Post Apocalypse: I had been writing for two hours. I closed the iPad to go look at something outside; when I returned and opened it again, everything was gone. Lesson learned. Well, I did learn what the little T in the right corner is for too. And there it is again, except I shall have to open it again to find out, for in the two weeks since the disaster, I have forgotten. I suspect one of the causes of the apocolypse was the update for the app that I had approved. Pre update the saving was automatic; post update there are surprises, like the T in the corner.
What inspired me to pick up stylus and pound the screen the last time was a rufous-sided towhee that I had been watching through the back window. The towhees are such lovely birds. Mary and I tend to summon each other whenever we see one. This morning I was watching a Carolina wren at the feeder, which reminded me of the towhee, which reminded me of one of the subjects that I had been working on the last time--pre apocolypse, so to speak.
The subject was the current buzzword, mindfulness. Several weeks ago I read in the Sunday Parade magazine a short essay on mindfulness. The author was encouraging us to adopt mindfulness as a way of life, apparently, and to do that she, I believe, described attending to a raisin, being mindful of the raisinness of the raisin. You were supposed to hold it in your hand and roll it around, put it in your mouth and roll it on your tongue, feeling its wrinkly texture, etc. I am afraid I was chuckling by the time I finished the essay, for the process struck me as excessive and somewhat silly.
People, I think, should be watchful and alert, as I have said before, but one ought to be reasonable about it. I went out in zero degree weather the other night to find Venus and Mars. I alertly watch birds out our back window. What governs my "mindfulness" is not someone's next new thing; instead it is interest and, I have to say it, love. Primarily, love of creatures, love of the stars and planets, love of creation, love, finally, of beauty. Five male cardinals in a grey barren tree in winter are beautiful. Venus and Mars in close proximity in the western sky after sunset with the moon higher up are beautiful. A rufous-sided towhee picking at seeds on the ground is beautiful. A pileated woodpecker hammering on a tree trunk is beautiful, even if you can only hear him in the distance.
I have eaten raisins. In fact I had a very good cup of McDonald's fruit and nut oatmeal today that contained raisins and apples and maybe a nut or two. The food was good and I ate it aware of what I was doing certainly, but I also certainly did not let my attention to the food get out of hand. In fact, at one point I picked up the oatmeal container, carried it to the window, ate the oatmeal and watched the Carolina wren. But then I am a rebel; I like to live on the edge as the stand-up comic used to say, as he stood holding his refrigerator door open in the middle of the night, just looking, probably being mindful of leftovers.
Oh well. At least I have learned, for the moment again, how to spell towhee.