REALIZING

     Occasionally I set aside an hour or so in which I do no reading or writing or walking or even talking; instead, I try to do what I call “realizing”. As an alternative to prioritizing, analyzing, or dramatizing (old habits of mine), I simply realize for a few minutes. One dictionary says to “realize” is to become fully aware of something, and to understand it better -- and this is exactly how I try to spend an hour now and then. I sometimes sit outside in the shade and do my best to realize – make more real – the limbs and leaves of trees as they bend and waver in the wind. I study them carefully and try to truly see them as they are, and before long, usually, some new understanding of them arises, as if they suddenly do become more real to me. I also sometimes realize the clouds in the summer sky above our house, just watching them wander along, steadily shifting their shapes. If I watch them long enough, they seem to slowly become more distinct, and therefore more remarkable, and somehow, again, a fresh kind of understanding of them comes to me. It’s an instructive way to occasionally spend an hour. It’s helpful, every so often, to realize this really wondrous world.