This morning is a rainy one in Northern Alabama. It’s one of the kind of days that the drizzling rain and softer light encourages me to nurture me. Saturdays call me particularly that way. Me time. Self care, nurture and a sort of quiet joy in moving and doing the things which I love to do. It typically begins with deciding what wonderful smells to fill the house with, today I am thinking homemade biscuits, peppered bacon and coffee to start the morning well. I have a new cup of brushes, a treat to myself from Christmas, that I have yet to break in. Watercolors are still foreign tools to me, but through the years I have enjoyed exploring with them.
There are rules to Me Time too it seems. (somehow I always have to order permissions…as though it is a hard bargaining queen to have fun) Somehow I allow myself to have fun while running laundry on rainy days. Laundry, my daily nemesis, wins most rounds on who conquers whom, but on rainy days it seems I have a hopeful take on overcoming Mount Washmore. Perhaps part of the joyful world of pretend that one enters as I create. It seem to me that creating in my world is akin to reading an adventure book. I call deep from a place of not being into a tangible visual place of existing. Sometimes, like my vision, the images are blurry or out of focus, but they come to light just the same.
What is Me Time to you? This year I am allowing more time for me times, to try out what is edifying, what is comforting, what is fun, what brings laughter with its presence…for me the trials will be painting, gathering with friends, baking together, visiting, seeing, sharing, caretaking….and whatever plops in my path that brings with it the experience of awakening and heart engagement. I find that I rarely think “what do I hope to do…or long to do…” they are questions I simply do not consider…but I am beginning to revisit hope, and create paths to those activities, people, and experiences revealed.
It is in the silence of the mornings that I remember more of times past and futures hoped for. It is though I am reminded of beautiful things and moments to create and remember. I love that me time for me almost always involves creating or rediscovering beauty. It is a lovely thing to realize that in restoration, in creating, and in resting my mind on such things…I too am restored.
It is in making time for me that my time for others is enriched…for when I am more rested, more restored, I can be more receptive to others needs. Is it time you scheduled a little me time for yourself?
