April 17 – Here

“You are here.” Or, so it says on the map in the shopping mall. This may or may not be helpful to you, depending on your skill level at translating two-dimensional color-coded block representations of space into reality. Can you do that? If so, it might help you find the store you’re looking for. 

But I need more than that. Some days I need to know that I am real, located in real time and space. On days when old, old memories of pain resurface. When something happens that takes me away from the present and back to someplace, sometime that was difficult. Painful. And I go back to that place in some way, even though it is no longer real. Even though it is not rational. The body seems to want to hold on to pain that is no longer real.

Dorothy was my guide, years ago, in the practice of being present in the here and now. When old pain that was deep inside latches on to something and drags itself out of hiding to traumatize once again, Dorothy taught me to breathe and speak words of truth.

I have arrived, I am home

In the present and the now.

Breathe slowly, say it slowly, until you know it in your muscles and bones.

She taught me other phrases as well, and encouraged me to make up my own, too, anything that could fit my breathing and speak to my presence in the moment, in the here and now.

There is power here and now. Especially for the moments when pain is resurrected – a self-inflicted wound, this time around. What was once, perhaps, beyond my control, is now, in a way, a choice. I can let the old pain breathe new life and wreak havoc. Or I can breathe in, mindfully, and say to myself,

Breathing in, I calm my body,

Breathing out I smile.

Dwelling in the present moment

I know this is the only moment.

I. Am. Here.