Spring Flow

The freshness of the air today and the greening of the grass signal to my nose and eyes the beginning of spring. A walk with my dog, Vivi, is mandatory on this last day of March. As I prepare to write a new essay I promise myself to lean into the senses that I love—smell, sight, hearing, touch— when Vivi and I head down the muddy hill to the creek in our forest. I need to distract my sense of taste (yes, it is often my favorite) from my chips and salsa and get going.

The sky was bluer than I expected and the creek fuller. I love when I head down the hill in my backyard and I hear the creek before I can see it. Vivi sprinted and I tromped through squishy mud to get close to the water. She used her sense of taste. I did not. Water, cold and refreshing.

It was probably nearly sixty springs ago now. The small gully between our farmhouse and the cattle yard, corn crib, barn, silos, and pig pens always became a catch-all for the snow run-off and any blessed spring rains. My brother, Paul, and I would excitedly pull on our faded red rain boots but not before our mom pulled plastic Wonder Bread bags over our feet to keep our “footies” dry. Off we’d go to plod down the hill to play in the water. It was a river to us even if it was barely three feet wide and a depth of 3 to 6 inches. If we were lucky the spot where the gully met the cow yard would create a rollicking waterfall. We’d spend hours wandering that impermanent creek and squishing the sticky mud into mighty dams or tiny lakes. We’d focus on the trajectory of the water and it would always bring us surprises. Sometimes we’d drop a little homemade boat made of sticks and follow it—hoping it would get carried away all the way to the gravel road. It often moored only a few feet from where it launched.

I’m currently reading Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life by Winifred Gallagher. It definitely has my attention and ink marks to prove it. In her description of the word rapt she mentions being “completely absorbed, fascinated, perhaps even ‘carried away.’” Who doesn’t want that? I would say that my short hike today and the accompanying sensory signals led me to paying rapt attention to the creek which in turn led me to tender memories of my childhood. She writes:

Paying rapt attention, whether to a trout stream or a novel, a do-it-yourself project or a prayer, increases your capacity for concentration, expands your inner boundaries, and lifts your spirits, more important, it simply makes. you feel that life is worth living.

I love Gallagher’s comment that attention gives one “a small pocket version of life.” We can’t be attentive to everything, that’s not possible—nor can we carry everything for ourselves and our loved ones. Attention allows us to focus in on what matters most to us.

Attention and focus lead to flow. You know the feeling when you are immersed in work, a hobby, or a conversation and time seems to fly. Your brain and heart are involved in a curious and well balanced combination of familiarity and challenge. Where are you finding flow at this point in your life? For me, I’ve definitely found flow in my writing. It’s an unexpected gift in this third chapter of my life. I try to call it work but it often feels like play—like I’m back at the impermanent creek on my farm with my brother watching the trajectory, expecting surprises.

May these spring days find you immersed in a few meaningful projects with enough novelty to make it fun. As Winifred Gallagher in Rapt reminds us, “Blurring the distinction between work and play is a hallmark of the focused life.”

Let it flow.