WHERE DOES YOUR HEART OVERRULE YOUR HEAD?

I picked up a tiny little book to give to a friend years ago. For some reason, I felt I needed a copy.  Now I know why. It is called "How to Live on an Island" by Sandy Gingras.  I find peace in it and words I need to be reminded of ever so often, not often enough.

 

From the back cover: "We often need "How To" books to remind us of what we already know.  Maybe that's why we need islands too..to remember ourselves. To remember how tenuous and miraculous we are...how we're out-to-sea, surrounded by horizons and how we're, at once, fragile and possible."

 

Many times in our lives we need an island, perhaps as a foothold among the chaos. For me, I can think there...breathe there...forget all the mounds of unimportant fluff that surrounds me on a daily basis.  I can sift out those things that truly don't matter and focus on what does. As Gingras says, "It almost convinces me that there is such a place as the present."

 

An island is where you can have a change of heart. Each day off the island begins pretty much the same, but on the island 'the morning crackles like a never turned page.'

 

It is here we get second chances at ourselves and a place where we remember the fine art of doing nothing!! Finding simplicity once again while remembering how to breathe, and that the only focus should be cultivating quiet.

 

And finally as Gingras says, "on an island you can build castles and leave them for the moon to find."  It is on an island you can find all the treasures you all too often miss in the chaos that is your life.