La Vie en rose: A Day of Listening
Yesterday morning I read this quote by Jean Cocteau, “ The poet doesn’t invent. He listens.” I vowed to listen this day, and not only to the sounds and words that come my way, but to all the underlying meanings, and colors, and smells, and feelings.
Sylvia Plath wrote: “Remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I want to become acutely aware of all I’ve taken for granted.”
The sun decided to lead me, and it led me to Dream Cloud, a North Shore Coffee Shop. Yesterday while driving, I was thinking about my favorite winter hat that I purchased during my recent stay in Bulgaria. It disappeared in the last few weeks, so I was reflecting on how it was gone for good. It felt like a chapter closing, but as soon as I walked into Dream Cloud, the owners handed me the hat. They kept it hanging on the wall by the cash register with all the aprons. My enthusiasm was obvious.
It takes losing something and then finding it to feel gratitude and renewed appreciation for that something.
The moment I sat down, my gaze landed on a girl’s t-shirt that reminded me to breathe. I whispered to myself, “Remember, you are in the day of listening.”
On the drive back home, the lake and sky in the various nuances of blue took my breath away. Every time, I am in awe of this masterpiece. That’s the richness of beauty. It restores novelty and aliveness.
Edith Piaf was singing La Vie en rose as I drove along the lake. When I listen to music in a foreign language, I connect less to the words and more to the rhythm and melody themselves. That too is a form of listening, sensing what moves beneath literal understanding.
Back in the house, a hummingbird hovered by the window’s birdhouse. I lingered there for a while, watching the hummingbird hover. They are not calm creatures in the conventional sense, yet their movement is exquisitely organized. Nothing is wasted. Even the hovering, which looks effortless, is actually an astonishing feat of energetic coherence. A hummingbird’s heart can beat over 1,200 times per minute during intense activity. Their wings can also beat around 50–80 times per second, depending on the species. To survive this intense activity, they must enter into torpor at night. Without this daily “mini-hibernation,” they could literally starve overnight.
Perhaps the human journey also requires this rhythm: intensity followed by surrender, movement followed by stillness.
As part of an exercise, I had to listen to a heartbeat. It was both calming and dreadful, but I persisted to sit with the beat of life.
I spent the afternoon with my son and as much as I was immersed in my projects when he arrived, I returned to the present moment and his presence, and really listened to his questions and concerns and dilemmas. It felt good to truly engage with his life.
For dinner we visited a friend who loves animals, and they all show up by her kitchen door for food. Meanwhile, her cat was sleeping in a ceramic bowl on top of the cupboard, totally unbothered by our arrival. She knew how to be present with herself. The two parrots were loudly chirping close by. She showed us a video of a bear that was grabbing her bird feeders a few weeks ago on the front porch, and the mallards that have been regular visitors for three years. Maybe we love animals because they remind us of a more innocent and radiant way of being.
My friend’s house always carries a sense of peace and tranquility. Daffodils rested on the side table beside stacks of books, and a small bouquet sat quietly at the center of the dining table. The art hanging on the walls tells a story of its own. Her meals are always elegant in the simplest way, and you leave with a sense of calm and fulfillment.
When attention and care enter ordinary life, beauty returns, and from beauty love naturally flows.
