As I spent the better part of yesterday in the limbo that exists in between discussions of feelings, fantasy and fear that move the synchronized pulse of lovers to a clash of syncopated and isolated heartbeats, I could see clearly why so many people avoid falling in love at all costs.

From the gentle decree – I’ll never fall in love again to the anthem of the independent man — Love Hurts some of us build walls around our tenderness to forever avoid bleeding love . Which is why some romantics reach for their running shoes at the first sign that THIS may be the ONE. And even when you can’t stop yourself from the L word, you can always try the bold face lie –  — I’m not in love and see how far that gets you.

Because when we find our self wide open and willing to be monogamous — which by the way thesaurus.com claims is a synonym of IMPOTENT, small wonder few men choose monogamy — we automatically become enrolled in Pain and Suffering 101 not to be confused with Pain and More Suffering (PMS) which is a graduate class that has recently become an independent study course because the professor simply couldn’t manage the weekly discussions so the physical class disbanded.

Fact is .. if you are a sentient being in love … it physically hurts when we are at odds with our heart’s desire. We feel unsettled, out of step, our head spinning stories while throbbing in pain. We adhere meaning to the mishap which feeds our egoic mind of our own unworthiness or that of our partner because in the end they are both one and the same. When we are IN LOVE our heart seems to become as fragile as a porcelain doll. Any bump in the road can cause a hairline fracture that in time will cause us to loose face.

So then why is Match.com, ChristainMingle.com  — not to be confused with Christian Nymphos  — Buddhist Passions ,  Old Souls Pagen Dating , or Gay Friend Finder not to mention Ashley Madison  for those who just can’t get enough of the drama — booming businesses?

Because try as we might and despite what we outwardly say … LOVE HAPPENS and we are at its mercy if not its beck and call girl. So while some embrace the dance  and willingly get their hand stamped for the roller coaster ride of a lifetime as others deny their feelings and suffer silently unwilling to tell the object of their affection that they are everything that they ever wanted … no one has immunity as love infects each of us in its unique and contagious way.

So we endure the days when our insides feel like they’ve been bathed in battery acid and there is a troll with a Ball-peen hammer  pounding on our amygdala,  — because having it ALL means inviting it all to tea. And LOVE really isn’t about an object outside of our Self. Because in Truth … all that we ARE at the essence of our Being IS LOVE.

Which is why hearing the words at the end of a long day — “I will never leave you, no matter how many times we don’t see eye to eye” instantly completes a circuit in our romantic code and we are uplifted and held in the bliss that IS the always and unconditional beauty of LOVE.

The recommendation is not personal of course. Its devoid human emotion or motivation. A simple algorithm that adds faceless tally marks and totals common links between profiles. Everyone knows that of course. Unless you have a touch of OCD … (Obsessive Conspiracy Disorder) in which case you are well aware that the Facebook database knows more about you than the PIPL pooh-bah and has filed every court document, mortgage lien, pet adoption and cash purchase for every plain brown wrapper delivery since you were 17.

Facebook KNOWS its your ex-husband and that you’ve ignored their recommendation for the last five years and four months. It counts on the fact that you’ll click ANYTHING over on the right margin (here’s a word from our sponsor) just to make the picture of him and his new 26 year old wife vacationing in the Bahamas go away. So of course you choose retail therapy to feel better about your middle aged makeup-less face with that picture of your ass in those jeans you don’t know why you thought you could wear that your daughter tagged you in on her wall this morning.

Amazon Prime … Take me Away!

The young plumber pup who came to look at the relic informed me that the water heater was one year older than he was. Suffice to say it wasn’t up to new earthquake codes. Suffice to say it was going to cost more than the premium pup and the calico kitty combined to replace the unit.

Ultimately everything breaks. That’s the core of the practice. We are born and we die. In between if we are lucky .. we bathe in hot water, play with puppies and sit peacefully with a fat cat on our lap. The other day I heard my daughter shout “First World Problems!!” And it really made quite an impression. When I get caught in the small details of this life I realize that for the most part they are all first world problems. From the dysautonomia to divorce … all of it is very esoteric compared to the needs of other sentient beings who have no home and no running water.

So yes, my hot water heater needs to be replaced and I am fully aware that it is a problem I am privileged to have.

And of course all the animals have names “Move Dalai”, “No Ruby”, “Where’s Cali” and so on.  I too have taken on a new name as I move into my final chapter in Life.  Karma.  As a netizen I’ve been Ms. Karma for a mighty long time in one form or another.

