Where are you?

Welcome to the Mindful Intensity Series!

Where are you?

“When you are taking a shower, check and see if you are in the shower. You may already be in a meeting at work.”–Jon Kabat-Zinn

My “Where am I?” moment yesterday came as I was eating lunch: toast with peanut butter and jelly. I was sitting at our kitchen table, already half-way through the first piece when the thought popped into my head: “Am I here?”

Of course, I wasn’t. We rarely are. Wherever and whenever we happen to be in the physical sense, our minds are out to lunch someplace else, at an earlier time or a later one, holding onto grudges or fretting about the future, reminiscing or planning, replaying old conversations or imagining new ones.

While mindfulness is about letting go of the hold our thoughts have on us, sometimes a simple thought—”Where am I”?—is helpful.

So, I bade farewell to the people and places I had been with and came back to myself… and my lunch.

Peanut butter and jelly on bread. The bread is toasted golden brown and crunchy on the edge and still a little soft in the middle. The peanut butter melts ever so slightly against the warm bread. The tart sweetness of the wild chokecherry preserves complements the saltiness of the peanut butter. Each bite fills my mouth with a goodness that clings stubbornly to my palate and teeth. The house is quiet… not really. The refrigerator churns with its strange defrosting sounds. The clocks tick tock tick tock in alternating rhythms. Roofers next door hammer and hum and talk.

At the time, I didn’t think the above words, or at least I tried not to. I focused on the experience. My mind did occasionally wander through time—I remembered that the preserves were leftover from a Christmas gift from my father, for example, and I wondered whether we needed more Italian Breadsmith loaves—but I gently brought my attention back to the moment and the only chance I had to live it.

It was a most delightful lunch date for three: me, myself, and peanut butter toast.

Try it with an orange (a light, fun video for the college crowd, or for parents and children to share):

Assignment: Whenever the thought occurs to you, whether in the shower or at mealtime or walking the dog or standing in line at the post office, ask yourself, “Where am I?” Then come back to yourself and the moment, and, for as long as it happens, be there.