happy birthday

(mon oct 8th)
today are my dad's and cousin's birthays. happy birthday and all my best to them.

this fall is so beautiful. on the way home from the library with the kids today, i took a detour down this pretty road i know, with spectacular views of a river winding through the woods. i was driving so slow, just looking at everything (fortunately, there were no other cars), and it was even more beautiful than i had hoped. i felt like i missed every other fall in the past, like i was witnessing the colors and smells of leaves and damp earth for the first time. yet, even with all that, i felt like i could only let myself go into it so far. i felt like there was some kind of wall inside of me that made it very hard to surrender and enjoy it ccompletely. i've noticed this feeling in other situations, both pleasant and unlpleasant. i'm surprised about the pleasant ones: why should i experience resistance to beauty and joy? it's almost like i'm afraid of too much happiness, afraid of losing control maybe? i just finished "the power of now" by eckhart tolle, and i guess he'd say that what i'm experiencing is the ego trying to maintain control, afraid that it will disolve if it lets go. maybe that's true, i don't know, i want to figure out what's true for me.

so this thing i'm talking about is hard to describe - it feels like a resistance to fully enjoying whatever it is in front of me. i feel like i'm enjoying things mostly on a mental level, and then beyond that something stops me. like if i look at a tree, i'll think of how beautiful the leaves are, and how the branches entertwine so gracefuly and i'll hear and feel the breeze and think of how great it is, but it still feels like everything is mostly happening in my head, like everything needs to be put in words, qualified through language. i feel a strong desire to go beyond that, to not qualify my experience, not to only think of it, to experience it more fully. that's when the resistance comes in, and with it, sometimes, frustration.

i'm playing with all of this right now, practicing both with things i enjoy and those i don't. in the meantime, i just thought i'd share.