You’ve Got Mail!

I had a random thought this morning about mail delivery and what it must be like to deliver mail to a neighborhood for months to years at a time. Undoubtedly, a story for each house might be synthesized in one’s head. From bills, to magazines, to personal memos and postcards. What story would one surmise if they saw the mail that I received? Or the thoughts that enter my head and exit my mouth? I think we are all like mailboxes in that we receive information most days, some expected, some unexpected. Sometimes it doesn’t even belong to us, wrong address. And other days we wish it didn’t belong to us, but it does.

How many times have you waited for good news? How many times have you eagerly torn open a letter or package with high expectations? How many times were those expectations met? How many times were they not? How many times were your letters destroyed by inclement weather? As they say, don’t shoot the messenger.

I guess what all this amounts to is that I hope that your story ends up with a happy ending. I hope that the information you receive will be positive more times than not. I also say a little prayer for the postal worker tasked with delivering your mail to you, that they might be inspired by the way your story unfolds. That all of our expectant desires are fulfilled in due time.

Peace

Photo of artwork from my visit to the Van Gogh Experience, Fall 2021.

In this season I have found solace in silence. With this technologically-inclined world that we live in, we can reach a point where the absence of noise is daunting. We are constantly surrounded by our cell phones, computers, televisions, and more. But when was the last time you took an hour or more to just sit with yourself and think about everything around you? Oddly enough, you will be surprised how your thoughts overflow the silent space you have created in that moment. Thoughts you buried years ago without the intention of digging them up again tend to resurface. Emotions that have become intertwined with the fibers of your subconscious, beckoning their interpretation.

I recently went through the motions of this process for a day, then I increased the frequency of my practice. With some journaling and indulging in my hobbies such as singing and playing guitar, it was such a joy to create my own noise rather than being bombarded by external frequencies. You start to prioritize things differently, and to your benefit if I might add. Trivial, unresolved nothings exit your mental space, leaving room for more meaningful energy.

I highly recommend trying this, especially as we reach the end of the year. This time of year is always a reflective one for me (then again, when am I not reflecting, self-proclaimed philosopher and all). Wishing you a peaceful journey as you declutter and reconnect with yourself!

Where the Wild Things Are

Park by my neighborhood. Photo by Adaola O.
Duck sleeping by the lake. Photo by Adaola O.

Today I took a walk at a local park by my apartment complex. I had a lot on my mind, as I always do. Just random thoughts that needed solitude to sort out. This park has a lake with what seems like hundreds of ducks and storks. It gets to be so excessive that I actually have to park at a nearby church and walk over just to avoid being blocked in by the ducks (I learned my lesson after the first visit).

As I passed by the ducks, listening to Craig David’s latest album just because, a weird thought crossed my mind (and please don’t judge)-What do those ducks see when they look at me? What is their perception of space and time? In school we were always taught that the animals in nature acted according to the seasons. They would migrate to the south on the verge of winter. They would store their provisions in anticipation of the coming months of brutal cold. But what really happens in that community of life which we typically pay no mind to? Do they quarrel? Do they have dreams and aspirations of leaving home? Or are their actions just mechanic and synchronized with nature?

So I stopped and took some photos of them, as discretely as I could. And as I walked my path, I felt as though we (myself and the ducks) had some sort of agreement. I would stay out of their way, and they would stay out of mine. And we would exist in our respective microcosms of the world.

After thinking all too profoundly about this matter, I just ended up people-watching. Several children and their parents were present, the former wrapped up in some playground game that adults would not understand, the latter wrapped up in some conversation that children would not understand. And then there was me, just walking, with a purpose undefined, but a purpose nonetheless.