This year began slowly for me. I quit my job in December and decided to earn my money in a different way. Sure, I continue to write this column but I stopped making costume jewelry. So in a sense I began this year searching for something new to do to simply fill my days.
Then my eyes fell on a book that has been on the shelf beside my bed for many, many years. The title of this book, a favorite of mine, is Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy written by Sarah Ban Breathnach. Once upon a time it looked sparkling clean. Now it has gathered dust. The pages are yellowed. It has a lot of burgundy tapes sticking out as I marked pages that particularly touched me. It is a book that has grown old with me. It was first published in 1996, around 17 years ago, yet here I am re-reading it and enjoying it even more.
I remember once being invited to the 70th birthday of one of my girlfriends. I went frantically looking for this book. I found one, the last copy. I bought it, wrapped it and gave it to her for her birthday. I knew there were lessons in it that every woman must learn. I hope she appreciated it.
Time was I began the day by reading the essay written for the date. A daybook is like a calendar. The date is written on top of the page, for example, Feb. 23. Then the title of the short essay follows: Making Your Own Imprint. I would read that then get up and write in my journal. Thinking back I believe that’s how I understood my life and me much better. These two activities led me inside myself and strangely enough gave me much joy.
So this year I began to do that again. I wake up, read the essay for the day, then I meditate. Meditation is simple. Just lie down in a comfortable position and try to blank your mind. This does not happen easily but the attempts to achieve perfect meditation can be fun. It is dark. I go through tunnels with arched roofs then I pass landscapes of old tall buildings that look empty, that look like they’re falling apart. I wonder where they are. Then soon enough I open my eyes and find I have been meditating for half an hour. This freshens me up every morning before I begin my day.
Some days are filled with activity. Yesterday, for example, began with breakfast with Mia and Didit, two dear cousins, and a trip to Quiapo to shop for things totally unnecessary to me. But I wanted to make the trip. We bought dragon-tortoise bracelets that according to feng shui will make us richer. I am quite taken by these feng shui creatures so I bought a string of characters, a few stones, a lamp I can wear around my head to light my work when I am working either with jewelry or jigsaw puzzles. I love jigsaw puzzles though I tend to get quite frustrated with them, which simply indicates it is time to leave them for the day and revisit them tomorrow.
Then we went on to jewelry class. Since we began the day so early, I got tired early too and decided to go home and read that which I read before I sleep – a novel to relax me, to celebrate the end of a simple day abundantly full of pleasant experience and company.
This morning I awoke still a bit tired so I decided not to put on any make up, to spend my day relaxing. I woke up, read the essay for the day, meditated, did my jigsaw puzzle then sat down and re-did the bracelets we bought yesterday. Plus, I added two new bracelets. One of my Chinese sign, Monkey, with yellow citrines and another that put together my friends — the Rat and the Dragon — plus my secret friend, the Snake. All these bracelets don’t do anything but make me happy. In the end, that is all each and every one of us wants to be. We just want to be happy.
Simple Abundance is a book I recommend to everyone. Sometimes you find it in Powerbooks and maybe even in National Book Store. But it is an old book so you may not find it easily. You can also rummage through the second-hand bookstores. To me it is worth having. I don’t know when I first read it. I think it might have been in 2002, the first year of my retirement, around eleven years ago and I have not touched it since. But I rediscovered it last month and am enjoying it again, like I’m reading it for the first time.
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