I sat last night, under the Milky Way, talking to my teenage daughter while a campfire burned and lulled us to sleep. It was amazing. We laughed, we talked, we connected. Her phone died in the early afternoon and I was granted a technology free evening with her. It was marvelous, truly.
So much of my life is run by modernity. But last night, we sat under a starry sky and we were here, completely in the present moment and I felt so grateful.
We are camping at Refugio. A place that I have long loved and always wanted to camp. Our campsite is perfect and I am really in awe that I am here with her, the dogs, the man. His daughter is joining us tonight for dinner. And I sit here this morning writing as the sun comes up, filled with wonder, gratitude and amazement that this is my life.
There is a sacredness about a campfire. It calls up the past and the ancestry and the primitive instinct that lies dormant in us but lives on still. Family used to mean something different than it does today. Family meant survival and now it feels like our main task today, for many anyway, is to survive our family...but some of us, hopefully more than I conjure in my mind, are actually able to enjoy our family, our children, our friends that feel more family than friends. Some of us are blessed to be able sit around a campfire, under the actual Milky Way and talk about everything and nothing, enjoying each moment, completely aware in that moment how very lucky we are.
Life moves at a frenetic pace. So times like last night where my daughter and I just sat still and discussed life, love, told stories and laughed seems like a gift from the heavens. A period where time stood still and life was not frenetic or even busy, life was just a campfire stoked and attended and enjoyed. And sometimes that kind of life seems like the forgotten purpose of this whole deal.
