Escape

I woke up at 5am quite easily this morning and was out the door at 5:30am to run an errand. I heard roosters crowing in the neighborhood. Wondered who owned them. I heard them clearly in the distance. Hearing them made me soooooooo happy because its been years since I heard one. It was cool outside and still dark and no one seemed to be getting off to work that early, no one had lights showing through their windows,no cars driving by and the roosters made it all seem even more still. I felt I was some place else and that feeling lasted an hour or so. It was a nice trip then the sun came out, the people and cars and noises and the roosters were long gone and so was all that wonderful, stillness and peace.

Lots of open space and farm animal noises can really relax me. When I was a kid and had a bad week at school there was always my grandparent's house and lots of big pecan trees to climb, lots of grassy space to run really fast on, lots of cows,sheep,goats,pigs and horses. They only owned chickens but their neighbors owned livestock. Lying on my tummy I would follow ladybugs through blades of grass, feed chickens and watch them eat every single grain, watch the livestock eat, feed the horses over the fence. I appreciated all this then and miss it now.

Vegas offered the same luxury of space. I'd get up every morning when I was there and look out the window and could see beyond the strip malls into the space and the mountains in the distant. Colorado holds deep breath moments and so does that cliff in the Sierra in Mexico where the train stopped and I couldn't hear anything but the wind unless I cupped my hand to my ear. My ability in Mexico had a walled garden that he created filled with tropical greenery, an orange tree, papaya tree, mango, lime and cirhuella tree. He'd water it every evening and was pretty meticulous about it. When we'd visit I'd wake up to 80 degree mornings and go sit in the cirhuella tree and eat a few and just watch everything come out and smell the fruits. Once a baby owl appeared and some huge lizard like thing that scared me to death when it came charging and swishing from out of this tropical greenery. I couldn't explore this area much because I'd find things like spiders the size of my eight year old hand that were flesh colored and creepy, or huge, hairy black moths and bats. It was best to sit in the tree and take in the smells of the fruits of the garden.

When someone tells me to just take a deep breath, it doesn't help much unless I recall a tranquil moment from my Lifetime of Memories Bank(these are filed under Peaceful Escapes). I'm lucky to have recorded quite a few of these moments. I used to wonder if I'd be able to have this on a daily basis but it is to luxe to posses for many reasons. For now, I feel completely motivated to step outside my door at 5:30am on those occasions I need to take deep breaths and then go back to bed.