More thoughts to ponder as you consider what matters to you, how you might have lost sight of it all, and how you may attempt to get it back. Let your mind retrace the steps of sustaining memories of your past. Build a sandcastle again. Take a walk in the rain with an umbrella, splashing in all the puddles. Smile and let the world wonder what you’ve been up to. Whatever you do, just don’t lose sight of what matters.
- Garden. I remember as a little girl wading through rows of vines, stalks, and climbing trellises in our back yard. My dad was an avid gardener. I remember one year he read a book on square-foot-gardening, which was all the rage at some point in the 80’s, and we had rows of neat little nailed together square foot boxes plotted out in our back yard. It was a pleasure growing our own pumpkins to carve for Halloween, eating fresh peas in the pod right off the vine, and enjoying our own grown salads fresh at the dinner table. Nothing tastes better than home grown. If you can, grow it. Yourself.
- Spend more time with family and friends. Let’s face it, none of us is going to be around forever. Let the people you love know it. Don’t wait. Spend time with them doing things you both enjoy. The memories will be long cherished. Live now.
- Haunt and revisit the places that inspire, sustain, and heal. One of my favorite places is the ocean. I love it there for the salty breeze, the feel of the gritty sand beneath my feet and between my toes on a hot afternoon, and the opportunity it provides to satisfy my collector’s heart. I go there for the shells and sea glass. I go there for the natural relaxation it provides, and I go there for the chance to get away from the hectic, overdone days of my life. And I am never disappointed or feel I’ve wasted my time for having gone there. Enjoy nature again.
- Draw and paint. These are gifts I have been wasting by putting other “priorities” first. I guess re-prioritize my life would be a good addition to this list, too. I used to love losing myself at my art desk loaded with charcoals, pastels, watercolors, oils, different types of paper and canvases and brushes and…wow, I miss it. I spent teenage summers capturing flowers and fruit, seascapes, landscapes. I won awards at local fairs for my artwork. What happened? Who knows? Just get it back.
- Just Breathe. Now I know this sounds like an odd statement to make, but there is a lot of stress in this world. I’ve done yoga, and one of the greatest benefits it teaches is how to live in the moment. We’re all too worried about tomorrow, what might happen, or the past and what has already happened. Take 10, deep-cleansing breaths twice daily. Sit in a quiet place when you do this, and close your eyes. Forget about having to do something, having to be somewhere, just sit there and focus on the breath. The world doesn’t teach us that it’s ok to be alone with ourselves, quietly.
How did I allow life to become so non-inclusive of all the things I love? I guess things that are big get lost in the background of our lives sometimes, replaced by the mundane, smaller necessities of living. In an effort to bring those sustaining backdrops back to life, take a few minutes to remember what you love, and why.
Melanie Hyatt is an editor at Maine Food & Lifestyle magazine .
