Where do you want to be

Right now.
Where do you want to be?
Are you lucky to be there already?
Have you been previously?
Have you even thought about where you'd like to be? I mean physically, in real time, meatspace (an ooky yet accurate term!).
Why am I asking all these crazy questions?

I was flipping through some pictures on my phone, and figured out how to get them over to the computer (hooray for technology that is somewhat comprehensible). It practically takes tweezers to get the teeny tiny card out of my phone, and then put into the sd card reader. I'm so worried I'll break it, or put it in sideways and snap it in two. Something so delicate and small, can do so much.

Anyways, I encountered one of the first pictures I'd taken ,and it is of Tuolumne Meadows where we went camping this August. And I suddenly flashed on the memory of taking the photo and then some realizations came which I'll share with you.

I was sitting in the car waiting for my husband and two boys to finish scampering about on one of the granite domes. This is one of the shorter, easier ones, so they were actually scampering (not like rock climbing). While I waited, I figured out how to use some of my phone features, like taking a picture and playing some music. Our camera battery had run out the day before, and we hadn't worked out a way to recharge it quite yet. So phone cameras were our backup of for documenting that particular day.

Thinking about me taking this picture, and how it came about that I was in the car there, for like 45 minutes. Then it struck me like a 2x4 upside the head! I now realize I was in the middle of one of my very favorite places in the entire world. And I was ignoring it completely. I was shutting it out, almost pretending I wasn't there.

Oh, I had plenty of excuses of course, some of them more valid than others.I was tired, beyond tired and nearing exhaustion or collapse really. I was dirty and smelly from camping for a week in the summer. I was bored because I was by myself. I was getting impatient waiting for them to come back. I was feeling sorry for myself that I wasn't having fun running around on the dome. So instead of getting out of the car and flopping in the meadow or something completely simple like that, I was trying to tune out with technology. And my drug of choice wasn't available (hello computer), so the new-fangled phone was it. I couldn't believe it! To have wasted the precious time in this place with wonking out. Sad really! Wish I had realized that in the moment and chosen more wisely.
How's that for a true regret?

So now I wish I was back there.
In that moment.
In that place.
I would have done it differently.