Think Big, Live Tiny - Part 1
Living my life backwards
I feel like I’m living my life backwards. This is my first conscious thought as I slowly ascend from the depths of sleep. My dog sensing my return from the dream state, stirs beside me and I stroke his soft head. The faint rosy hue of a sunrise that hasn’t happened yet, begins to light up the room. I stretch and wonder curiously where that backwards thought came from. The cat meows outside my window, asking to be fed. I sit up, hang my feet over the bed, and put them through a quick series of stretches to ward off a re-occurrence of plantar fasciitis. Then I arch my back so that I can slowly lower myself off the four-foot platform that holds my bed. As I go into free-fall for the last 12 inches before the floor I use the bottom rung of a step ladder to soften my landing.
I walk out onto my lanai, face the mountain, raise my hands above my head, stretch a little more enthusiastically, and give a wide yawn. If I had been paying attention in the yoga classes I’ve taken sporadically over the years, now would be a perfect time for a sun salutation. But I’ve always thought that yoga is a good idea, just not a good idea for me.
The cat stands on the grooming table that holds his empty food dish and meows again, just in case I forgot why I came out here. As the dry cat food rattles in his dish, the chickens make some low, moaning noises to remind me that they are next – everyone knows their place in line. I slip into my chicken boots and walk slowly through their midst. It’s up to me to make sure I don’t step on one of them, as they are not the sharpest crayons in the box. A faint whiff of chicken manure mixes with the fresh, cool morning air.
The thought I woke up with is temporarily forgotten as I become immersed in my morning routine.
To have drinking water that meets with my satisfaction, I begin my belt-and-suspenders approach to structuring triple-filtered rain water. It turns out that there’s a whole science behind that tasteless drink that most of us consume without thinking. And the quality of it could well be critical to our survival. That’s my story anyway, and other people have written entire books on the subject, so I’m sticking with it. From the kitchen counter I grab my special, glass carafe. The shape of it and the sacred geometry etched on the bottom will structure the water energetically. I take that and a portable copper tube from Greenfield Water Solutions out to the lanai where my Berkey Water Filter sits. The copper tube structures the water in a more concrete fashion, mimicking the way that water would travel in a stream over rocks. Nothing is easy in my house – it seems that there are always several steps to every task – even something as simple as drinking water. But we all derive satisfaction from our routines, and I make the time in my life to pay attention to these types of details. Now I’m ready to make my warm, lemon water and coffee.
As I open my computer and take a long drink of warm water, I remember that I woke up with an important thought today. What was that again?… oh yeah, I feel like I’m living my life backwards. Now I reach for my coffee. I’m aware that I’m supposed to finish the lemon water first, but I know I will need coffee to unpack that interesting statement. I open a new chapter on Scrivener and start typing…
