Snow days

I am sitting at the kitchen table watching my daughter sleep. She is so relaxed that her lips are drooping to one side. Outside, snow is falling from the sky in every which direction, and being whipped up from the ground in every which other direction. A couple feet of snow cover everything - trees, the place where the patio table is no longer visible, the pool has disappeared... it is chaos outside.

Inside, there could be chaos too. My life situation at the moment is one of "1,000 what-ifs". The kitchen table I'm sitting at is my parents', as my family has been living here for the last year. Lots of extenuating circumstances - particularly the beautiful lovey lump over there - have lead to this kind of thinking: "What if Grandma gets a job and can't take care of baby?" "What if we sell the apartment and move to a 2 bed and get pregnant again?" "Should we stay here until we can save for a down payment?" "Should we...?" "What if...?" The next phase of our lives could play out in infinite ways, and trying to think them all through is like trying to imagine the vastness of outer space.

In _A New Earth_, Tolle quotes a Zen saying that has become kind of a mantra to me in times that look a lot like the chaotic snowy day outside. "The snow falls, each flake in its appropriate place." Says Tolle, "Behind the sometimes seemingly random or even chaotic succession of events in our lives as well as in the world lies concealed the unfolding of a higher order and purpose". Once all this chaotic snow has passed, the world is covered in a serene, seamless blanket of beauty and stillness. We are just a snowflake falling toward that perfect pattern, into our perfect places, unable to see the bigger picture until it has unfolded.

In other words, people, stop trying to row against the current - just get in the boat and let the river take you. You'll end up in the same place either way, so we may as well enjoy the scenery.

Cozy up!