Thanksgiving, Breathing, and Lessons from Roadside Signs

On sunsets

“I like it when the pink blossoms,” said sparrow.

“Me, too,” was all bear said smiling, squeezing her hand tighter in his.

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Mobile: Phoenix

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What are you feeling in this exact moment?

His sign read, “S-A-V-E  Y-O-U-R-S-E-L-F  N-O-W!!!”

“I’m trying, man.” I said out loud. “I’m really trying.”

My windows were rolled up, so it’s unlikely he heard me.

But I appreciated his message all the same.

The things you see on Thanksgiving driving from Portland to the coast.

Fog to rain, rain to cold, cold to sun, and sun to shore.

“This is not how it was supposed to be,” the voice said, wind blowing through cedar and pine.

“What happened happened,” said Peter, “and couldn’t have happened any other way … because it didn’t.”

Steam from my tea rising, drifting, merging with waves crashing below.

“But what am I supposed to do now?” the voice persisted.

“As you breathe in, know this in an in-breath,” explained Brother Phap Huu. “As you breathe out, know this is an out-breath.”

“That’s fine,” I said, the dipping sun coloring the sky, “but what am I supposed to *do* with the sadness?”

“If it comes; let it,” said Mark. “If it goes; let it.”

A squirrel peeking around the corner of the deck, curious and wise.

Before I could scrabble together another “but,” Brother Phap Huu continues, “Breathing in, I don’t take for granted this very moment of being alive. Breathing out, I live deeply in this moment in the here and now. In, grateful to be alive. Out, this is a deep moment.”

Mist silently moving down the bluff, pinks and oranges blotting purple and blue.

Where in the present moment can you focus your gratitude across one in-breath, one out-breath?