recording available: mindful
“The practice of mindfulness requires only that, no matter what you do, you do it with your whole being; investing 100% of yourself into the doing.” – Thich Nhat Hanh
it is not an understatement to say this is an area in which i am well grounded. it is also the one area of my life that most people either tell me i should change or express some degree of marveling for.
in speaking with a friend in virginia last night, there came the moment in which they said, ‘well you have to know what you take for granted is just not so simple for most people.’ they were talking about themselves and the topic we were discussing of course. they often say i am ‘being impatient’ with them about it. but they always recant that and later admit it is not that i’m being impatient with them, it is that they are frustrated with themselves that they just don’t see it or can’t be it yet.
i always tell them not to feel alone. there’s a metric ton of things i can’t see or be. stars knows, a good many of them i have been trying and failing at all my life.
but mindfulness, mindfulness i seem to have licked.
not that it does me much good. if it doesn’t have me drummed out of a group for being ‘too intense’, it’s busy keeping me from connecting with others. i do realize that it is not ‘my problem’ per se, but it still is bothersome when you want to engage, to connect and experience and it is just so much like chasing shadows.
i don’t run after people anymore. time and experience has more than impressed upon me that it (a) doesn’t work, (b) usually only results in more suffering (there is a reason why others run and a reason why chasing them is not helpful), (c) makes me look dangerous or frightening to others, of (d) all of the above.
investing all i have in the ‘here and now’ isn’t difficult. i forget sometimes that it is damned hard for some.
Hanh has a good bit to say about mindfulness, but i find that much of it is saying the same thing in many different ways. that isn’t a bad thing. people need to hear things in many ways to reinforce that it is applicable in many ways.
it isn’t like becoming mindful happens in an instant. or lasts forever. it’s pretty much a constant struggle; particularly in the face of a world that is more than happy to shun you for it and only reward you when you eschew it.
sometimes i think about that. that i could have such a different life if only i were more willing not to be mindful. or if i were less willing to pull myself back to it when i’ve slipped off the rails. but at the end of the day, i never seem to be able to manage staying off the rails… even when i wish i could.
i’m really not sure if that is a ‘good’ thing. it’s just the way it is. i’m full tilt boogie, pedal to the metal, balls to the walls, wide eyed and wide open.
no one ever really believes me when i say it. and when they finally do ‘get it’ that i wasn’t lying, inevitably there’s only silence and distance to be had for it.
it is a hard way to live. i am often angry with myself for not being able to be ‘more like the rest of the world’. but i always wind up laughing. when have i ever, truly, managed to be just like everyone else for more than a minute or two?
no…. i accept that my lot in this life is to be just as i am. and to hope i might find someone either willing to embrace me for it or at least not run off screaming or angry for it.
it’s not easy being green. but since i can’t be otherwise, i reckon i’ll be the best green i can be.
i’ve decided that i am not going to tear myself to shreds over this latest loss. i remember quite clearly the moment in which i realized i had a choice in the matter. that’s not quite a first, but it’s damn close to being one.
it happened while i was outside, listening to the wind, watching the clouds, and swaying in time with the trees. i’ve spent quite a bit of time being patient, being caring, being the same ol’ me that i always am…. and it was not enough to soothe the fears of my friend.
since i cannot conscience being relegated to the corner, a hidden, secret, guilty pleasure… and since they either cannot or will not trust to the strength of their own situation enough to speak truth and bring me from the shadows, there is nothing left to do but let it go.
i do not want to let it go. i am grieved that it comes to it. but i also always knew that it would do so if nothing changed. i said as much. repeatedly. i soothe myself with the knowledge that i have always been very forthright with my friend about my unwillingness to be a secret.
i think about my relationships past and try to imagine what it is like to feel as if i could not enjoy a friend for fear of my partner being angry about it. frankly, it says little more than that there is a lack of trust in the mix.
i think about that in the context of my friend having said in the past that they are ‘self destructive’ and that there have ‘been problems’ in the past. i never really asked after it, but i find myself wondering now if there were and are reasons this is the case. perhaps so. perhaps this is why the notion of a true and open friendship is so impossible to their mind.
i feel regret of it. deep regret. i wanted to be able to know them all. i wanted to be able to celebrate the new life they brought into the world. i wanted to be able to giggle with her the same way i did him. it is very sad to me that this turns out to be such an impossible thing.
i still care for my friend. i still love my friend. i will miss my friend for a very long time if not the rest of my life. this i know. it’s just how i am.
but faced with yet another arrival at the same crossroads and finding them just as unwilling as ever to grant me the place any true friend deserves, i find that perhaps it is not such a terrible thing to shake my head and stop running the circuit, hoping for a different outcome the next time i see the intersection ahead of me.
in truth, here, now, i will say the thing i have said all along and (to my own shame) have not set my actions in accord with…..
i deserve more and better than to be a doll in a shoebox, taken out only in secrecy and cast aside with very little thought in any moment that the risk of exposure rises.
i deserve more than to be left hanging and wondering if i will be allowed to enjoy the presence of my friend or if, like so many times, any such enjoyment is to be tempered with the knowledge that i am to expect to be disavowed and ignored in the day to day of life.
it occurs to me that my friend has often lambasted those i have spoken of who have treated me in this fashion in my past. i wonder what thoughts occur to them, should it come to pass that they realize they have done the same.
this, the last reason i decide not to chase after… it is not worth the hurt to my friend that such a thought would rise for more than a moment. for the unwillingness to have this be more than a breath in passing, i can sigh, nod, and do no more than watch it slip over the horizon.
i will miss my friend… terribly… but for me and for my friend, unless we can be friends day to day, full on, freely, and without shame, there is nothing but more of this same. i cannot wish it upon them and in all truth, i cannot endure it myself, either.
it is heavy. and it is sad. i am sorrowful for it. but this too, shall pass. the one good thing about having had a friend is that the beauty they brought lives and thrives long after impermanence has pulled them beyond your view. i can tend the roses given and be happy for them. i can and will. every friend i’ve known is a rose in the garden of memory. some more fragrant than others, but all are delightful.
it is a mindful goodbye. i am content in it.