Thinking Thoughtfully

"You can tell if a man is clever by his answers.  You can tell if a man is wise by his questions."  Naguib Mahfouz

I cannot turn my brain off.   It is thinking and buzzing and whizzing through thoughts and ponderings and commentaries.  Sometimes my brain leaks out words through my mouth and I find myself talking out loud. That can be embarrassing when turning the corner and finding someone eavesdropping.  

A long time ago I read something about having a notebook by one's bed to capture the clear thoughts that seem to so easily come in the middle of the night.  Isn't it interesting how logical one seems then?  Unfortunately I usually don't wake up enough to write, hate to turn on the light and disturb Robert, or discount the thoughts because of the inability to write those words down coherently or finding that they didn't really make sense to begin with.

I would like to retrain my brain to slow down and think a little more thoughtfully.  

Once I sat on a big boulder in the California Sierra mountains, basking in the sunshine, breathing in the pine needle scent as they heated up, and feeling the cooling breeze on my face.  It was in 1971, I believe.  A memory to keep.  And now, so many years later, it seems to have been a wonderful location to think.  Too bad I don't remember what I was thinking.  But I do remember the day as if it was yesterday.  Where was that notebook then?

In the quest for thoughtful thinking this seems to be a key, finding a place where beauty, solitude, and warmth all run together, and the mind can relax.  In this place it seems that pondering slowly and repeating the thoughts until they gel into one occasion of thoughtful thinking that can be written down is my desire.  

This afternoon in a phone conversation with a niece we mentioned that we had not found a place to settle after retirement.  Now it seems that an important item to search for has been uncovered.

A place to do thoughtful thinking is desired.  How would that look on the list? 

1.  Large public rooms

2.  A study

3.  Lots of windows

4. A place to think

Definitely a qualification in our search and now I realize that in all my thinking about a retirement home I find that quiet porch, garden setting, sitting room, or bench by a fountain has been a prominent picture.

A place to think thoughtfully.