blahg, blahg, blahg…

I’ve been reading a good bit of Jon Kabat-Zinn’s work lately, lots of lessons in mindfulness. Breathing, of course, is key to this exercise. Focusing on one’s breathing centers you, calms you, brings your attention to present. I know this is true. I’ve known this for years. But I’ve never seemed to be very good at actually practicing it. Trying again.

As I sit and breathe this morning, all I can really think of is the heat. The thought “there is no air in this room” crossed my mind when I sat down. Stifling hot. For New England, anyway. Riding on my scooter yesterday, the air reminded me of the water in Buck Pond where I’d just been swimming the week before. The air was filled with pockets of cool and then pockets of warm, just like a summer pond. I couldn’t recall ever having felt that sensation before outside of the water. Then again, it’s not something one would feel surrounded by a car. Yea for scooting!

Our kitchen smells like camping. The dishes have all been washed and re-packed, the tent aired out, the tarp dried, the sleeping bags separated, rolled and stuffed. All that’s left now is to put everything back on the shelves in the pantry where it will live until the next time. In the meantime, however, it all sits piled in the corner chairs and stacked neatly on the block table, emitting the lingering aroma of camp smoke, pine needles, and dirt.

Olfactory memory … is that what it’s called? We smell something and it triggers thoughts of a time or place or person or event. It can be quite powerful. There is a very distinct smell that rises from the industrial rubber flooring often installed in institutional stairwells; the stuff with the molded circles to prevent slipping that comes in all colors. It gives an off an odor that never fails to remind me of a library, specifically the stacks of my college library. Despite the fact that I actually work in a library every day, it’s that smell that brings to mind the comfort of such a place to me much more than the sights and the sounds and, heaven forbid, the work.

So I leave my vacation behind today and go back to work. We pack up the campsite, leave the slow pace and the quiet behind, return the gear to the shelves, and I return to the world that I share with other people, not just the inhabitants of nature. I feel the anxiety already. But before heading out the door, I think I’ll brush my sleeve against stuff bags one last time, to carry the smell – and all of the memories it evokes – with me through the day.

Back home after a week of camping in the Adirondacks. I feel a bit melancholy with the approaching end of my vacation and tense already being back in the “real world”. To try to hold onto the peace of the past few days, I thought I’d make a list that reminds me just what some of those things are that bring such contentment:

• Dragonfly lands on my shoulder
• Quiet of darkness
• Starry skies
• Views from the top of mountains
• Swimming in a mountain pond
• Time to play music
• Time to sit and be
• Long, long walks
• Hikes up big hills
• Soft serve ice cream
• Cooking on the camp stove
• Watching fireplace embers
• Reading good fiction
• Laughing at Zebbie’s smile
• Sleeping bags zipped together
• Summer rain showers
• Being offline for awhile
• Simple tasks around the campsite
• Having no need for “vitamins”
• Being with my bunny

And now to figure out how to keep some of these alive and well until we return again.