Stop!

My head was spinning a lot this week and one of the times that was happening was this afternoon, and in the midst of it I walked past a stop sign. And that took me back to an exercise that I was taught when I was learning how to quit smoking (a long, long time ago). What you do is, if your mind is going all squirrelly and you can't shut it off (back then it was the single-minded craving for a cigarette; today, it's much more diverse and far-reaching!), you picture a big red stop sign and you say "stop!".

So I was walking past this stop sign, and my mind was running hither and yon about this, that and the other, and I remembered that exercise, and I looked right at the sign and yelled "stop!" (okay, I kind of looked around a bit to see if anyone was watching, and I didn't yell it so much as say it very loudly in my mind, silently to myself). And the next thing I knew, everything but the stop sign was gone, and a kind of silence descended, and suddenly I noticed what a beautiful day it was, and I could smell spring, and the light was just perfect, and I realized that today had been quite a productive day in its own little way, and it was Friday, and I had plans to take the evening off, and, well, life can be pretty good when my head and my body are in the same place!