Pleasure

I am ignoring all the flashing red lights as I plunge ahead.     What I was once taught to avoid I now embrace.    Was it my German heritage or my Catholic school that taught me to beware of pleasurable things?    Either way, I was certainly well-educated.

When I could have been learning to understand and become aware how to indulge in the beauty of the world, I was instead taught to be wary and suspicious of anything pleasurable.    It would be best if I would simply avoid pleasurable experiences.    The teachings still go on, even in books I sometimes read.

I am escaping those dole teachings.    Instead I plunge into the rapture of sounds rising from a Beethoven concerto to the point that tears flow from my eyes.    Walking through my garden in the morning is a sensory adventure and delight to sight and touch.    My whole body thrills with glee to the experience of a beauty reaching out to me.

I have learned and absorbed the pleasure of sitting with a friend for hours, talking of our individual experiences with such intimacy that they become a shared encounter.    The pleasure of a shared presence laps against the shores of rapture.

I now gleefully accept my awareness of indulgences with a pleasure that mocks the teachings I receive.   No, I will not avoid and shy away.    I will not avoid the delights of the world.    I especially will not avoid the pleasure of human encounters that have become experiences of beauty and wonder.

The pleasure of a chance encounter with a plant, a person, a rock is a welcome delight.   I indulge in the pulsing warm water of a morning shower.   I wantonly discover the touch of a soft, dry towel.     The body I was taught not to touch is now a routine source of delight.    I take pleasure in the soft fuzzy surface of a peach, I feel the knife plunging through the texture of the peach flesh, I feel the knife strike the pit, I slowly slurp the sweetness of the peach.

Why would I listen to the advice of teachers and ancestors when the pleasures of living are mine to enjoy.    My heart, my inner self, my skin all reach out and the pleasures are mine.     We are becoming one.