Yesterday, I created a day for myself.

I woke up early. I had my protein. I walked. I wrote.

I got ready for my day, and I set out on a basic adventure.

I found an organic market, and I purchased a peach, a nectarine, some protein shakes, two pieces of cheese, some “healthy cookies,” and a cute little bag to carry it all in, creating picnic potential.

I made my way to a used bookstore and purchased five new books.

Civil Disobedience and Other Essays by Henry David Thoreau
Original Letters from India by Eliza Fay
Essays and Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Edge of Awareness, 25 contemporary essays, by 25 authors
Emerson, The Mind on Fire, by Robert D. Richardson Jr.

I found a nearby park, but hundreds of people at an event pushed me to a beautiful outdoor shopping center parking lot. I found a coffee shop, I stood in line to wait for a drink but changed my mind when I noticed I probably wouldn’t have any healthy options.

I went back outside, sat next to a working fireplace, finished a contract I had started earlier in the day, and then submitted it for signatures.

While writing that offer, I had a nectarine and then relocated to these rocks next to a performance fountain.

I got out my book (#4 from above), and started to read. Simultaneously I ate the 2 pieces of cheese, the peach, and the protein shake.

I sat in contentment within my own world, fully immersed in a book from the 1960s. I was living a perfect day, and I knew it.

Awareness.

Emerson had a lot to say about it. Awareness to Emerson was…

Awakening the soul: “To be great is to be misunderstood.” Emerson believed that true awareness meant awakening one’s inner spirit and trusting one’s intuitions, even if that causes you to deviate from accepted norms, traditions, or established practices.
Valuing experience over books: “The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe?” He urged people to have direct experience with nature and life rather than just learning second-hand from books and authorities.
Non-conformity: “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.” Emerson stressed the importance of cultivating one’s own perspectives and beliefs rather than mindlessly conforming to societal expectations.
Self-reliance: “Trust thyself.” This is one of Emerson’s most famous lines, capturing his belief that true awareness flows from looking inward and relying on one’s own inner voice.
Nature as inspiration: “In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages.” Emerson found profound awareness and insight by immersing himself in nature.

So there I sat in the middle of the city, on a rock, under the trees with water all around me reading instead of experiencing.

Today I am going to chase the adventure. Today I am going to meet nature.

What adventure are you chasing?

With love, Jo

P.S. I forgot to tell you about something super super cool I noticed after sitting there reading for an hour or so. When I looked up, I saw a statue. It was a young girl in a swing positioned on a stack of books, swinging on her belly, facing life head first, with butterflies holding the swing up. It was surreal when I noticed it. I couldn’t read all of the inscription, but it said “oh the places [you’ll go].”