After September 11, 2001, the world felt especially fragile to me. I could no longer ignore how our world was spiraling down and collapsing into hatred and violence. And then we embarked on what now seems like an endless war. And the question remains: why it is so hard for what is best in us human beings—the warmth and goodness of the heart—to take hold in this world? It doesn’t make sense to me because love after all is the very fabric of what we are. It is what links us together across boundaries of time and space. It is what lives on when all else has died. It is what we saw in New York City right after September 11. The sweetness of that connection was palpable. For awhile it seemed that New Yorkers would never lose their generosity and kindness. But as usually happens, awakened hearts go back to sleep. It is difficult to sustain the wisdom and joy that visit us in times of loss and love and which leaves us standing naked and humble before the most unaffected kind of human love.
Choices in Surviving
We all get these cataclysmic crucibles we have to go through and we have choices. Many years ago, I realized it’s important to make the distinction between things you may not necessarily have a choice in (cancer or losing someone you love), but outside of that you have hundreds of choices about how you live your life. People die every day. But, I believe, I believe in the good still. It’s been a hell of a decade and I believe that in the face of sometimes overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that things will be okay. I believe a lot of things–I believe that those loved ones I’ve lost are always with me. I believe that if I eat a pint of Hagen Das and no ones sees, it has less calories. And I believe that even though we make mistakes, we will be okay. I believe that believing we survive is what makes us survive.
Some Kind of Grace
Lately, I’ve been ‘praying’…A LOT. Mostly for some kind of grace to accept those things which I cannot change and continue to meet them face to face. It requires I conjure up some kind of courage too. I’m walking lightly here, taking things for what they are. Peace be.
Kindness
By Naomi Shihab, a Palestinian poet
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and send you out into the day
to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindess that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
You and the Rest of the World
Sometimes reality has a way of sneaking up and biting us in the ass. And when the dam bursts, all you can do is swim. The world of pretend is a cage, not a cocoon. We can only lie to ourselves for so long. We are tired, we are scared, and denying it doesn’t change the truth. Sooner or later we have to set aside our denial and face the world, head on, guns blazing… Denial. It’s not just a river in Egypt. It’s a freaking ocean. So how do you keep from drowning in it?
It’s all about lines. The finish line at the end of a race, waiting in line at the grocery store, and then there’s the most important line, the line separating you from others. You need boundaries, between you and the rest of the world. Other people are far too messy. It’s all about lines…drawing lines in the sand and praying like hell that no one crosses them. But someone almost always does.
However, at some point, you have to make a decision. Boundaries don’t keep people out, they fence you in. Life is messy. That’s how we’re made. So you can waste your life drawing lines or you can live your life crossing them. But there are some lines that are way too dangerous to cross. Here’s what I know: If you’re willing to throw caution to the wind and take a chance, the view from the other side… is spectacular.
What is it you want most from life?
A rhetorical question. One that we all ask ourselves if not consciously. Many answer this question with something related to relationship/love, money, fame, or one form or another of material possessions. And for some, this may be as far as the thought is capable of going since it is the truth. There is no right or wrong answer. I have found surprising insight after sitting with this question at various times throughout my life. At times I have been blinded to my true wants due to fears and a vast number of societal influences. I found that many times, instead of seeking what I want, I have instead sought what ‘others’ (society) have convinced me of what I want.
Everyday we are constantly barraged with images and words which tell us that our life will be more complete, we will be happier with whatever is being pitched. We need more: softer skin, more hair, better sleep, this car, a bigger this or that… All these THINGS bring a degree of happiness. A degree of it. Not it. For those looking for something more fundamental, I will argue that no matter how many ‘things’ we now have, we need to be looking in a much deeper place. We have all heard that money does not buy happiness. At the same time, I have never seen proof that poverty does either. There must be something more.
This is a question we each have to answer for ourselves. I have found that when I look beyond the standard answers, I’ve seen there is something else. Something much more expansive. Once you find your ‘answer,’ work to make it reality.
Just Enjoy Your Tea
When I’m rushed for time and can’t wait for water to boil, I will put a cup of water for my tea in the microwave. I press a few buttons to set the time, hit start and voila! hot water. On a few occasions I have wondered how the energy waves interacted with the water to create heat. Usually, I just accept that the microwave makes things hot.
