why I'm writing small stones again

I started writing this as a comment on Kaspa's blog post "Three reasons why I love writing small stones" , then I realised that my response was pretty much a post in itself and wanted to explore the subject a bit for myself.  (In addition to agreeing with all of the Kaspa's very accurate reasons!)

Sometime last week I also had the realisation that I missed writing small stones.  I enjoyed participating in January's River of Stones, I remember it as a particularly enjoyable month of just noticing things.  I remember smiling, I remember walking outside in the cold January air, and, as strange as it may sounds, I even remember breathing.  January was very alive.

I didn't participate in July's River of Stones on the pretext that I was too busy moving house and country.  Then in August and September I was busy with more of the same and lots of "figuring out" of what was next in my life was also going on.  So my mind has been very occupied these past few months.  Last week, I realised that somewhere in all that busy-ness and self-occupation that I had lost touch.  Walking through the streets of San Jose, Costa Rica, I realised that I wasn't seeing them.  Well, I was seeing them well enough to dodge traffic, which is generally a good thing, but I wasn't seeing the birds, the plants, the people I passed.  I wasn't hearing what was happening outside my window.  I wasn't seeing what was happening outside my window.  It was all just noise to me, part of the backdrop of everything that was going on in my own little world.  How could I allow my mind to be elsewhere when there was such a richness before my eyes and under my nose just sitting there in all it's glory / splendour / sadness / disgust / discomfort / joy?

And aside from all of that, it's easy to feel disconnected out here on my own.  But really, it's up to me to connect with what's right in front of me: Life, in all its unapologetic reality.