time to breathe

Hiked with Sophie today around Webster's Falls...new stomping ground for us and it did not disappoint. The morning was crisp and the walk was strenuous...it feels right being outside and physical on the weekends after spending so much of the week cramped and confined within cubicle walls. During our hike we came upon the small Webster family cemetery that dated back over a century. Most of the graves marked a life that ended far too soon....thirty-three was the age of one of oldest ones, if I recall correctly....two years younger than the age I am now.



The little cemetery got me thinking about time...about how people spend theirs, about how I spend mine. Too often I find myself thinking 6,7,8 steps ahead....even today during our hike. I had a family dinner later in the day that I was looking forward to and as I was walking with Sophie, I was mentally counting backwards on the clock to determine how much more time we had for our hike; I was trying to decide which store I would stop at to purchase a few things I needed to bring to the dinner; I was debating which sweater to wear and calculating if I would have enough time to do a load of laundry before we left. And then I realized I was missing it. I was missing my present...my time....my beautiful morning with Sophie.



I'm getting better at being in the moment...lessons from Sophie have brought me a long way. But there are still times when my thoughts, my consciousness jumps so far ahead, that I barely brush up against the now...and then it's gone. So I took a moment on our hike to just breathe...to watch the sunlight glitter off the snow, to laugh out loud at Sophie scrambling in the leaves for a stick, to just be....exactly where I was.