Back on the zen train. Yesterday I read the story about the man running from the tiger who falls off a cliff and hangs by a vine over an abyss. When he looks up he sees the tiger. When he looks down he sees the abyss. Two mice come along (apparently unbeknownst to the tiger, but I digress...) and start gnawing at the vine. Just then the man sees a ripe strawberry growing nearby. He plucks off the strawberry and bites into it. Mmm...delicious.

Reading this story again got me thinking about feelings and I wondered if I knew this was the last time I was ever going to feel sadness would I be able to appreciate it as deeply as that man appreciated the strawberry? If joy can be found in each thing, each feeling, each circumstance, could I even bless sadness and grief and its part in this life?

So I love it when a train, in this case the zen train, gets caught up in a synchronicity. After all of these zen thoughts and an amazing meditation, I was driving with the kids in the car later on and really marveling at this life that is ours- this life that we are- and I went over to Powells to {gasp} buy a book. I didn't find the book I went in for- well, I found one of them but not the other- but I did pass by another book that caught my eye- a new release hardcover, The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. So far so good and right on track when I opened up and read this quote by Colette, "What a wonderful life I've had. I only wish I'd realized it sooner." It made me want to pluck whatever strawberry happened along right then and enjoy it for all it was worth. So, of course, I bought the book. {A bold, impulsive response to a beckoning synchronicity, no less.) It seems there is still time, always time, right now for noticing what life offers and going ahead and picking it up. Mmmm....delicious. And now for those strawberries Eva picked out at the store.