Note to Self

I didn’t always enjoy reading; perhaps because I am a slow reader. It was in my teens that I discovered the behind the scene magic of text. But writing, that was always my very favorite mode of expression. I grew up in Paris where people watching is the national pass time. I saw cafe-goers on bistro chairs spilled onto the sidewalks, lined up in neat rows to allow for optimal observation, and often wished I was one of them; while I did most of my hunting for subjects to write about seated in a subway car. I dreamt up lives for the passengers near me and surveyed them for clues. I noticed people’s moods, their scars and imagined how they acquired those witnesses of a rough day.

I noticed the freshly painted storefronts, the carvings on building facades and the blooming buds that announced the arrival of my favorite season. People’s tone, their body language, and their speech. The movement of the clouds, the titles customers purchased at the book store and the content of their grocery shopping carts. I wondered why if people bought expensive linen pajamas they got to wear them as outfits and why those who apologized the most often were the ones who had nothing to apologize for. I found meaning behind all I saw and wondered what I was to do with these messages. I noticed, and felt smug for doing so for I called it ‘Mindfulness’ if only because it kept me in a state of observing, all the while knowing that it was hunting that I was truly after. Hunting for a loot to exploit. And I believed that this practice was the cornerstone of my wellbeing. Then a few days ago I came face to face with wisdom in the most unexpected of places.

“How do you keep busy?” I asked Maude who was all too eager to tell me about her daily schedule; regimented as she is. Two hours a day of high impact exercise followed by a short hike. We walked toward the synagogue where she was to meet her husband and I couldn’t help but congratulate myself for keeping up with the septuagenarian’s pace.

“I must exercise,” I thought, on my leisurely stroll home. “But I do so much more for my health. I write and practice mindfulness,” I thought , my steps slowing ever so slightly; taking in my surroundings, breathing in the fresh spring air.

A young man passed me, pulled by a dog half his size and perhaps more than half his weight. We smiled at each other and Ozzie, my new granddog came to mind. A few wild flowers beckoned from behind a fenced yard, rebelling against the unkempt patch of grass. “Beauty will always win”, I thought, thinking of the lines I’d draft when the opportunity came.

That’s when a voice seemed to call at me in the form of a sign hanging on a tree. It read: “Notice: If you notice this notice you’ll notice that this notice is not worth noticing.”

And I knew it was talking directly to me. It called me to order in such few words. It said: There is virtue in silence and not everything needs digging up. Certain things are best left alone.