Breathing

Every so often I look at my calendar and realize what a crazy life I keep. And that doesn't even include my planned exercise. I keep the activities color coded to represent work or the owner. The average work day is probably 1/3 to 1/2 meetings, and then things get really ugly. The kids need to be at this practice or that, meetings at Church, board meetings, Jil's occasional work night... People have seen my weekly calendar view and are amazed.

But that's only part of the story. When I'm not scheduled to be somewhere, there's always additional information processing to do. There's e-mail to read, Facebook and Twitter to follow, blogs to stay up to date with, podcasts to listen to during commutes.

The full schedule and the information bombardment are a big part of my drive to run and ride. Those activities allow my time to breathe. I'm a non-iPod person during exercise, so that is the one time during my day where it's just me. The only input is natural and calming. I'm able to take in the weather, both good or bad, and the varied smells and colors of the different seasons. And mostly I can rummage through my thoughts or not. Sometimes my thoughts will be very active and other times I just lose myself in the moment with no thoughts at all....nothing but breathing.

Artist for Song in Title: Kate Bush