A Verbal Friday Five

Some Friday Fives are very easy to respond to. This one is a "thinker"...hmmm...

The author of Life is a Verb, Patti Digh worked her book around these topics concerning life as a verb:

Say yes.
Be generous.
Speak up.
Love more.
Trust yourself.
Slow down.
As I read and pondered about living more intentionally, I also have wondered what this Friday Five should be. This book has been the jumping off point for this Friday.

1. What awakens you to the present moment?
At the risk of sounding cliche', our four-leggeds are very talented at grounding me in the present moment. They experience their lives as NOW, and draw me into that. (Just as an immediate example...nothing can get me out of a sleepy under-the-covers morning reverie like a cold, wet dog's nose pushing itself into my face: Wake up!)

2. What are 5 things you see out your window right now?
1)my two personally designed hanging flower baskets -- one containing a rather striking and unusual cerise-and-chartreuse coleus and a very dark purple ivy geranium, and one that holds a fancy begonia, coleus, pastel salvia and sweet potato vines 2)our lovely spirea bushes 3)our almost-empty hummingbird feeder, whose bee guards have mysteriously disappeared from the feeding stations over the past week 4)our pond, covered in fuzzy tree seeds 5)Mollie the cat, blinking.

3. Which verbs describe your experience of God?
complicated; humorous (this happens more often than one would expect); subtle.

4. From the book on p. 197:
Who were you when you were 13? Where did that kid go?
When I was 13 I was an extremely smart, extremely competitive, quirky girl beginning to emerge from a lonely childhood; beginning to find my people in junior high school. That kid was worn down by my parents' insecurities, anxieties, educational/experiential limitations and angry/unloving relationship with one another; by peer pressure; by internalizing others' expectations of how I should be. (Can you tell that perhaps I've broached this subject in therapy before?)

5. From the book on p. 88:
If your work were the answer to a question, what would the question be?
An interesting question to ask of someone who's currently not working at a paying job. Perhaps the question is, "If you had the freedom to do whatever you wanted, what would you do?"

Bonus idea for you here or on your own--from the book on p. 149:
"Go outside. Walk slowly forward. Open your hand and let something fall into it from the sky. It might be an idea, it might be an object. Name it. Set it aside. Walk forward. Open your hand and let something fall into it from the sky. Name it. Set it aside. Repeat. . . ."
Since I'm still sitting here in my nightie, that's probably not something I'm going to be doing in the next few minutes. Ask me again later today.