Sometimes it is important to just experience life. I’d gone for my morning jog. I panted at my doorsteps and decided the front yard could be watered. I turned on the sprinkler and experienced some wonderful layers- the sunrise beyond the playground beyond the sprinkler.

Life is in layers. Some are thick. Some are thin. Some have deep rooted fossils and some are fresh flooded mud.

I study layers of the earth, the rock, myself and others.

In my youth, favorite layers included the rainbow of jello in a family picnic, the discarded clothes on my bedroom floor, and the steaming mass of fermented organics deep in the compost pile. The calendar always felt like an unending ripple of predicted tides- a new school year, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Saint Patrick’s Day, Easter and summer vacation.  I remember the layers of my childhood as better than they ever were—there were many layers of complete crap.

My favorite layers as an adult seem more permanent. The layers between Heaven and Hell. The layers between love and fear. The layers between separation and connectedness. I guess these aren’t actually my favorite layers, they’re just the ones I think about the most.

Today I look at the sunrise beyond the playground beyond the sprinkler and think, This is how it is- life is layers- birth, death and the meaning we put in between. The lesson- live life and worry not.

I grabbed a book off one of the shelves in the learning center where I work (I wanted something to read while proctoring a practice GED test to an adult student). Titled Living in the Now and recommended by Oprah (notice how I don't even need to say a last name), I decided it was worth a look.

I found myself pulled into the concepts presented. In simple words salvation is found when we "let go" and "live in the now." Surrender is the same as releasing the ego. I know I feel better when my ego goes to sleep and life accelerates. 

This morning I was in the laundry mat. The ceiling fans like Wonka-ish daisy heads spin above the hum, spin cycle, wash whirl and coin into the catch jingle. Quiet dramas act out in the birthing of sheets, shirts and skirts pulled from the dryer. I sit at the industrial-grade table and speak with two women who work at the mat. Politics, gardening and the meaning of the Cortez Journal (mostly ads and angry words we decide). The connections are worth as much as the clean laundry. 

I live off these words- God has a plan and doing laundry is part of it.

Have you ever had a theme running through your head? I catch onto these every now and then. My most recent is one I truly love- it is “No Worries”.

The core root of most profound themes goes back to Disney (actually, it goes back well before Disney, but humor me by following my logic). We all walked away from The Lion King with a short lesson in Swahili and didn’t even know it. “Hakuna Matata” rolls off the tongue like some like the joyous tickle of a back-seat teen who has just caught wind on a bump and is laughing their ass off (you know what I’m talking about…right?). I actually first saw the movie with a large group of teens who I’d chaperoned to the theater. While we were all touched to near tears with Elton’s “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”, within minutes of our bus ride back to campus some were singing “Hakuna Matata” (little did I know I would eventually spend time living in East Africa and make use of the phrase daily).

Jump to the present.  A couple of weeks ago, I went to dinner with a friend and coworker. I didn’t have my vehicle, so he offered a ride in his low rider. The side of the vehicle slick with a large custom paint job of “Puropedo”. I try to pronounce it, and Marco corrects me then tells me, “It means ‘No Worries’. My brothers and I have a clothing company.” I began to wonder, Is this a theme?

About a week ago I subbed for a class at the Cortez High School. In my spare time, I was preparing for a job interview with the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe in Towaoc, Colorado. A couple of young Native American men in the back of the class were talking about living in Towaoc. I was curious and asked them, “What does Towaoc mean?”

One of them responded, “It means ‘No Worries’” and a couple of the students began singing, “Hakuna Matata”.

Yesterday, as I sat in a parking lot with a dead battery and six Mormons on missions looking under the hood, I thought to myself, No worries. One dripped ice cream on his tie as another informed me, “A police officer from our Ward is coming to help out.” God bless the Mormons on a mission. I’m charging my battery at this very moment.

Hakuna Matata, Puropedo, Towaoc…whatever the language, no worries is a theme to live by. Tap it on your forehead, put it on the fridge, or simply say it repeatedly each and every day. No Worries- now these are words to live by!