“Sitting still is a way of falling in love with the world and everything in it.”  — Pico Iyer.

When I was very young, it was dangerous for me to relax, and when I got older, I was too anxious and distracted to relax, and when I became a writer, I didn’t dare to relax. Then I lost my mind and couldn’t possibly relax.

My blog is my creative center, my living memoir, my shared life, my place to share my photos. Silencing it for any length of time is very difficult and uncomfortable for me. It’s almost as if I don’t exist anymore, a feeling I am too familiar with. The loss of my technology- my voice to the world –  makes it much harder for me to relax, all the greater challenge.

When I am not writing, do I really exist?

There is a fine line between obsession and creativity. I am also married to a person who believes, as I do, that we must prove our worth and creativity every single day, or it might go away, or be taken from us.

Lately, I’ve been told –  and have come to see – that I really don’t know how to relax or even know what it means to relax. This is taking a toll, I am weary in my head.

My computer has crashed, and I’m getting a new one on Wednesday, or possibly Tuesday, the same day Zinnia comes home. I’ve also lost my long-time photo editing and storage system, and need to figure out how to use a new one.

I fear the interruption of my work with the elderly and the refugee children. I don’t want to fail them, not even for a few days. It is an extraordinary thing to be needed and to feel needed.”Do you promise to come back?,” one Mansion resident asked me today when I said was going away for a few days.

I can recall very few times in my life that I ever sat still, without a book to read or some task to consider. My mind can run faster than any Kentucky Derby Champion.

Maria and Sue Silverstein and other friends have told me honestly and directly that I am tired and need to take a few days off and try to relax.  I believe it. The work I am doing now is immensely rewarding, but it isn’t simple either.

I am lucky to have people around me who care enough about me to tell me the truth, and I am getting less stupid in some ways, I am learning to listen to these voices rather than dismiss them or blow them off.

So today, as I enter my seventh decade of life, and without a computer for the first time in six years,  (this is written on Maria’s laptop), I began the process of learning what it means to relax. I so love learning new things.

Here’s what I did.

I slept late, accepted Maria’s kind invitation to take care of the morning chores and make me breakfast in bed, something I am not inclined to let her do.

As we talked, I told her it would be interesting to write about what relaxing really is for me, and she laughed.

Is this how you relax?, she wondered, and I said well yes, it is, I think.

But it depends whether I write out of inspiration or compulsion. I said I wouldn’t write until dark, if then, and I didn’t. It was not hard, it was a thing of surprise and joy.

We will be traveling on Monday and Tuesday, you won’t hear from me then.

We made love after talking, something I so deeply appreciate, after giving it up for so many years and learning to live without. I don’t wish to live without it ever again, not to my last breath.

It is a connection of the soul. It is profoundly peaceful and relaxing.

Maria left me to read my latest book, short stories by the wonderful writer Karen Russell, Orange World And Other Short Stories  (she also wrote Swamplandia) as she went downstairs to make me a cup of tea and an egg/cheese sandwich on wheat bread sandwich with sliced apples, which was delicious.

We lay in bed together for another hour, while we read and talked and just held one another.

We got up, dressed and showered, then went to the Farmer’s market and bought food for lunch – fresh fruit, cheese dumplings, and spinach and cheese quiche for when we get home on Tuesday.

I sat by the fire in the living room and finished two of Russell’s short stories.

It is my faith now to do some good every single day in any way I can. I have followed this sacrament for more than two years now, I have internalized this, I don’t need to remind myself of it, this is my faith now. It is a part of every day.

Today’s good was bringing cookies to the Mansion aides and then bringing Fate to the new Memory Care Center, which is named in honor of the Army Of Good. We had the most wonderful visits with Georgianna, Nancy, Jean, and Billy. I got a letter to read from Sylvie, who scolded me about neglecting her for the new Memory Care Center.

I think often of Fred Rogers who wrote: “…whenever people come together to help either another person or another creature, something has happened, and everyone wants to know about it – because we all long to know that there’s a graciousness at the heart of creation.”

I want to know that, and I believe it. I want to do good every day. It is more healing than decades of therapy.

After that, I came home and read one more short story, made myself and Maria some crackers and liver pate.

Then I sat down to meditate and be still. This was an alien and strange experience, I stopped meditating and just was still for more than an hour. There is a difference, it is profound to just be in solitude.

I felt a powerful sensation come over me, from the insides out. It started below the heart and came up through my chest and heart.

It was a tingling sensation, and also an exhilarating one as if I were flying over a beautiful field, warmed by the sun and carried by the wind.

And yes, at that moment I fell in love with the world and everything in it, all of my anger and envy and fear and judgment just melted away, and I felt so light and free.

I was as calm and peaceful as I can recall being. Perhaps this is what it means to be relaxed, you have to think – not overthink – about it.

At the end of the day, Maria said she was impressed, she said she saw that I really had relaxed, that it was really different. She said she doubted that I would or could stop writing all day, let alone for a few days.

I think I surprised and impressed myself. It is sometimes a gift to be stubborn. I might even try it again.

After I get my new computer and photosystem set up, and train Zinnia, and teach my Writing Workshop at Bishop Maginn and finish up the Mansion Aides Break Room and get everyone the sweaters they need for winter.