It began as a sunny prism’d morning and quickly transformed into an afternoon of wind and dust. I cannot see the mountains. The air has a heavy haze….dust. To go outside, particularly for a mouth breather, is to invite the buffeting of dust and wind, itchy eyes and more sneezing.

I remember the quantum physicists talking about how all elements of life still exist. We contain the very elements created when the universe was born. I remember giggling when one said we could inhale the very breath Julius Caesar exhaled. With a smile, I looked out the same window where the sun and glass created the rainbow dance this morning and tried to find the mountains. I wondered how far the dust had traveled, who or what had come to visit my yard, the mountains, the lake, and my lungs. I laughed to think of who I showered off my body and who I would gather when I go out tonight. And if I don’t shower when I return, who would be resting with me upon my skin, hair, and in my lungs, as I lay down to sleep tonight.

A silly thought I know. But it gives an appreciation of the teaching that fear is fear, joy is joy, pain is pain, and happiness is happiness. When I let go of the story attached and do not think they were sent special delivery addressed to me, they simply become my humanness. I can release and know a centered contentment.

I remember the scene in A Charlie Brown Christmas where Charlie Brown defends Pig-Pen by saying his “dust may be the soil of ancient Babylon…it staggers the imagination.” Pig-Pen remarks, “Sort of makes you want to treat me with more respect.” Yes it does Pig-Pen, yes it does. Dust is dust. But somehow, even typing this silly little pondering, the haze seems a bit crisper, and I welcome the travelers and life that have come to visit. Everything a teacher.