I am trying like mad to catch up. But I don’t know what I’m catching up to. Or as I read recently on a bumper sticker, Life Goes By Fast. Go Slow.

Nah, that couldn’t have been it. I’m sure it was more Zen and wise than that. But still, the gist of it was this; there’s nothing to catch up to. Just do one thing. Do it as good as you can. Do the next thing.

Apparently that’s slightly less frantic than, try to do a blog post, start uploading the photo, get impatient with slowness of said action, throw in a load of laundry, take the compost out, come back, forget that you were uploading the photo, hit refresh button and click on the message that says ‘Network Connection is Lost – Try Again’.

Then, try again and again and again. Get peeved at the e-world, go rake the weeds that were pulled yesterday, go past the bathroom where the yoga mat is waiting, do a few downward dogs to de-stress, pick up the weights, do a few bicep curls, throw the load of laundry into the dryer, feel guilty for not hanging them on the clothesline, get over it, shuffle the pile of collage materials from one drawer to a different rack for later transport to new studio space, water the plants, try not to look at the dusting, pull up the memoir document, begin revisions…

The remarkable thing is this; all those semi-started tasks were eventually all wrapped up. The yard is raked, the laundry folded, the memoir’s intro revised, the library books picked up, the bits of collage materials snipped and waiting for the glue, all of it, except that stupid photo for this blog never did upload. I finally gave up on that task. Not sure what was going wrong but unwilling to spend any more time on it.

But, there was even time to throw in a 30-minute meditation and go for a big walk.

The only thing left is the dusting. Funny thing about dust. It will wait. Besides if life goes fast, and then it’s eventually down to ashes-to-ashes and dust- to- dust, why hurry the process? And if I’m just turning to dust, might as well slow that down too, and have a big soaking bath. Wet that dusty self down as it were…

My recipe for the ultimate bath after a day of zig-zagging about:

Buy big bag of epsom salts. Get very large  jar with lid. Throw in  one teaspoon of baking soda for every cup of plain epsom salts. Add four to six drops of favourite essential oil for every cup of salts. Shake and stir vigorously. Keep in aforementioned jar. Throw  one cup of this heaven-in-a-bucket elixir into steaming tub. Light candles, drink tea and read new library books.

Sink in deeply. Sigh and then, Smile.

Who says mindfulness has to be done in an orderly fashion?