The Power of Intention

I don’t know how most people feel when they wake up in the morning. My own emotions are a rollercoaster and I never know on which side of the ride I’m going to wake up.

I have friends who always seem to feel on top of things, perennially optimistic and in a good mood, and they’re able to easily execute whatever they set their mind to. Me, not so much. I may have had a very good night’s sleep but I still wake up in the morning feeling uncertain about the state of the world and my place in it, and it’s often downhill from there.

That’s where intention comes in. If I can just remember to ask myself: “What do I want to do today? What do I want to accomplish? Who do I want to be?”, everything lifts and changes. It’s like a magic trick. All of a sudden, I am again that child waking up on a summer day with big plans to go explore the depths of the forest, ride my bike to the end of the road, build a teepee from tree branches and leaves, concoct a flour-and-water plaster cast for my doll’s broken leg, and color her lips and cheeks with crushed geranium petals to make her feel better. There’s not enough time in the day to do everything and I feel excited.

So my intention today was to not linger in bed but to get up, make a giant latte, get dressed, and have an awesome day. Oh, and write a piece. I’m still in my jammies as I write, but other than that, I’m well on my way. Also, I just came home from a sweet four-day mini-vacation where I took a boat and a crew of friends to Catalina Island, a mere 30 miles across the sea but a different world, and I still feel the soothing effects.

The place is strikingly beautiful, as is most of California, and it fills me with brand new energy and optimism about the world. Beautiful places are all around us, often within walking distance and I’m thankful for a world designed this way, for the eyes who interpret it for me in such a pleasing manner, for the smell wafting from my coffee, for the deep comfort of my favorite armchair and the softness and warmth of the sheets I just left.

I shot this photo this weekend, from the high point of a hike on Catalina. We moored our boat in the sweet little harbor of Emerald Bay, right in front of rocks surrounded by a reef and a swaying kelp forest, populated with gulls, cormorants and pelicans, and abundant sea life: Garibaldis (those pretty little orange fishes that look a bit like Nemo and are the state marine fish of California), schools of jack mackerel, halibuts, giant abalones (they’ve been protected for decades so they‘ve had a chance to grow to four times the size we used to find them in restaurants), rock lobsters, and a million tiny little fishes.

Soon again, the darker side of life will rise again, with its guns and violence, its sadness and destruction, but for now, I’m floating in this beautiful bubble of happiness and determined to hold it in the crux of my hand for the rest of the day, reminding me there’s a rosy side even in these unsettling times.