And I knew that one day when the time was right, that I would establish a name of my choosing.  But what is in a name anyway, eh?  It is just one more letter in the soup that our ego wants to define as the me-meal it pretends to be.

In embracing my own karma I get to watch the parade of paw prints of my new furry friends and see that life continues to be a game of discovery and dharma … though dharma seems often to be spelled D-R-A-M-A when my dyslexia gets the better of me.  All of us are forever only trying not to step in the poo as we navigate our way through the pergo forest.  If Zen is about doing the laundry, I should think I have finally arrived because we are washing pee soaked sheets, blankets, towels and pillows as if it was a mantra … wash, rinse, hang and repeat.

So welcome to the litter box.  Whether its New Wine into Old Wineskins it is and will always be the same ol’ shit.  But if we approach the mess with open eyes we may be able to actually SEE the pee before we soak our socks.  Or at the very least, hear the laugh track when we once again find our Self seemingly soiled.  No matter what new practice we think we are embracing, regardless of how established we think we are in our regime … there is only so much thinking outside the (litter) box before we realize that we are still at the endomorphic core That which we have always Been before.

I Am

and

I am back.

I gave lectures to the freshman class every August that said … “Never write anything in email (or on the internet) that you don’t want published on the front page of the LA Times. Or better yet that you don’t want your Grandmother to read!” One of the two hooks was usually sufficient to make an impression on the young minds.

And of course the converstion is not limited to what we put in print. I recall being in the ladies room after a final exam, talking with my best friend. She was in the stall next to me and I was kevetching about the professor and how inexperienced she was yadda yadda yadda. When I came out to wash my hands, I saw the faculty member standing there. Ask me what I got on that test.

Its a lesson that I wish I could say I learned one time and never repeated. When I wear my Zen hat or sit on my meditation cushion, its easy to be at PEACE and have compassion, not only for others but for our very broken sense of Self. However, the pull towards drama and mountain making mole hills is so great that at times even the sage falls to her knees and curses the dirt for being untidy.

Oh my yes, there most certainly is a story here behind my loosely guarded prose. But the work and the lesson for me is where to go from here. I took a stroll in my wheel chair with my youngest daughter today. Enmeshed in the middle of high-school she is all too familiar with drama and hormonal outbreaks. “Did you hear what the ho Becka did after the football game?” And my apologies to any Becka that goes to school with my daughter … I am speaking of course hypothetically.

In the moment, I explained to her, it’s important that we BE who we say we are. If we are to embody the practice of compassion and loving kindness, then our words must always match our intentions. Even when we think no one else is listening. Even when we think we are simply “venting”.

“But how DO we vent then?” she asked. “Its not good to keep that inside.”

To keep WHAT inside? A bio-chemical moment of misunderstanding or mistrust? A value judgement on another sentient human being who was as always doing her best in the moment? When we SEE clearly that each of us are licking our own self-inflicted wounds then there is simply no need to TAKE ON the poison that we may feel coursing thru our veins.

There is NOTHING to vent when we see the world through the eyes of compassion. The “I” of compassion.

It was a good walk and a wonderful conversation with my darling little one. Moreover, it was an important wake up call for ME … to remember WHO I AM and who I decided to be a very long time ago. And as I sit and reprogram my moral GPS I bow deeply and recommit myself to The Practice.

I paid $500 cash (check) for the car. It was only blocks away from my college dorm. I got in turned the key and carefully merged into traffic. I slowed down at the red light of a busy intersection. I can see the car coming at me still to this day as clear in my mind as if it were happening all over again right now. I was about 15 feet from the intersection … a large Plymouth was making a left turn in front of me. Had it been 2011, I’m sure it would have been her negligent texting that caused her to swerve into my lane. As it were she dropped a tissue on the floor and bent down to pick it up.

The radiator of the old ship let out a stream of white smoke upon impact. The low rider was totaled in one fatal blow. I got out of the car, wrapped myself up in the Mexican blanket and sat on the curb and cried. I was 17 and ostensibly alone in California. I didn’t have insurance, because I thought I had TIME to go back to my dorm and call Allstate to tell them about my new car.

My license was suspended and the other insurance company would not pay my claim. I remember calling my Daddy and crying HARD on the line. Listen!, he told me, ‘You tell the insurance company that you have lower back pain and that you are majoring in law and would love to take their client to small claims court for an extra credit assignment. They’ll settle with you.’ Then I called my Grandpa Jerry, who sent me a check for a down payment on a new car. ‘As long as you are alright, Nancy Ann. That’s what is important. There will always be another car.’

