Present

This painting is one I love.  The artist used so many different colors for the clouds and such a lovely shade of blue for the sky.  I like the peace of quiet country fields, and I like the scale of the human figures in the world around them. What I see in this image is that hard work is necessary and honorable and beautiful; that ordinary people, whether we only pass through a certain patch of land or whether we see it and handle it every day, fit naturally into the grander scheme of the universe; and that no matter how muddy our shoes, we all share the same, glorious heavens.

But I have the luxury of space and time and the changes both have wrought on the world showing me what I see in that wheat field.  If I had been the farmer, I would have noticed the clouds only as they told me the weather.  I would have noticed the horse and rider only through a whole overlay of personal history that shaped how I felt about seeing him near that field.  If I had met the artist sitting day after day with his paints while I worked with my hands, I would probably have resented any prompt from him to look at the heavens.  After all, I'd only have time to look at them properly when my back was too bent and my hands too stiff and my legs too slow to work a full day anymore.

And in my life now, with my washing machine and bank account and instant access to global news, what do I miss?  What glorious heavens stretch over me unnoticed?  What fellow travelers leave without a word?  What truth do I fail to draw from the well of the world because I pass it by with my eyes lowered?

So one of the reminders on my computer desktop is: I am present.  Because I completely and utterly adore Kate DiCamillo for giving the world Edward Tulane and Despereaux and Opal and Mercy Watson, I read her Facebook posts.  One of them mused on the old schoolroom habit of saying "present" when the teacher called your name, and Kate expanded into the notion of saying to the world around you calling your name, "I am present."

To whatever is calling my name today - I am present.  I am listening.  I am here.

My first book, Dawn Hyperdrive and the Galactic Handbag of Death, is available from Amazon for Kindles and Kindle apps and from Smashwords for all other e-readers.  Check out my website to read the first chapter free!