Resurrection of the Senses: This Creative Life

It’s Easter Sunday. My step kids have gone home. And my husband is at sea. So I decided to get myself up from the computer where I’ve been spending a lot of time lately and go for a walk.

I took my iPod to keep me company and stave off those lonely holiday blues. But no sooner had I closed the door behind me than Life grabbed me by the senses. I was so impressed; I could not put the earbuds in my ears.

So off I went, down the quiet tree-covered lane I like to walk, with Life as my close companion, resurrecting me by the senses, restoring my connection with it in the creativity of Nature all around me.

Life’s raw improvisation, as I moved through it, was more exciting than any creative composition I had heard before. A few notes…

• Birds with such beautiful voices they could have taught me to sing
• Winter-stricken trees dressing up in new Spring greens and pastels
• The deep green bush sharing its pink camellias with the sidewalk below
• The little two-seater prop plane flying along the beach
• The man in the red sweatshirt who turned onto the lane ahead of me
• Five boys on bicycles discovering the depths of new voices
• Crossing the street, an untended green belt between me and the beach
• Meandering paths through mossy mounds of earth slightly lower than me
• A mini-prairie covered with bushes bursting with tiny yellow flowers whose scent reminded me of my childhood in Texas
• The sounds of hard wheels hitting the steel waves of the local skateboard park
• Stripes of colorful beach huts framing the seaside just beyond
• Then the sea, its perpetual percussion stirring up stones on the beach
• The long, wide beach at low tide, sandy patches stripped bare of stone by the waves
• Seagulls returning to the water, squawking at me for disturbing their peace
• A dozen smaller birds, for whom I was an excuse to catch the wind one more time, flying and soaring longer than was necessary
• The thundering roar of the roller coaster at the local Family Fun Fair
• The chute flying ahead on the beach, telling me there was at least one kite surfer out today
• The rich carpet of fresh green grass as I turned back toward home.

Another lane, with different birds, different trees, different flowers; and the story was the same. Life was beckoning me to live it, to feel it with all my senses, to appreciate the incredible richness of this moment. I could not have been lonely if I tried.

Wherever you are today, whomever you’re with (or not with), your world is equally as rich, your senses equally as hungry. So just for this day, step back from the computer, leave the iPod at home, and let Life in… in… in, to resurrect your senses with all that’s around you, and reconnect you with Life itself.

Happy Easter.