Just Breathe!

Living in the "Burbs" , in an apartment, it seems as if there is always noise, from the screaming three year old below me who seems to have un-natural lung power and stamina! Slamming doors, people can not seem to hold the knob and close quietly. The screaming ( why do kids always scream while playing??) kids that are really too big for the tot play ground, but are there most days all the same. Cars coming and going all day, and in the distance sirens and the sound of traffic on the freeway.  I am surrounded by concrete, a few trees and standard patches of grass. Rarely seeing any birds outside my windows...currently the view is a porch filled with garbage from an abandoned apartment that the management can not clean up till all legal hoops are jumped through. I hardly open the windows from the people who smoke and the breeze always seems to waft it right through my windows. So with all this going on I often find it hard to breathe.

(not my burbs...just a sample of burbs)

I grew up in the country, on five acres surrounded by rolling fields, soaring hawks (now the only ones I see are on lamp posts overlooking the freeway on ramp) scrub jays, and other various birds that would migrate through OH! and dragon flies flitting about on a regular basis...loved those! The butterflies were all over and humming birds would buzz my head or peck on the window when it was time for the feeder to be filled. We had trees and wild grasses that created beautiful music as the wind would push through the leaves. One could sit outside at any given moment and just breathe. Relax and well just be.

photo found online of actual area that I used to live...well close by, see the hill in the distance?

I had a garden as well, always having a need for being surrounded by flowers, and tending them, watching them grow and blossom ..."stop and smell the roses" was a daily thing for me. Picking wild flowers for the table and planting new finds from the nursery was a constant endeavor. The bees buzzing, sent of the rosemary and other herbs as the sun warmed them up drying up the moisture from the morning fog that came from living so close to the coast. I can close my eyes and still feel and smell it all...and I breathe in deeply, exhaling all my stress, worries and physical pain. It is a place I can always go to in my heart and mind, an escape and a place that lets me breathe.

Similar to what my garden looked liked, but add a lot of roses!

 Where we lived, we also lived very close to the beach. I could walk for hours, and often did, rain or shine, up and down along the crashing waves of the Pacific coast. I would watch as all the gulls, pelicans would soar, scooping fish from the ocean and sand pipers would scurry seeking sand crabs for their meals. Though near a highway, all you could hear was those waves hitting the shore and rushing back out again , I would collect hundreds of shells to occupy my time and to place in jars once home. The breezes would push me up and down the beach and I would sit on the rocks often times lost in my own thoughts and just listening to my heart beat in time with the waves. It has been years since I have been to a beach and it is like a part of me is missing, so often I pop in a CD with the sounds I remember on it and I lay there and drown out the apartment noises and just breathe.

Pismo Beach, CA. I miss it so.

Grover Beach , CA. connected with Pismo. I walked the whole route nearly each day for years.

 When we lived in Texas, in the early morning when it was still cool enough, I loved grabbing my cup of tea and a small snack and sitting out and watching the birds and squirrels fight over the food we put out. They all had lost their fear of me for the love of peanuts and sunflower seeds. We lived in a quiet neighborhood and so you could hear the bugs buzzing, the ripples of the breeze as it skimmed across our pool and the chirps of the squirrels as they fought over the peanuts. I could relax and watch for hours at a time as long as we had a fan moving the humidity filled air about. I adored the night equally, for the stillness, nothing but power lines and cicadas buzzing ( well mosquitoes too, but I wore protestant for those!) and if we were lucky there was a thunder and lightening show for us to enjoy over a glass of wine. The clap of the thunder would drown out everything in my mind and I would just sit still and breathe and take in the glory of Mother Nature. It truly was divine.  

Today as I walked I passed by peoples porch swings and remember sitting at our home that we gave up nearly two years ago, our cottage on Main Street, and how day in and day out I would sit on the that porch, despite the traffic that passed by, the scent from the Mock Orange tree and jasmine vines so powerfully heady that it would make you swoon. The humming birds would buzz on the Bottle Brush tree near by and every so often a big black bumble bee would pass right in front of me while I sat on our swing with my cup of tea. There was squirrels that would covertly dart in and out of yards, up and down trees like small fuzzy spies on a mission. Sitting there I could always just breathe while what seemed the whole world passed by.

My walks are far more than a way to get from point A to point B, now that I do not drive. They go beyond needed exercise and a way to earn that doughnut , they are an escape, a seeking out of a place in the middle of the concrete to just be, let my mind go blank, taking in nature and Gods wonder, and well of course to just breathe. I have managed, in the middle of all the concrete to find paths that weave along marshes, and open fields, at times along creeks and small water falls. I see jack rabbits, egrets,wild finches, quail ,wild turkey, pheasants and on occasion a deer or two. The sounds from the robins, red wing black birds, and the occasional hawk not to mention the massive amounts of sparrows are enough to drown out the city that lies all about .

All photos in this group from my walks.

It is a bit of heaven on earth and allows me to just breathe before I am at the end of the trail and surrounded by cars driven by people who seem shocked there is a person wanting to cross the street when the light changes, as they are too much in a hurry and have forgotten how to just slow down, take a deep breath and just breathe! I hope as you go throughout your daily life, no matter where you are, what you are doing, and where you live, to just breathe...it is so very important, and you will be glad you did.