I'm sitting again at the Brother Bear coffee shop in downtown Yellow Springs, Ohio waiting for my morning yoga class. It dawned on me as I walked from my car to here that coming here over the past week has been like a kind of retreat - you know those retreats you go on to find spiritual balance and get away from the every day grind? I also thought about if I lived here (which is now a strong contender if we stay in Ohio) where would I retreat to when I needed what I'm getting from hanging out here so much lately? Or, maybe I wouldn't need to retreat anywhere as my home base would be my spiritual comfort (and isn't that what point I've kind of been making all along? That your home base should be one of comfort, but really, your peace should come from within and not depend on where you lay your head at night - yeah, right, try telling that to the inner city homeless living out of Kroger shopping carts). I need to digress and give props to the incredible lattes I've been drinking made by the owner here at Brother Bear (have you heard of the economic up turn latte factor? That our countries economic upswing gets measured by the amount of "lattes" Americans are buying?) Anyway, his is the best, bar none, latte (consistently, I must add) I have ever put my lips to. My first job at Coffee Chicago (Chicago Avenue off Michigan Ave - downtown - you guessed it - Chicago) my sophomore year in college was for four hours every Saturday night working with another college girl making espresso drinks - so I know how challenging a perfect blend of espresso, milk and foam can be to make. Through a clear mug, my Brother Bear latte is the most beautiful, creamy tan color with a 1/2 inch of foam whipped on top - every single time. Indulgence. Yes. I go back and forth in life between pinching my pennies and not eating out, going through drive-thru's and drinking Starbucks to hanging out in coffee shops nearly daily and drinking lattes. When Dave was in Afghanistan for nearly five months (and only there as a volunteer making triple pay to get us back in the black after the economic downturn had us blow through our savings - like so many Americans) under weekly terrorist rocket fire I watched what I spent like a hawk. Upon his return, we've been partying a bit it seems (oh, what that word "partying" used to mean to me!) frequently eating out meals and, yes, drinking lattes. But, as I wrote above, I digress. The point to this morning's blog - modern tech and peace - is sharing a small video I took with my iPhone while hiking recently at the Clifton Gorge State Park nearby - of course - downtown Yellow Springs. I had gone on a small hike there a few days earlier with Dave and Sam and taken a few family pictures. I decided then to return if the weather was again a sunny day by myself that week and explore on my own. Ordinarily, I wouldn't have my phone on me but as a mom it's just a necessity to be able to be contacted in the case of a dreaded emergency or illness. I ended up hiking close to an hour, one way along the river until I was stopped by the river flooding the path I was on and then all the way back past my starting point to a set of long stairs back to the parking lot area. I can't remember exactly my thought process shooting the first of four videos on my iPhone of small waterfalls and babbling brooks other than I thought it might be nice to have these to turn to if ever I was in a place (and had my phone, of course) where I needed some calming, peaceful bits of nature to rest my mind. I have attached the first video and plan to share the other three here - perhaps even do more with them like loop them all together for a longer nature video, like the ones I remember being able to watch on a hospital's TV channel in my room when I was recovering from my C-section after Sam's birth. In any case, kind of a perfect blend of peace, meditation old school and modern tech capturing it all on my iPhone.
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