It is the act in which I detach —so that I may be more fully present.

This summer I was on the move,
traveling distances to visit family and long-time friends,
celebrating anniversaries and enjoying reunions.
I had days packed with relaxing activities!
I also had my concerns:
my mother’s knee surgery 
an older friend’s loss of short-term memory. 
And I stayed in touch with work,
revising a paper for publication,
advising graduate students pressing to complete their theses
(done in snatched moments via email en route).

I relish the variation on my usual routine that summer brings
but often feel ungrounded,
like I’m spread across the country,
with undigested reactions to experiences strewn along the jet stream. 
As the summer proceeds,
I feel less and less available
to the moment I’m experiencing,
to the rare face-to-face presence of a cherished person.
Inadvertently, I’ve found helpful
an adaptation of my life-long practice of journaling. 

Usually, journaling is the place I narrate events,
work through thoughts,
jot down dreams and ruminate about their meaning –
where I reflect on the deeper currents
flowing below the daily events of my life. 
However, sitting in an airport terminal waiting for a flight,
I find it difficult to deepen enough to write in these ways. 
I write comments such as,
“Great!  They’ve just announced that
the flight’s been delayed another hour.  ARG!”
or “I just ate this delicious fish taco
from the Mexican restaurant at Midway in Chicago.  Yum!” 
Even though at the back of my mind,
I have a dream I want to document,
or a new spiritual insight into a problematic situation,
what I’m experiencing is this everyday irksome reality.

However, this summer I realized that
such comments actually serve a purpose: 
they help me acknowledge the moment I’m in,
and leave me free to move on from it. 
Noting this, I began paying attention to my reactions to things,
particularly the ones that seemed to be hanging around
in my thoughts, emotions, and body
after I’d moved on from the situation.
I started writing them down,
no matter how mundane. 
I wrote them into my journal
along with my dreams,
the insights,
the recipe to the delicious dessert my friend made me,
the bliss of floating in the icy waters of Puget Sound,
my exclamations over seeing former classmates,
the haiku I wrote with my twelve-year-old nephew
about our family’s summer afternoon activities. 

I didn’t worry about writing any particular way
except to express exactly what was on my mind
and in my heart
onto the smooth inviting white paper of my journal. 
The black ink flowing through my pen
carried what was in me out onto the page
so that when I closed my journal and put it away,
I could move on to the next moment
free and available to whatever was happening next.

A practice I’ve heard attributed to Buddhism
is to be present and non-attached in situations,
particularly with other people. 
Journaling is the act 
by which I am able to digest reactions and responses,
not only those holdovers from the past
I encounter with family members,
friends of thirty years,
and reminders of the self I once was,
but also simply whatever might happen. 
It is the act through which I detach
so that I may be more fully present.