Like a Tree

So I've tried to add a bit of mindfulness to my winter-numbed days recently and learned a meditation exercise called "Be a Tree."  It's simple.  Plant your feet (the "roots"), take 5 deep breaths (engaging your "trunk"), and send out your "branches" (noticing what's around you with each of the 5 senses). Today a friend asked me to coffee and asked me to meet her on the main corner nearest my house.  Her husband was dropping her off, and I had something to return to them and could quickly make the hand-off.

I dutifully planted myself on said corner (pun intended) and waited.  They weren't there yet.  I watched down the one-way street they'd drive down from their house to my spot.  No sign of them.  No sign of any cars, in fact.  So I decided to "be a tree" while I waited.  There on the corner, in my boots and winter coat with its enormous hood, I rooted my feet to the ground, breathed in and breathed out, noticed the smell of the snow and cold and the brisk air, noticed the sun as it fell on the new-fallen snow and the slush on the road in front of me, I heard the birds chirping, cars moving past, a man's voice calling.  The world stilled and I stilled with it. Suddenly, I heard my friend's voice.  I startled, looking down the street. No car.  The voice called again, and I turned.  Parked on the street perpendicular to me sat my friend's car - with her husband and two children looking out the windows at me, perplexed.  S. was crossing the street towards me. "We've been calling your name. You must be frozen, you're standing so still," she called as she approached.

I mumbled something about my hood for muffling sound and avoided any mention of trees and roots. For now, I'll move the meditation indoors.  How in my "mindfulness" I'd missed my own name being repeated, well, that's another 45 1/2 seconds for sure.