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This is a blog about:
a) finding grace
b) serendipity
c) reaching inwards
So in other words, not being such an asshat.
I think a common flaw shared by people who enjoy writing is that we like to furnish ourselves in our imaginations like we would characters in a story. Even when we are outwardly self-deprecating, we think of flattering ways to tell ourselves about how wrong we are, the way an omnipotent narrator might lovingly fashion a protagonist. I think this is the principal reason I have always failed at meditation. Nothing is as disquieting as the quiet mind-unless of course you are a saint, or at least someone who meditates often enough to be thoroughly friendly with your own demons. Ugly feelings are exhausting to contend with when you can't scream them out, or argue with yourself about how you deserve to have them. I should add that Pinterest quotes, inspirational books and dare I say, even poetry can't crack you open like an oyster and infuse wisdom into your unrelenting brain. God knows I have tried, many times.
When I want things, by God I want them NOW. I am basically an animal that way. So doing things slowly-like (to borrow from a children's story) is not my strong suit. Neither is cracking myself open in order to find grace, or eventually become a better version of myself. Oh no, I look like your average yoga pants wearing mom who is inspired by these ideas, but me, I like FAST and I like STRONG and I am the child eternally asking "are we there yet?" Except when I don't know where it is that we are going, well I may as well have peed my pants and skipped my nap, because I am going to be annoyed about it. How does one go somewhere FAST without having a place to go? I know, they say it's about the journey. But what if, sometimes, the journey is dull? What if there are endless weeks of retrieving sippy cups from under car seats and grading the same assignment 27 times and walking into rooms and forgetting why I'm there?
Well, today, I had a conversation with a stranger. And it smelled like marigold. And I was flipping through a book in the library which happened to fall to a page that happened to say that to a person, a mountain fire is a catastrophe, but to a mountain it is just a fire. Another page said, Stay.
I don't believe that things always happen because there is a reason. I struggle with that idea, because what then is the reason for children dying, or cruelty, or torture, or other kinds of irreconcilable loss? But perhaps, some things happen because sometimes, the deep needs of the earth align with our selves, and that is altogether a different thing. And what of the earth being nothing but "a mote of dust suspended on a sunbeam"?
If I open myself to this nothing but dust, perhaps, perhaps, I leave room for a little less of myself and a little more wonder. Myself is just rushing to nowhere, but the earth-it smells like marigold sometimes.
a) finding grace
b) serendipity
c) reaching inwards
So in other words, not being such an asshat.
I think a common flaw shared by people who enjoy writing is that we like to furnish ourselves in our imaginations like we would characters in a story. Even when we are outwardly self-deprecating, we think of flattering ways to tell ourselves about how wrong we are, the way an omnipotent narrator might lovingly fashion a protagonist. I think this is the principal reason I have always failed at meditation. Nothing is as disquieting as the quiet mind-unless of course you are a saint, or at least someone who meditates often enough to be thoroughly friendly with your own demons. Ugly feelings are exhausting to contend with when you can't scream them out, or argue with yourself about how you deserve to have them. I should add that Pinterest quotes, inspirational books and dare I say, even poetry can't crack you open like an oyster and infuse wisdom into your unrelenting brain. God knows I have tried, many times.
When I want things, by God I want them NOW. I am basically an animal that way. So doing things slowly-like (to borrow from a children's story) is not my strong suit. Neither is cracking myself open in order to find grace, or eventually become a better version of myself. Oh no, I look like your average yoga pants wearing mom who is inspired by these ideas, but me, I like FAST and I like STRONG and I am the child eternally asking "are we there yet?" Except when I don't know where it is that we are going, well I may as well have peed my pants and skipped my nap, because I am going to be annoyed about it. How does one go somewhere FAST without having a place to go? I know, they say it's about the journey. But what if, sometimes, the journey is dull? What if there are endless weeks of retrieving sippy cups from under car seats and grading the same assignment 27 times and walking into rooms and forgetting why I'm there?
Well, today, I had a conversation with a stranger. And it smelled like marigold. And I was flipping through a book in the library which happened to fall to a page that happened to say that to a person, a mountain fire is a catastrophe, but to a mountain it is just a fire. Another page said, Stay.
I don't believe that things always happen because there is a reason. I struggle with that idea, because what then is the reason for children dying, or cruelty, or torture, or other kinds of irreconcilable loss? But perhaps, some things happen because sometimes, the deep needs of the earth align with our selves, and that is altogether a different thing. And what of the earth being nothing but "a mote of dust suspended on a sunbeam"?
If I open myself to this nothing but dust, perhaps, perhaps, I leave room for a little less of myself and a little more wonder. Myself is just rushing to nowhere, but the earth-it smells like marigold sometimes.
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