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Start Again

05/26/2017 by John Leave a Comment

Many years ago I attended a ten-day silent meditation retreat. At the beginning of every meditation period, the teacher would instruct us with his hypnotic Indian accent to “start again, start again, start again”. His further advice when feeling distracted during meditation was to “start again”.

My teacher’s advice to start again is once more resonating in my consciousness. I made a commitment to myself to post a piece of my writing once a week during 2017 and last week I failed to do so. I once wrote about maintaining healthy habits while traveling, but during my current trip, I have found it difficult to follow my own advice, at least where writing is concerned. I am a person who thrives on routine, which is ironic since I don’t like to be in one place for too many months at at time.

It would be easy enough at this point to just forget about my commitment to post once a week and save myself the trouble. This is the way good habits die: you miss one day and decide you have failed, so why bother. But progress comes from not letting ourselves off the hook so easily.

Fall down nine times,
Get up ten.
Zen Proverb

And so here I sit, with keyboard in front of me, wanting to be doing something less difficult but ultimately less rewarding. In my mind, I hear a familiar voice slowly repeating:

“Start Again. Start Again. Start Again”.

Two Couples

04/14/2017 by John 1 Comment

One night in the house that we used to own, Mary and I sat in the middle of the dining room floor talking while drinking a bottle of wine from Argentina. We chatted about hopes, dreams, and crazy schemes; of living each moment as if it were the last, as indeed it could be. Though it was dark outside, we laughed and smiled and looked at each other as if in the fresh morning light.

We were that other couple that night. The couple who had just met. The couple that thought and believed and lived like all was possible, like the energy of their union could power them through this world like a speeding train traversing new lands filled with wonder and adventure. We were the two who would be greater than the ones could ever be.

This morning we were the couple that has to do the things it has to do: get out of bed to go to work, clean up the detritus left abandoned on the kitchen counter top from last night’s dinner, stepping around one another with eyes not meeting while trying to get into the bathroom. We were the sleepwalking couple, accomplishing what must be accomplished, unconscious to the mysteries all around us: the earth hurtling through space at 67,062 miles per hour, the birth and death of millions of beings occurring simultaneously, and the unlikely chances that bring two people from so far apart together.

We are both couples, the two who shine as one, lighting the way for a fearless tear through life, and the two who do the dishes and try not to let their reactions to the other’s behavior erupt into careless words. If these two couples sat down to dinner, I wonder what they would talk about? Would they find some common ground? Perhaps they might agree that the challenge of a relationship is in learning how to nourish the things you cherish about each other while bringing loving acceptance to everything else.

Based on a journal entry from 2.28.13

A Blank Canvas

04/07/2017 by John 1 Comment

My work for the winter season is done. I am not scheduled for any more paid employment until late July. The blank canvas of the next few months is stretched out before me. The empty space is exciting, but also intimidating.

The life that I am currently living allows me to have large blocks of unscheduled time sandwiched between intense periods of work. When I am in the midst of working, I long for these periods, thinking about all the things I hope to do and accomplish while I am gainfully unemployed. But once my mini-retirements begin, I often find myself paralyzed by the amount of freedom I suddenly have inherited. My choices about what to do with my time seem limitless to the point of being overwhelming. The blank canvas stares back at me, demanding that I do something with it.

I have been employed in situations where I worried that I was wasting my time by being there. But what I have learned is that I can just as easily feel this way while on my sabbaticals. I have a need to find purpose and meaning in my day, and this can be difficult both within and outside of the work that I do.

So what will I do with this blank canvas? Will I paint a picture I can be proud of, or will I look back at it and see only a bunch of random, disconnected splotches of color? Will I do something that will provide me with a sense of purpose, or will I simply flitter away the time doing things that will leave no lasting impression on myself or anyone else? It is up to me to decide.

I hope I choose wisely.