"The Only Guarantee We Have is What's Happening Right Now"

The quote above is from a talk I attended this morning at Clouds in Water Zen Center in Lowertown St. Paul, given by Sosan Theresa Flynn, the temple priest there.  I was so grateful to be reminded once again of the importance of staying present and grateful, too, for Clouds in Water, my spiritual community for almost ten years now.  

Sosan read a quote from the Metta Sutra urging a practitioner to be "unburdened by duties, frugal in habits."  Sosan interpreted "unburdened by duties" to mean not that you have no duties, but that you aren't weighed down by your responsibilities.  You hold them lightly and spaciously, without clutching too tightly to results.  And "frugal in habits" means keeping your life simple, not cluttering your days with too many activities or too many things.

I've felt a real surge of restless distractability lately, the clutter of too much to do and think about, so it was good to hear this talk today.  I'm trying to zero in on what's really important to me and make time for those priorities, while leaving plenty of space for the rest and quiet that has been so lacking in my life lately.

It has been a restorative weekend.  Yesterday I had a daytime date with my husband.  The weather was ideal, and we took a long hike along the Mississippi, went out for lunch and ice cream, and still had time to browse at the library kid-free.  Yes, we are total geeks.

Today I went to the Y by myself and swam laps until I was good and tired, and then the family joined me there and we swam together for a good hour, then went out for pizza at a sweet little neighborhood joint with games and kids' books to help pass the time.  It was a day to be grateful for.

I feel ready to get back into the library fight again after a week of catching my breath.  I feel ready to get back to work on that suck-ass book manuscript I'm aiming to finish this year (Do know that I actually want the book to be good and am working my booty off to do my best on it.  Calling it "suck-ass" is my way of giving myself permission to finally finish it even though it's not perfect.  Maybe that's obvious, but I wanted to explain just in case).