Not Working

I'm with my brother and sister-in-law in Golden CO. Actually, above Golden, CO. Maybe 2500 feet above. The house is just inside the Front Range, at the top of a watershed, with 360 degree views of the Continental Divide and what we metaphorically refer to as Kansas are common here. The area is suburban, with a house on every flat spot that can be carved out of the hilltops. But they are not closely spaced, and are not too intrusive on the landscape.

It's only a fifteen-minute drive into Golden, but it seems further to me. It's a one-car family, so I rarely go into town. Instead, I run and walk the extensive trail system that starts out the back door. I do my P90X workout each day. I sit here in the basement with Greg, looking out the big picture windows towards the Divide, listening to music, chatting, just sitting together. I've been updating my Touch, which is more complicated and time-consuming than it ought to be. We watch some T.V. every day: Jon Stewart, British sitcoms, Netflix movies.

I am observing myself slowing down. Sure, I've got some work to do, and a list, and the work will increase this last week before I leave, but I'm slowing down. On my runs, I'll stop on a rock outcropping and sit for a while. Two young men pushed their mountain bikes into my favorite meditation spot the other day. I startled them with my greeting. One commented that it looked like a good place for soul searching. I agreed, and mentally noted that the world must not have completely gone to hell if young men are still familiar with the concept.

I drink less than when I arrived, not because I have more self-discipline, but because. . . well, I feel less compulsion to drink. Almost all the compulsions I experience are responses to overwork, including overwork itself. Of course, there are life stresses: uncertainty about finances, career, relationship. There are unplumbed depths of depression and sadness. But I take time on my trail runs and walks to mentally note all the sounds that I hear, all the sights I see, the smell of warming pine sap and the dusty trail and distant mountain rain.

The moment I try to live in also contains obsessive behaviors--checking of email and Skype, checking my phone. My thoughts often return to a single topic. It's no use going into it here. Merely to note that my behaviors and thoughts can't affect the outcome and maybe, just maybe, the expansive views and long walks are putting things into perspective. No one thing will make me perfectly happy, or irredeemably sad. I want what I want, but I recognize it as a want only, a desire, which like all wants, desires, angers, sadnesses, confusions--is no other than what I see through this picture window.