Look Down

Hello, friends.  My name is Laurie.  I have known Mia for many years, as our sons grew up together.  We have been talking about collaborating for some time.  It took a pandemic to do it, but here we are. I am grateful for her invitation to join One Good Thing.

I am traveling with Mia on this gratitude journey because I have discovered how important it is to look for goodness and beauty in the world. Without this daily practice, I feel unmoored. I don't have any immediate control over politics, or other people's behavior, or even whether the people I love will come down with COVID.

But I can put one foot in front of the other, and walk.  And I can ground myself as I walk, by looking down. 

Looking down is a byproduct of injury. I have sprained my ankle so many times that I have to be vigilant and watch where I step. Looking down has kept me safe, but I have come to learn that it also brings me peace. 

Looking down grounds me with the earth. It helps me to focus on being present. It keeps me from the thoughts swirling in my mind. And most importantly, it helps me see what I would otherwise miss: passing moments of grace. 

On my walks,  I often find unexpected beauty in the smallest or oddest things. As I look down, I find bits of nature reminding me that the planet is alive, and the seasons are changing. I also find cast off objects from our lives, which, in their erosion, carry their own kind of message.

Walking today is one of the only things we can do safely out in the world. I invite you to do your own walking meditation. Instead of looking ahead at what may come, or looking back at what we have lost, try looking down and finding your own moment of grace.

 "Sometimes the desire to be lost again, as long ago, comes over me like a vapor. With growth into adulthood, responsibilities claimed me, so many heavy coats. I didn’t choose them, I don’t fault them, but it took time to reject them. Now in the spring I kneel, I put my face into the packets of violets, the dampness, the freshness, the sense of ever-ness. Something is wrong, I know it, if I don’t keep my attention on eternity. May I be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe, tiny but useful. May I stay forever in the stream. May I look down upon the windflower and the bull thistle and the coreopsis with the greatest respect.”

― Mary Oliver, Upstream: Selected Essays