BIRTHDAY BATHROBE, THE COLOR OF A ROBIN'S EGG, and a Mindful Walking Poem

 Leah walks into her meditation room on her birthday, November 29th, and there is a big brightly-wrapped box sitting on her meditation bench.

What could her husband have bought her?

Smiling, she observes the curious way he has wrapped the box, with a combination of brown paper and clear green plastic.

She rips all the wrapping and scotch tape off the box and pulls open the top and inside is the softest, most beautiful bathrobe she’s ever seen. It has a hood, lined in cozy fabric that looks like sheep’s wool. And the bathrobe is pale blue, just like the old one, which is ready for the rag pile.

Later, she will say that it is this new bathrobe that pulls her back into writing her book, “Angels Keep Whispering in my Ears.”

But this morning, she takes off her old bathrobe and slips into the new one. She lopes down the hallway to the living room where her husband is meditating.

“I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!” she cries out, hugging and kissing him. “This is so so much what I needed.” He smiles and they embrace.

And then she walks quietly back to the meditation room, and begins slowing down her breathing, and lets her body go limp, readying herself to sit for as many minutes as feels right, facing emptiness.

*******

After doing this painting a few days ago, Leah realizes that her book is a collage, a memoir, a work of fiction, a timeline, and a forever incomplete portrait of her beloved ancestors.

*******

It's Thursday, and I turn on the dictation feature in my iphone 

as I am walking up long Baldwin Hill. I begin talking:

"My big rubber boots clod

one after another

one after another

making a slight hollow

sound on the asphalt.

On the side of the road are

wet matted leaves in various

shades of brown 

and pockets of snow that 

look like week old frosting

on a birthday cake.

Each step I take with my left leg

sends a sharp slice of pain down

my thigh but I wont let that stop

me nor will I give in to the throb

in the big toe on my left foot 

exactly where it hinges.

Globs of wind roll up my nose

and into my mouth -- I can

swallow them. My face

feels so pleasantly chilled. And now

the sun shows through the clouds like a milky

lemon drop and now too,

raindrops begin

in a scatter."