Freedom to Write

On my list today is teach the children – check email, respond to parent, boss, plan for tomorrow, grade essays, meet after school – check personal email, check traffic on phone, cook dinner – television playing in background, go to gym – music blaring and conversing with friends, finish reading for class on Wednesday, check phone messages, visit with husband.

Research says that our world is becoming increasing stress-filled, perhaps my to-do list emphasizes this.    We are constantly connected to everything all of the time.  In some ways this is good (thank you fellow slicers for your comments)  and in others this is bad (that sale looked great and then I spent 30 minutes surfing the internet), but there are some ways to act on this stress.

One of these is to take mindful moments in your life.  Very appropriate for slicing I think.  So, as I take a deep breath in – fully extending my diaphram (yes, breathing is part of being mindful), I notice small things around me like the heating system’s dull constancy of rhythm that I never quite take in until all of the students have left the room and the click of the keys on the keyboard, as well as the noticeable voices in the hallway.  But, better, I notice the freedom my brain feels as the words find themselves on the page and the story has been told.  The freedom makes connections between seemingly separate things.  Overall, I notice that because it is writing it matters.  And the breath continues in, deeply, and out.  I don’t have to remind myself – it comes naturally as the words from my fingertips.  I scoffed at mindful and told myself I was being good to myself and then I discovered that I was writing only to-do lists rather than things that really needed to be written and so I proceed mindfully looking for small moments in my life with meaning this month with slices.  Today, I notice the freedom to write.