Hello, my good friends!
Everybody’s talking about mindfulness or as I like to call it, mind-full-ness.
Breathe, they say. Focus on the present moment; bring your body, mind and feelings together to create a sense of calm. Breathe.
Yes, lovely. But what about mind-full-ness? You know, when thoughts are swirling around and around through your mind all at once? Like when you get dumped by a wave and the whitewater crashes around you, and the next thing you know, you’re sitting on the bottom of the ocean, crushed by a swirling cloud of sea foam and sand?
Breathe. In and out. Should I make a green dream-catcher or a blue one today? Should I write up the old transcripts from Mim’s radio show for this new blog page? Or start afresh on this new path and write up whatever comes to mind?
Breathe. In and out. Should I have a beef or chicken schnitzel for lunch at the Mullet? Mushroom gravy or pepper sauce? Breathe. And then you start singing a riff from a cheesy song you haven’t heard for years, whirling around your mind, playing over and over.
It’s like my good friend Wally was saying to me when I told him about this feeling of being unable to do this mindfulness business because of my mind-full-ness. Now, our Wal’s mind is always full, brimming with ideas for his wonderful inventions.
He said to me,
“Kelvin, you just gotta focus on doing one thing at a time and do that one thing.”
I thought about that. Made sense.
But then, once again, I drifted back into the sea foam of thoughts and didn’t even know it, churning things over and over while chopping some onions for a sausage sizzle, my eyes streaming with tears. And then I sliced the end of my finger off.
Then, I kicked my little toe on the door frame as I rushed to grab a band-aid.
And there was Wal’s voice, floating through my mind like a piece of seaweed dancing on the tide—Focus on one thing at a time.
Smart man.
And as my good friend, the wonderful clown, Krunkle le Pop, said to me at the pub when I told him the story;
“Let that be a lesson to you, fool of a Took.”
Breathe. In and out. One thing at a time.
With kindness,
Kelvin
