Focusing on being instead of doing

Just breathe. Close your eyes for a moment. Breathe.

Stop planning, thinking, worrying, analyzing.

Just be.

Open your eyes. Notice the world around you. What do you see? Hear? Smell? Feel?

Don't think. Don't judge. Just be.

How often to we take the time to stop and notice the world around us?

Between two kids, one husband, and a zillion jobs it's easy to forget to notice the world around me. It's easy to forget to notice myself inside that world. There's always something that needs to be done, thought about, remembered. Always someone who needs to be cuddled, loved, scolded, stopped, tended to one way or another.

But what's the point of it all if we never stop to notice it? If we never stop to appreciate it?

Yesterday the sun was shining and a light breeze was blowing. I needed to pack our bags in preparation for our trek back over the mountain to our home. I needed to clean up the kitchen so my inlaws would let us keep borrowing their beach house. I needed to gather the girls' things so we wouldn't have to turn back to collect an errant lovey.

But for once I decided not to do and instead I decided to be.

I pulled out a reclining chair and set it next to M's on the deck. I sat down in it and leaned all the way back. I closed my eyes and I focused on the moment. The ocean did it's thing, lapping at the beach rhythmically. The sun did its thing, shining down brightly in a way we haven't seen for a few weeks. The breeze played between the sun and the water, teasing us with a promise of warmer days to come.

And I lay there just enjoying all of it.