Finding Home

 Dear You,      I know some days are just unbearable, intolerable, harder than others and downright ugly. When your mind is on its usual tirade ranting like a mad man magnifying the many ways you failed at well, pretty much anything. When your heart just can't take it anymore and you have no platitudes left to soothe your soul. But there is one thing you can do. Or maybe two. Pause in your hurried, seemingly unstoppable tracks of the runaway train of your mind. Close your eyes. Breathe. All the way down to your gut. Hold your breath for a moment. Then let go slowly. Release everything that you could ever think of with that exhale. Repeat as many times as necessary. And when you're ready to open your eyes, do so. Then look around. Look for one thing that is beautiful. Or simply not ugly to look at. The sun shining through that window, clear, blue skies, your child's smile, flowers that refuse to die.  Or maybe if you're ready, look in the mirror. See one thing that lifts

There is a window of quietude before my boys wake and I ease into the day relishing and digesting words of comfort from favorite authors accompanied with a warm cup of coffee. Bird calls ring into the air. A variety of birds have found home in our Avocado trees. As I read and sip, outside a vendor’s holler selling Lemonsito in a sing-song voice breaks through the silence. It sounds pleasant and brings a beautiful nostalgia of sorts taking me into a time in the past where one of the common ways to earn a living entailed a captivating song to attract the sale of whatever is intended to be sold. A few days ago the song was "Isdaaaa, lab-as!”   Today, it was, “Lemoooon, lemonsitoooo!" The first syllables a higher pitch than the second and a prolonged articulation on the last ones. These days framed by the COVID-19 pandemic can only be described as uncertain and unreal but bring with it “a harvest of presence”, as David Whyte describes beauty. A mindful attention to the ordi