Wherever You At, There You Be

This is a tough lesson for all of us time-travellers of the mind. We tend to think in terms of our past or future in our inner monologues. But as one of my favorite old Cajun musicians used to sing, "Wherever you at, there you be." So it helps not only to make the best of where we are at, but to really celebrate it and enjoy it. I am particularly ready to espouse this belief, as it is summer, and a fine one. That always makes right now seem wonderful, when the lilies are splendidly, yellowly blooming, when the big puffy cumulus clouds drift lazy through the blue bowl of sky, when I can feel the air on my skin, and snuff the smell of hay-scented ferns.
But then, it is not always easy. The last day or so, I've been wishing I was in Japan, where money seems literally to be falling from the sky, or showing up in random mailboxes all over. And right at this moment, I am in the library, and my usual cozy computer station was taken and I have to be out in the open at a big table, surrounded by children playing video games and a guy who always talks to himself about stuff not working. Or he mumbles about nothing being the same. But you know, that's OK. I have become much more flexible about change the last few years. I am no longer particularly upset by it, as the guy to my left seems to be. I am trying to be where I'm at, and the guy next to me is part of that. The construction on my road that makes the house shake is part of it, along with the lemon lilies and the blue sky of summer, along with my beautiful dogs panting in the backyard and licking the sunscreen off my legs as I try to write amidst the noise of trucks and big machines. And I do write, and I do drink the coldest of cold water, and I do sweat then the breeze comes over, and the light shimmers in the pool next door and I can imagine the beautiful coolness of the water, and in the beautiful coolness of my own mind I write of forest pools where deer come down to drink.
So, the exercise today is Wherever You At, There You Be. Pick up your notebook and pen, take it with you into another room, or in the car, and sometime, when you feel really present, write/draw whatever is before you. Try to stay right in it, describe everything you see, smell, hear, etc. Then love it all.