Shifting

by Olivia

One of the best experiences I’ve ever known are those moments when you can literally feel your attitude and view of the world shifting, like it’s a physical thing which is turning inside of you and altering your experience of everything around you. In my experience, this is always a positive shift.

Today I slept in. Really in. My single Tuesday class begins at 1:00, and I woke up with 10 minutes to spare. I didn’t go to class.

The day started as usual. It was dark in my room and the bedding was rumpled and too warm, automatically setting me into an uncomfortable and slightly agitated mood. I found my cell phone to check my messages and the news, but it was dead.

By about 5 o’clock I had showered and changed into clean clothes. I left my room to find the blind’s on our apartment windows wide open and streaming the evening’s sunlight through from the west. The apartment wasn’t as cold and airy as it was the first time I left my room – it was cool and I was warm from my shower. I love that feeling.

I cut up a mango that had been sitting in the fruit bowl for 4 days. It was slightly over-ripe, but when I cut it open it was rich orange and fragrant. I ate it standing over the sink, mango juice dripping down my elbows.

The sun continued to set and I grabbed a good book that I had been working on all week. I would finish it now. I grabbed a bag of pumpkin seeds and headed for the patio, change of pace from my usual spot on my bed in my room, but the light from the windows had me already feeling in higher spirits than usual.

I’ve always loved the warm desert nights. I don’t like when they’re hot, like the one night I was simply sitting outside talking on the phone at 10:00 and was actually sweating, just sitting there. I like when they’re warm. Tonight it’s warm, and slightly breezy.

There’s a huge pine tree that you can touch from the patio without even leaning, and the foreground is all pines and palm trees, a couple of roof-tops.

The shift officially took place as I sat there reading this book, mindlessly chewing pumpkin seeds and spitting the soggy shells out onto a pamphlet someone left on the table. Once in a while I would instead spit the chewed up shell into my fingers and toss it over the balcony, imagining a bird coming along at some point and snacking on my left-overs. I thought of my early, almost-human ancestors , and all living beings, doing similar things, unaware, unlike me, of their unintentional give-and-take with other living beings.

Maybe it was the change of weather from the terrible wind we’d been experiencing for what seems like a month now. Maybe it was having taken a day off from school and not feeling bad about it. Maybe it was that I slept in so late and was experiencing the beautiful Mojave evening as my personal morning. Maybe it was that I had been sick with a cold for 2 days and it was finally starting to feel like the pressure behind my eyes was letting up. Maybe it was that I hadn’t eaten all day but had just had a live, delicious mango for “breakfast” and was now snacking on my favorite seed, outdoors, sharing with the birds. Or it could have been the book that I was reading, coming to a realistic, grounded end filled with sentiments of contentment, awakening and “it’s not happily ever after but it’s better than it ever was before”. And maybe all these things, each in the right dose, are the secret ingredients of the recipe for shifting a person’s experience of themselves and the world.

I felt content with the world as I drove 4 miles down the road to pick my little sister up from her night class. I wasn’t sure if this feeling was going to last so I opened the sunroof on my car and put in a Jack Johnson album, just to encourage it to go a little longer.

This feeling the one I got as a kid when I got to experience something new, or some new place, with a parent beside me. It reminds me specifically of going to one of many Mexican restaurants with my dad. It’s bright, hot and monotone outside, and it’s bright, hot and colorful inside the restaurant. Tiles with painted designs in blue, red, yellow and green border the walls, the floor, the chairs, the tables. It reminds me of being at the pool with my mom and the rush of excitement I would feel when she would get in the water with us kids for a few moments before going back to sun-bathing. It feels like the world around you has opened up and some invisible force has decided to grant you reprieve from your burdens for a little while, lifting them up and away, so that you can see what the world looks like without all the weight. So you can remember what the world looked like when you were a child. So you can see that there are still beautiful things around you every day. But eventually the reprieve will be over and it’s up to you to remember, to hold on wherever you can, and to be grateful.

I’m home now, writing this, and the feeling is still with me. I’ll make some dinner (:eggplant parmigiana with green beans, garlic bread and some salad) then put in a movie which will hopefully not shatter this feeling. Enjoy the last glass of Reisling from the bottle I’ve had stored away for a couple weeks now. And then go to bed, hoping this feeling stays with me till morning.

I don’t know if any of this gives any inkling of what “feeling” or “shift” I’m talking about, but I hope that when I look back and read this again, maybe if I’m having a tough time, I’ll be able to remember.

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