Holding Hands

Wednesday evening while in meditation we were asked to look at our hands. To examine the lines along our hands, to ask what story your hand tells? Ponder where it has been? What has it done?

I will admit that I find mediation very difficult to do. I find it hard to keep my thoughts and emotions from being detached from the very things that cross my mind throughout the time ( the idea is to let thoughts pass and keep from having an emotional connection to them).

However, I find that meditation can be a very powerful healthy thing. It is proven that if we slow down our breath we minimize the oxygen to our brain which then causes our brain to slow down. As a result our thoughts slow down. Thus we naturally relax and calm down. Hence why people often say when you are in a stressful situation or anxious you are told to take deep breaths.... Needless to say I am taking a lot of deep breaths these days... (wonderful thing).

Two weeks from today I will land in Denver, Colorado. After almost one year ago this time I quit my job and decided to move to Central America. Now one year later I am flying home..... my home in the Rockies.

My family is in Kentucky. My sister and her husband bought their first house this week. My parents are in the process of building their new house (Wish I could be in two places at once)........ Someday I presume I will call Kentucky home too but for now I cannot wait to see the snow capped mountains, and the sunny blue skies of Colorado.

As I stared at my hands during meditation my immediate thought was of all the places my hand has traveled in the last year. All the places it has touched in the last year. The many hands it has held. The sweet faces of my kids that my hand brushed alongside. The many coffee mugs my hand has held. The cold mug of a beer in Munich last summer with my very best friend traveling in Europe. The glasses of champagne my hand held near to my lips as we sipped on our train ride through Italy. Brushing my hand along the fabrics at the market in Guatemala over Thanksgiving. My hand curled up inside my coat while it snowed in Kentucky over Christmas. Clapping my hands together as I cheered loud while watching my very favorite basketball team beat the basketball team from down in Lexington. Holding on to the railing of the boat while whale watching in Cabo San Lucas with my family. Wrapping my fingers around the small hands of the children in the orphanage. My hand digging in the sand of the Caribbean during Semana Santa and many beach weekends. The countless red pens my hand has held grading the school work of my second graders. And now the many times my hand has held my body up while practicing yoga these past two weeks...... what an incredible and wonderful year I have been given. And how grateful I am that I have hands to touch and feel it all.....

I love this quote below..... The simple act of holding a hand is something not to be taken for granted. For it is with our hands we are able to do and experience so much. Such a wonderfully special thing.

"We were walking through Hyde Park going nowhere in particular, holding hands for a bit, then letting go as if holding hands wasn't one of life's big deals."