A lot of questions are bubbling up about the future. About what I want for my life and where I see myself headed. On so many fronts, I simply have no idea. Sure, I’ll keep working at my job and on my dissertation. I’ll continue caring for my children. For the time being I’ll stay in my current home. But my days are filled with moments where I realize, I just don’t know what lies ahead. And I’m not sure I even care to think too deeply about it either. Yes, I worry occasionally (which usually prompts me to go check my bank account balances and take a few deep breaths).
The past few days I’ve been in a whirlwind of busy-ness because of the THATCamp conference I hosted at Chapman. Organizing such an event is an absolute delight–especially sitting at the feet of scholars whose work outshines mine in so many ways. But now I have a ‘to-do’ list that is quite long. I put off many personal tasks until this event was over, knowing that I could only handle ‘so much’ this past week given all that’s been happening in my life.
However, instead of thinking about the future and my lists and my uber-weird life, I am sitting here looking out the window at this fresh new day and am just being. A friend brought me a tree-ripened orange yesterday and I’m slowly slicing it and savoring each bite. And remembering my favorite poem of orange– the first French poem that I ever attempted to translate–and focusing on the “sweet present of the present” and realizing that sometimes that is simply enough.
Alicante
Une orange sur la table
Ta robe sur le tapis
Et toi dans mon lit
Doux présent du présent
Fraîcheur de la nuit
Chaleur de ma vie~Jacques Prevert
The orange in the picture above was one that I picked from the satsuma tree in my garden. A tree that was a birthday gift from my mother a few years ago & now sits in a pot on my porch.