There is nothing like an extended absence to increase my appreciation of Portland, especially in the summertime. Since getting back into town on July 17th after four months of travel, I’ve enjoyed riding my bike, shopping at the Cully/Old Salt Farmers Market and the Alberta Co-op, walking to the Roseway Theater, getting back in the garden that our house sitters have been faithfully tending (and improving!) and of course beginning to reconnect with my many beloved community members. Everything feels both familiar and a bit new and exciting, with the opportunity I’ve been anticipating to make fresh, deliberate and mindful choices about how to best devote my time and energy. One of my goals for this first week of being “back to work” post-sabbatical is to focus on being as fully present as possible with each person and task I am with. This has been inspired by a parting gift from one of my Community Warehouse co-workers and friends, a children’s book adaptation by Jon Muth of Leo Tolstoy’s The Three Questions.
The answers to the questions (“When is the best time to do things? Who is the most important one? What is the right thing to do?”) come most clearly when there is an urgent and obvious need right in front of us to respond to, especially if it means helping someone in danger. The right thing to do, when it is a matter of weighing seemingly endless options of whether to weed in the garden, work on a job application, respond to an e-mail, or take a few moments to sit and reflect, will never have one right answer. My aspiration with these daily choices is more to trust what I have chosen as good enough, and then let go into the task without the distraction and worry of all the other things I could have chosen instead along with the absurd yet pernicious belief that somehow I should be doing them all simultaneously. Being fully present with people may be easier (or perhaps not!) I look forward to the practice, and seeing what shifts in myself, my work and my relationships.
Vibrant Mission 