Be Where Your Feet Are

I am embarking on a few projects of organizational proportions. One involves writing, and one involves music.

I have resisted converting my media server to iTunes because I did not have an iPod. I have resisted having an iPod because they are expensive, and I am resentful of all the people that wander around with those little white buds in their ears. Inwardly, I scoff at the need to always being multi-tasking, the inability to just be in one place at one time. For their offense, iPods went right up there with iPhone and Blackberry, and any other phone which makes it too easy to divide one’s attention.

It has become exceedingly important to me to focus, to simply be where I am. I sometimes even become anxious just seeing other people disappear from their physical surroundings (mentally disappear, anyway) as a handheld device absorbs their attentions. My cell phone does not send or receive text messages.. not because the phone itself is antique or anything like that. I chose those settings, I had the service turned off. Mostly because they cost 15 cents a pop, and my friends seemed to text without much thought to that. Understandable, as most people these days have plans which include texting. I am sure that one of these days I will incorporate texting into my life, because I can see the benefits of it. For now, if something is important enough for someone to contact me, it's important enough for a phone call. (/text rant)

Even when I was in college, it amazed me how many people would be half-absorbed just in the walk across campus. I had a few high-powered days wherein I, in the space of time running from here to there, had to make a quick phone call, but as soon as I noticed myself slipping into a habit of 'needing to be on the phone' while walking, I put the thing firmly into my pocket. That ten minutes, or even just five, became an important breather. A moment to just taste the air, see the squirrels, notice the latest changed of vegetation, and hear the birds and wind. To just look around.

It's pretty amazing the peace of mind that can come with that moment to regather the self. I feel that attention splitters really do fragment us somehow, that if one is constantly checking football scores, one is not immersed in the Journey concert one is currently attending. Some of us don't even need devices.. we can worry about homework and tasks left unfinished all on our own.

"Be where your feet are," Erin said once when we were at Zen Zero (appropriately named for the advice of the moment). When your mind is somewhere else, you are not in two places: you are in no place at all.

Early in my Kansas life, I enjoyed going on walks to explore the park areas near my home. As I got better at these long walks, I began also to jog a little bit. But I still liked the freedom feeling that went with the simple open awareness... just me, my tennis shoes, the grass and sky. I like where my feet are.

(Currently, I am sitting in a coffeeshop in the south of Kansas City. Homer's Coffee House, chosen of course for its name, has proved to be a lovely place for me to spend some time. Today is my "Kansas City Adventure Day" which will be explained in more detail later.)