Only now

Lately, life has passed me so quickly. I can remember how days used to linger and moment-to-moment appreciation was real and something I practiced.

Perhaps it's the crazy schedule I'm keeping but I miss my children, I miss our leisure. I miss curling up with books and games and passing time.

I miss really hearing what they say. This is something I'm actively practicing today--to stop and look them in their eyes and listen. How freakin' hard is that? How busy am I that I can't look at them and hear them?

Through intention that I am cultivating moment-to-moment today, I plan to make the most of this day. First, I'm taking time for me because without a healthy and centered me, there will be no looking in the eyes for them and certainly no hearing them.

I'm reading a book with a cup of chicory--while the rice cooks. Taking the time to actually read the words and find a meaning.

Then it's lunch time--back into mom mode but I'll try to prepare the food without haste and with appreciation that it's here, that we have food to prepare and that I have children to feed.

At some point, yoga must be figured in...perhaps this evening.

But for now, I read, I breathe and think only of the moment I am in.

There's a time for looking forward and there's a time for looking back, but that time is not today. Today, there can be only now.