One day.

This phrase is circling in my mind.

One day.

I went for a four-mile walk this morning with my dog and my phone, and unpacked my various heavy thoughts, one by one, to my best friend from college who lives far away and therefore cannot drop by for a cup of tea and a chat on a whim.

She is fiercely, adamantly, beautifully intelligent and dear, my friend.

And I got off the phone and thought about all the cumulative things that have happened in my life and all the cumulative moments and all the triumphs and tragedies that I have witnessed happening to others which have in turn indented themselves into me {because “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world,” – John Muir}. And I kept walking and thinking about who I want to be and how I want to live and how I will get there (from where I am now, right here, to my eventual place up ahead, the glimmering strong shiny self that I want to be one day) and all these small thoughts turned into this phrase, here:

One day.

It takes just one.

One moment.

One decision.

One event.

One second.

One minute.

One hour.

One day.

One time.

One foot.

One step.

One meter.

One stride.

One block.

One mile.

One word.

One sentence.

One page.

One chapter.

One more.

One.

I arrived back home. I unlocked my one front door with my one key. I lead my one dog into our one house. I gathered my one pair of scissors. I went outside to our one yard. I gathered one single stem of every flower variety I could find. {Because: “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,” -Robert Herrick.}

I stood for one long moment and felt my one long breath fill my body.

And I felt at peace.

I felt that I had managed to pull in all the beauty and delight and the jewels of possibility from every small second of my one small day. I felt aware that every small formed fiber of every small petal and every small stem was a gift of enormous proportions.

The ability to see it. The ability to feel it. The ability to be here.

It was a moment of permanence. And also of connection. This one small moment. This one small task. This one small act. This one small decision this one day.

The Atlantic considered the question of One and contemplated it through the measurement of one minute around the world. It turns out: A lot can happen in one moment.

I am writing down a short list of the 5 things I want from myself in the coming 5 days. I think I can take this day-by-day mentality and get closer to the super strong shiny (my)self glimmering on the horizon. In fact, I can even collapse time and get there now if I take it one second.oneminute.onehour.oneday. at a time.

One day. What do you want from this one day?