Respect and Merging

Today I remember to respect myself and my environment.

One activity my daughter and I enjoy together is theater. Otherwise we clash like most teenagers and their parents, but give us theater together and we are inextricably bound. So every year we take a pilgrimage to Ashland, Oregon where, like gluttons, we consume Shakespeare plays, then modern plays in excessive amounts. This year, it's seven plays in five days. We've just finished watching "Twelfth Night," "Hamlet," and "Merchant of Venice" in a row - now we're headed into a new play, "Ruined" and then a stage version of "Pride and Prejudice." My husband checked in for a couple of days, but after the 31/2 hour version of "Hamlet" he'd had enough.

It occurs to me that part of the magic in enjoying my daughter along with the plays is respect. As I respect her, and her being as separate and quite independent from me, we can merge our sensibilities for the moments we watch the fictional dilemmas of the characters on the stage.

I'm working on extending that mutual respect into the rest of my environment. You can't after all merge with what is happening without respecting it first.

So, today's mantra is respect: my family, Lithia park where I've been jogging in the mornings, (if I don't stay on the path there, the signs warn of poison oak,) my own body and needs. Can I respect the ground below me? Can I respect my breath? Respect is necessary for appreciation.

Respect, respect, respect...and then I'm able to let go and merge.