Slow down, you move to fast, you've got to make the morning last... 

Twoish weeks ago, as I reported here, I dropped my entire bag with my wallet onto a snowy corner (thankfully, I got it back). Then, I left my wallet in plain sight in my unlocked car overnight. Overnight! When a frantic morning search overturning the house yielded nothing, I headed out to the car only to find my bright red wallet nestled between the driver and passenger seats. A few days ago, I lost my keys--my entire set of keys--house keys, mailbox key, multiple important university office keys--by leaving them in my shopping cart. After frantically pacing, checking and rechecking pockets, and staring into my locked car to see if perhaps I had unwittingly left my keys in the car, I went back into the store and was relieved to retrieve the keys at the information counter. 

Last night, I dropped my precious, life-line to the world cell phone into the toilet in one of the slow-movie moments where the phone is slips from my hand, as my mouth opens to in slow-mo to yell, "Ohhhhhhhnoooooo!" I dipped my hand into the toilet water (ew, ew, ew!) in one quick motion and rescued my phone. Miraculously, after a few sputtering fits and starts and several dropped calls, it proved to be unharmed. And, I, who dipped my hand into water with a live battery floating in it, was also unharmed and not electrocuted. 

I am a frazzly, out-of-sorts mess. Quietly, I am losing my grip. I am panic-stricken, anxiously clutching and wheeling around, and personally inconveniencing myself. 

These small, cumulative losses have gotten my attention. My life has gotten too busy, too noisy, too harried: too much multi-tasking, too much problem-solving, too much googling. I need large doses of quiet lay-a-bout time, stillness, silence. There's no miracle 2-week silent retreat in my future, but rather a series of days (several months worth of days even) with small breaks of deliberate, mindful, conscious moments of quiet. Time again, for the altar space I created in my early twenties: a box, a candle, a small picture and moments upon moments of soaking in the quiet did wonders for my spirit then and so I am drawing on that ever present resource and ritual again. Hold me. Cradle me. Replenish me.