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Gratefulness
I am honored when I can just walk along with someone for a while.
Slow, mindful, gratefully satisfied eating!
Hazel expects her morning walk, and this is not negotiable. This is our morning contract and my expectations don’t matter. She will enjoy it no matter the weather, and I might as well accept the challenge to enjoy it with her. I try to join when she pauses, holds up her head and sniffs the ambient air. Life is signaling from every direction. This is how it feels, being alive.
To do my tasks and remember to notice all the gifts of wonder.
Sense of my body’s weight, rising up from gravity. It centers and “grounds” me…literally, actually. From here I enjoy the dancing of all the other senses.
Out for a walk this morning, I passed the house of someone I’ve seen regularly and spoken with a few times over the years in Friend’s Meeting. She was on the front porch, talking with someone (about 12 feet distanced from each other). I said “Hello, Christine,” and waved. She said “Hi, Ed, how are you?” and waved back. My body tingled at the joy of actual connection, at the sound of a familiar voice I’ve not heard in so long.
I can listen to my wife! She would agree. 🙂
Another breath, no small gift these days. Lift eyes and see light on plants, rocks, birds. And another breath…
As I tune pianos I will try to imagine someone in the story of the piano in front of me; perhaps selecting the soundboard wood or installing strings or case parts. All I can know is that someone did it, and having rebuilt pianos myself, I know that it is hard work. So I see that even the most humble instrument embodies a very big story. The piano I’m tuning will serve the expressive needs of human hearts. I often tune for pianos for children. Knowing in myself how musical le...
As I tune pianos I will try to imagine someone in the story of the piano in front of me; perhaps selecting the soundboard wood or installing strings or case parts. All I can know is that someone did it, and having rebuilt pianos myself, I know that it is hard work. So I see that even the most humble instrument embodies a very big story. The piano I’m tuning will serve the expressive needs of human hearts. I often tune for pianos for children. Knowing in myself how musical learning happens, I consider how the piano I’m tuning may serve a learning moment which will live in someone and be shared for eighty years, maybe into the next century. What does it tell us, so much effort to make music possible? It’s a very rich life, being in the middle of all this.
YES!
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