognized my own image? I believe I had changed so much emotionally, traumatized by some of things life threw at me; that I was no longer the girl in that photo.
I love the line about finding God in the gaps between breaths. That is where I am right now. Trying to find peace in transition; moving from one change to the next. Breathing through it. Learning to meditate. Starting each day with no less than a yoga Sun Salutation. Going to counseling. And I plan to get the book: Learning to Breathe
You are a sensitive soul and I thank you for sharing yourself with us in your writing. Very often, it touches my heart.