Anticipation Is Interesting

  I am getting ready to leave on a weekend trip to see my family and run a crazy trail marathon with my brother. My brain is almost living in two dimensions. One is of the here and now making the necessary preparations, but another part is already living in tomorrow and especially Saturday, race day. My mind is already trying to experience camping, waking early, getting to the start, and blast off (ok just to pump me up we will call it blast off ). I can almost feel the run, the sweat, the waves of exhilaration and fatigue, my body pre-sensing, it is palpable. Anticipation. Funny how the anticipation of the event can be like an alternate reality of future leaking into present, intense and sensual. I don't understand quantum physics but maybe this is an experience of the fluidity or illusion of time.

 In exciting life experiences I really love this rush of anticipation and I am cognizant of wanting to savor it, to soak in it because I also know that in a mere instant it will have come and gone and I will be back here writing my post race blog. Time is an enigma to me. So much of what I do as a yoga teacher and meditator is about presence, to live in the now, and yet here I am living with only one foot in it, and clinging to that in a certain sense.

 I wonder if this is unique to humans. I know my dog is right on queue in the evening when it is treat time, but I wonder if he experiences this kind of full sensory anticipation. Just a curiosity moving through my presently humming mind, probably brought on by the adrenaline I can sense readying itself to do it's job.

My body and mind are on board ready to rock, but now I think, "Hey wait minute!" Slow down and savor because this moment is about writing, communicating and being interested in this experience that is happening in that "now".

Anticipation is interesting.