Mary Oliver says, “And now I understand something so frightening and wonderful-how the mind clings to the road it knows, rushing through crossroads, sticking like lint to the familiar.” It is wonderful in its familiarity and comfort and frightening in that we can fail to experience the fullness of life by falling always into the worn path. So it is important to regularly wander off that trail into some new part of the pasture, read something no one else is reading, eat something you never eat, sit in a different chair to read, go on a different kind of holiday, invite someone over you have never had over before, and maybe sleep on the other side of the bed for a night. Who knows what dreams may come?
It seems to me that we are such creatures of habit. I know I say this regularly about my cows. They follow the same patterns day in day out. How they line up in the barn to feed at the manger, how they go for water, where they lay in the fields, and where they are at first light in the morning seems bound by habit. When I am away for a stretch of time, something often goes wrong with the animals, they break through a fence or get into some other kind of trouble. I am also part of their routines and the break unsettles them. There is great comfort in that. For them obviously, but also for me. But I too am a creature of habit. I like my coffee the same way each day, at about the same time. I have my morning and evening routines, the foods I like to eat, the chair I sit in to read, and the ways I fall asleep at night. And we get a bit irritable if it is somehow not quite right and maybe more so as we get older.
Mary Oliver says, “And now I understand something so frightening and wonderful-how the mind clings to the road it knows, rushing through crossroads, sticking like lint to the familiar.” It is wonderful in its familiarity and comfort and frightening in that we can fail to experience the fullness of life by falling always into the worn path. So it is important to regularly wander off that trail into some new part of the pasture, read something no one else is reading, eat something you never eat, sit in a different chair to read, go on a different kind of holiday, invite someone over you have never had over before, and maybe sleep on the other side of the bed for a night. Who knows what dreams may come?
2 Comments
John
2/17/2017 05:47:56 pm
I concur with your initial premise and agree with your conclusion. Who would have thought that I would wonder off the trail... It is a different life, for sure.
Reply
Pete
2/18/2017 09:59:29 am
True. Just went to far about sleeping on the other side of the bed.
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