Being There

“Instructions for living a life. 
Pay attention. 
Be astonished. 
Tell about it.”
--Mary Oliver, poet

Every day, I bike the path from my house to the train station. I wink at the blue chicory root flowers--the buds which open in the morning and have started to close and sleep at night when I bike passed them on the way home. I check on the progress of the nesting swan. She's been keeping her softball-sized eggs close; she's built a large mat of straw like a queen upon which she sits. She's hardly moved from it in weeks. The reeds of the pond have started growing up around her from the depths of the water. Pretty soon, there will only be wisps of white feather visible in the gaps between the tall beams of leafy green.

Coming to know a place, its colors, its smells in the rain, its smells in the heat, its whispers, creaks and whoops. Witnessing this, holding it in my heart and being there. Being quiet, listening, seeing, hearing.