A conversation with Myself!

This road side sign above, in the Highways and busy streets invited my attention recently! I looked for such sights in different places and I realised that they are often located in curves, traffic junctions  and hair pin bends on the road. They are conspicuous on hilly roads. 

What caught my attention was this road sign on the hight way, where the road is straight with full visibility for long distance, but warning the driver of a traffic junction ahead.

It became a metaphor for me during a  long distance ride recently. 

I thought of the last two years in my life. I spent about ten hours at work, six days in a week while responding to recover from the dull of the COVID season. The result was 'driving' fast along  the highway of life. I realised, how time for everything else, which was my normal rhythm, was subsumed by the demands at work place. I found that this 'fast highway drive' was beginning to show signs of emotional tiredness and inner restlessness. 

On that evening, after returning from the long distance ride, I felt like walking along the pedestrian path of a busy road. 

 

The above foot path with elegant trees, casting shadow on the path on one side and with rows of houses on the other side, called back my earlier thoughts, while riding on the high way. This walk was a slow, easy and full of sights to take in. 

There were gardens in the courtyards of houses with lawns and flowering plants. Even a small space was alive with sights that captivated my attention. The thoughts about speedy high way drive of the last two years at work place, and the reduced living, deprived me of other colourful experiences of life, returned to me. A friend recently sent me a message, 'Hi, MC, your regular messages stopped coming! Are you well'!

My life got so preoccupied with work related engagements that the colourful experiences of friendships, regular morning walks, time  to read, visiting places and being in touch with friends got reduced to the extent that the void of these experiences was beginning to make me feel restless.

It was a way of living I was forced into or to be fair, which I chose, which was making me to feel distant from the inwardness that I was used to. The inwardness is an experience when one lives in an integrated way holding the wide range of experiences in life in good balance without any one dimension displacing others. 

During this walk along the foot path, I saw a sign board into a wooded area. I took that path as I was in a reflective mood. While walking along the wooded area in the narrow footpath, I heard the bird calls, felt the wind blowing, watched the bird movements and sensed that it was a cooler and quieter space, different form the noisy high way. I had no idea where the path would rejoin the footpath of the road. I knew that I could retrace my steps if the path did not join the footpath on the main road. 

What was ahead me was the view of the other side of the the sub-urban area. That was a panaromic view of  the next suburb. It was a breathtaking view, well beyond my imagination. 

While taking in this sight, I felt drawn to the canvas of life within, when so much happened in the last two years, which remained unnoticed or unattended as I was speeding along the high way. 

The text on the first photo in this blog came back to me, 'Reduced Speed'! 

While walking back about two kilometres, after this inner awakening to visit the inner canvas of my life, I felt aroused within to sense, feel and listen to the voices that did not have space within earlier for a while. My preoccupied self got another wind of insight that life is for living fully now and not wait for  a later occasion. 

The now in life had become far form me! 

I longed to have the rhythm of life returned to me with a sense of presence to myself!

At work place while I was closing the day at 7 pm yesterday, this imagery of living the  rhythm of life fully, returned to me. 

One comment of a parent helped me to long even more for that to be a present reality in my life. He said: 'Thank you for giving me time even though it was late in the evening'. He had waited for three hours for this time to arrive for his consultation. I asked him how he spent the time while waiting. He told me: 'I took that time to go over the last two weeks of my life experiences'!

I felt blessed by that comment. Here was a person, who used his time to gauge if he needed to reduce the speed!

Life is a canvas of experiences, peeks and valleys. It is when we live connected with our inward events, we become alive to process the events of each day with meaning and coherence!

It is when use live connected with ourselves, God of our lives would become more experiential!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)