Stopping By The Woods

The park across the street from my apartment

As I thought about my thoughts for today's post, I kept returning to my desire for spring.  March has come in like lion this year with our largest snow fall yet.  Today, as I struggled to make it up the hill to my house and nurse a sore wrist after falling in the driveway, I long for the cool warmth of spring.  I can't wait to run outside and put the ice scraper in the trunk for another year.

However, I know in the wetness of spring I will long for the simplicity of summer.  In the heat of summer I will long for the crispness of fall.  And in the dreariness of fall I will long for the beauty of winter. 
So, instead, I will choose to savor this winter day.

There is something very...safe about being in my warm apartment as the snow falls.  I have made it home and have no where else to go.  I can sit in my quiet apartment, listen to the neighbors and town public works officers make sure the roads are drivable tomorrow.  I can watch the snow fly around my windows, thankful for my ability to heat my home.  Yes, indeed I feel very safe.

I wonder, do we rush through our lives so much that we do not savor today?  Are we so eager for what is next we forget to embrace what is now?  I am guilty of this I know.  I often look forward to the next project, the next patient, the next turn in the road.  I am always curious about the new and unexplored.  I am from a generation where I can have the world at my figure tips and share my life with the world.  Why slow down when I can do anything else?

My Life Experiment this week is teaching me to slow down.  Without the distraction of the television to slow my mind and body, I have to remind myself that I too deserve a break.  More importantly, this one life I have been given is too rich not to take a moment to notice.  I hope that you too can ease into your life, look out the window, and find the safety which can only be found in the present moment.

As I watch the snow fall while drinking my tea and breathing deep the smell of fresh brownies in the oven, my thoughts turn to my favorite poet:

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening 

by Robert Frost (1923)

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep. 

We all have miles to go, but how about for tonight, we allow ourselves to stop and savor.

It has been a wonderful week, many thanks for those who continue to return day after day.  Again, I will be taking the weekend off but promise to be back on Monday with final thoughts on my Life Experiment.

*For those of you wondering (like those in Maine or my dad with his beloved Weather Channel) this post was indeed written on Thursday March 1 during the storm and scheduled to be published on Friday.