We rarely look at life this way. Because we are human animals and have the ability to think and feel, we are constantly dissecting everything, looking for the reasons behind even the most trivial things. (Why did they say that? What did they mean by that? WTF?) We dissect and ponder, looking for the hidden meanings of things or in the words and actions of others.
On the emotional level, the human mind has trouble accepting things as they are. We want life to conform to our needs. We want others to change (yes, we do), making them more acceptable to they way we think they should be.
I’ve come to see that the answer (peace) does not lie in knowing WHY the world is as it is. Peace comes from accepting that there are things we cannot change. Really, really accepting this. When I can bring myself back to this, I am led directly to the present moment, the only time I have full control over who I am. In this moment, I can decide how to look at things, how to react, and whether to be compassionate to myself and others.
We are only here for a short ride/run. Acceptance is key. As is forgiveness. I make the most of the present moment as this is where my life is right now.
I choose not to fret over what made the water hot. I just enjoy my tea.
Say When
There’s something to be said about a glass half full, about knowing when to say when. We don’t say when because there’s something about the possibility–of more. More love, more wine, more anything. More is better. I think it’s more of a floating line, a barometer of need. Of desire. And it depends on what’s being poured. Sometimes all we want is a taste. Other times there is no such thing as enough, the glass is bottomless. However, half full or half empty, it’s always a beautiful glass.
Of Absence and Presence
“Pay attention here.” This is a phrase one of my yoga instructors used frequently in class (and a phrase which is stuck permanently in my head). It is her way of gently pushing us to be aware of what we do moment by moment (asana, breathing, feeling, giving, getting), to go beneath the surface.
Our soul calls us to go beneath–beneath the surface of our mind and moods, beneath our ego. We go about our lives for years and years without paying attention to what lies beneath, to what is. Some hear this call early on, only to silence it until it demands to be heard–through illness, loss, heartbreak. They are all blessings which transform and humble us, and bring out what matters most in life. And teach us to surrender to all of life’s blessings, the ‘good’ and the ‘not so good.’ Heartbreak, I think your heart grows back bigger, once you get the shit beat out of you. And the universe lets your heart expand that way, because that’s the function of all the pain and heartache you go through. And you’ve got to go through that to come out to a better place. There is a phenomenal amount of vitality in a broken heart. I think of a broken heart as broken open. A broken heart does not equal sadness as sadness occurs when the heart is lifeless and stone cold.
If we shut down, we will become more and more numb to life. We will remain unchanged. It doesn’t matter when we hear this call, it only matters that we pay attention. I see crisis, illness, loss, heartbreak as messengers which help us evolve, teachers if you will. More and more often I choose to open the doors I closed/kept shut earlier to these messengers.
Another yoga instructor would from time to time advise his students to pay attention to the lessons we are offered, advising that we will be presented with the same lessons over and over (and over) again until we learn them.
The other night I found myself thinking about a mixed media drawing I started too many years ago to recall now (at least 20 years) which is titled “Of Absence and Presence.” I realized it represented the same message to “pay attention here (now)” to the lesson(s) here (now), to what is here (now). I became aware of a ’sensation’ in my hip. It wasn’t pain/discomfort. The pain/sensation I had before surgery is gone/absent. The sensation which is present here now is different. I wondered if I was actually feeling my body heal. I’ve found that when I reject what is painful, I only find more pain, and that I am also unable to embrace what is not painful. Life becomes sterile.
Dancing lessons
I was a dancer in a ‘previous’ life. For 17 years it was my life. My life focus. And then it wasn’t. But still I clung to that dream, that identity and that loss. Certainly I had faced much greater losses than simply a career. A sister who died in infancy. Then my father. And I was due to have more in my lifetime. Life dances and you must dance with it irregardless of your best intentions, it moves you with the rhythm and in the direction of its own unfolding. This is the necessary price and incarnate gift of being alive in a body. We cannot escape the continuous dance. It is an impersonal truth of life. None of us gets to be an exception. Life is like this.
I often think life would be so good if we could just freeze moments in time, the time when we were happy, when we knew we were loved. But, we can’t. And so instead, we find ourselves retracing footsteps that may have washed away. We fight to remember our connections even as time wipes our slate clean. And we strive to make new connections we hope time will indulge. When communication fails, words remain behind, proof that we were here, that we mattered, that someone cared. In the end, the past may be all we have.
