Written by Ordinary Extra – May 23, 2023. Reflecting Time.
Another day. Another opportunity. Another gift from God. It was a busy day, like too many days are. Were there picture perfect moments to post to the social media for the masses to see? No, probably not.
I did see some deer in various places today. And I saw my friend the bald eagle, too. But I was coming and going, chasing an agenda or a schedule today.
But, as I shared in the picture below, I did try to carve out some moments along the way to just breathe. I stood in the shadow of a tall shady tree covered in vines just during a brief pause to feel the breeze without the sun directly on me.
Later in the day I was able to sit beside my window, which is beside my desk, for several minutes and just stare at the green leaves. I probably flushed several hundred thoughts through my mind in those minutes. The wind played with the leaves. The collective force of the invisible breeze sent thinner branches into a mini windmill type motion, like a great pitcher loosening up his shoulders out in the bullpen before throwing.
I looked at the reflection off my watch face (which was way better than what the picture showed) and remembered times as a boy when I would stare up through the green leaves to find the patches of perfect blue showing through the irregular gaps. Just an ordinary extra. You know, some reflecting time.
I stopped on the edge of the grass, catching my breath (mentally and physically) for several seconds in the shade of this tree as I walked from point A to point B.
We live in an age where comparisons are being made 24/7 whether we know it or not. Social media, TV, Internet ads, and many more outlets bombard us all with image. Image as in, this is how the perfect product, or the perfect moment, or even any product in the perfect setting, can make life, well, pretty near perfect.
You know what I am talking about. Pictures of how awesome other people’s life is, at least that is how it is made to look. At some level we all get caught up in the “keeping up with the Joneses” mentality. And we think out loud or to ourselves, “Well, my yard, my vacation, my this, or our that doesn’t like nearly as good as theirs”.
So, I am here to spread some ordinary extra moments. These are things that happen in an average day in my little world. Some might resonate, some may not. But the point is, be happy and thankful for what you do have. And sometimes that might just be the ability to think, to breathe, to work, to love, to feel, and so on. There is beauty all around us.
Just an ordinary day with an ordinary extra moment mixed in.
The trees against a blue sky reflect off of the face of my watch. I took just a few minutes between things to do for some reflecting time by my window. Ordinary extra.