Permission to Daydream

It's strange what circumstances bring us to a state of reflection. It could be anything, really. Some people find their peace on a country stroll. Others prefer their reverie with foamed milk, two sugars and a biscotti. And still others forget about the entire concept until something reminds them that you don't require permission to daydream.

I'm a member of that last group.

It took three weeks of being "laid up," or under the weather in one way or another for me to find a single hour of meditation. Is anyone preventing me from a moment's peace? Well, perhaps the nine dogs we were raising made it difficult, but there were still hours of my day spent on mindful chores or mindless pastimes, and any one of those ours could have been spared for a chance to breathe. Today, I've found that hour, and I just want to preserve the sensory experience of it, in full.

The weather is warm today, the breeze light and I can hear the occasional chirp of our resident yellow-striped honeyeaters in the yellow-flowered tree outside. The dogs are all sleeping and, perhaps for the first waking moment since our last power failure, the television is off. A dingy white pedestal fan and an equally dingy white fridge are the only mechanical singers in the afternoon choir, and even the cars and neighbors seem to have taken the noontime off. But the smells are what really draw me in. Since morning, a pot of dried chickpeas has been simmering on the stove, exhaling a warm, breaddy aroma that has chased all trace of puppy from the room. Now, with my lunch of yesterday's homemade split pea soup joining the bouquet, my house smells of home and quiet and nourishment. The sights are few: a too-big purple couch, the breakfast dishes still in their morning spots, and a book sits splayed beside me, waiting for me to take it up once more.

I need to do this, more often. I think I need it every day. My books, though numerous, have become dusty with cobwebs of neglect in a year of movement, change, adjustment, and strain. The television, while usually present as a passive chatty friend that helps whittle the hours away, isn't anything particularly special to me. Yet, in the past year, I've rarely let it rest. It's not even the shows that interest me, nor the latest news report. It's simply the presence of voice during daylight hours that keeps the little box flicked on. But what's so bad about silence? I think it's time to rediscover a bit of it.

So, good blogaverse...if, like me, you too have forgotten sounds beyond digital, or your reading has dissolved into nothing but a domino chase of blogs and articles, try to remember that not one of us needs permission to daydream. In truth, we should be asking ourselves forgiveness for putting it off.