March 2019 SOLC–Day 20
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As I drove to work yesterday, my mind whirled with to-do lists and the last minute adjustments I needed to make to grades and comments. I kept losing my place in my audio book and was thankful that it was one I’d already read, so I could maintain a tenuous grip on the thread of the story. Preoccupied with my thoughts, I turned into the drive that leads to the school parking lot.

Then I stopped. Literally. My mind stopped swirling and I stopped the car. In the middle of the drive. Heedless of cars that might be behind me. (Luckily, there were none.)

There in front of me was a stream of steam flowing from a pipe in the roof of the school. Behind it was the sun, just cresting the horizon. The two combined to create the most beautiful smoky light extravaganza. I don’t think the picture does it justice, but the moment and the image remain clear in my mind. Sunlit roiling steam. Beauty in the ordinary…perhaps even beauty in the ugly. 

My thoughts turned to Mary Oliver and her insistence on being mindful of the potential for joy and delight that surrounds us within the ordinary. I typically associate her words with nature, but in this instance, it was a combination of man and nature that moved me. 

After taking a few photos, I pulled into the parking lot. My chaotic thoughts seemed less turbulent now. Instead of feeling rushed, I felt grateful to have been pulled out of my introspective fugue and into the wonders of the world. Grateful to have been “killed with delight.”

Mindful
by Mary Oliver

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.

…..

Click here to read the entire poem.