Tonight, I got to tell that to my son when he came home all misty eyed after totally the family van. I held him tight and told him everything would be alright. Then I dialed HIS Grandpa Jerry on the phone and said here … talk to your Grandpa he loves car stories.

His older sister did the same thing too. October Moons perhaps. The curse of the first car. Whatever it is, the sound of metal and braking glass stays in your cellular memory for a lifetime. Maybe it serves as a warning. A reminder that you are driving a one ton bomb that can destroy life in a blink of an eye. Or a drop of a tissue.

Of course there are lots of pieces to the story … lots of mistakes made … lots of family jokes made at Dan’s expense. But at the end of the day, as Dan’s bruises begin to discolor and the black night sky makes us all feel a bit blue .. I sit in my bed wrapped up in that same Mexican blanket of memories and I realize how very fortunate I am that it was Dan that called me from his cell phone … and not the police officer at the scene calling to tell me about the accident. Everyone is alright. That’s what is important. Thank you Grandpa Jerry your words ring so very true.

Photograph by Cindy Wilkins, copyright 2011

All around me I see the carnage of lives that weep from open wounds oozing with infected bile which sting as the salt from toxic tears rush into the hole in their heart. From one fire to another, I watch my dear friends run with buckets to dowse the flames, only to find they have been carrying kerosine and are now engulfed in the blaze of hell with No Exit in Sartre.

Over there is a young woman who has cut herself for the billionth time and now panics that maybe she has gone too far tonight. Another sage is in tears as she talks to her lover on the phone and wonders how an unworkable situation could ever possibly work. We all wonder all the time … are we doing the right thing … are we reading the signs right?

Should we stalk?

Or should we walk away?

And do we actually have a choice?

As I look at the manic moon, there are no easy answers. Nothing is certain. Even our uncertainty may fade one day. But rest assured that edgy feeling of dis-ease will get replaced by a new disordered mental concept. Because we never really run from our problems. We never actually close the book on our broken heart. We only ever trade one neurotic thought in our monkey mind for another greater or equal distraction.

And they ARE just that. Distractions from the Truth. The Truth that tomorrow never does come. The Truth that we are not as small as we think we are. The Truth that we don’t know and we have forgotten far more than we will ever know in this tiny spec of an existential existence. The Truth that everything is Perfect. Just as it is.

Despite what our mind is telling us in the moment…

Regardless of the three alarm disaster siren that drowns out the bird song outside our window….

THIS is ALL WE HAVE.
Enjoy this moment.
Or not.
Dance in the rain
While you weather the storm
THIS is ALL WE HAVE
Be happy or not
But SEE the Truth.
Because in that Seeing
You realize
that You Are
The Man in the Moon
and
the Moonbeam
that lands on
the empty space
in the back of
your Eye (I).

Namaste

I quickly typed my BRB in the room I was in … which really didn’t matter since I’m pretty sure the other avatar was sleeping … and went downstairs to see if I could find the feline nightingale before she drew a crowd.  The little pup offered to come “help”, but she’d just be another juicy morsel for the coyote pack which I was sure were on their way catching an upwind of pheromones in the cool night air.

I spotted a white shadow dart into the neighbors rose bushes and did my best domestic cat call … kiss, kiss, kiss, pss, pss, pss, pss, pss.  The ball of fluff spotted me and took off further under a parked car.  I approached slowly explaining to our show girl that it wasn’t safe for her to be peddling her wears under the full moon.  Kiss, kiss, kiss, pss, pss, pss, pss.  She looked up at me and dashed off between two houses.  I hoped she would find her way home.  An open window perhaps?  A garage door left ajar?  Maybe she would climb up a crepe myrtle and be safe until morning.

>Having failed my search and rescue, I made my way back to bed, lifted the laptop up upon my thighs and continued my Zen meditation.  Which translated into saying I was back from BRB, and returned to watch my avatar bat her eyes and smile in an aimless pavlovian loop of catty gestures.  And just as the Peace was settling in the room … a slight breeze came in through the open window that caught my attention and the stillness of the night was broken with the rebel yell of the coyote circle.  Dinner was served.  The yelps and yips echoed in the quarry.  It is quite a macab dinner show indeed.  I could hear a neighborhood dog barking wildly amist the yiff and howls of the kill.

Soon, all was quiet again.  I glanced at the computer screen and my avi looked non-plussed by the whole ordeal.  I closed my eyes and breathed deep as I bid the sweet cat good luck on her new journey.

Sometimes there is simply no changing what is destined to be.  Or so it seems in the moment.  We may see ourselves walking into the lions den, or coyote clutch, or IMVU drama pit … but we can’t seem to stop our footsteps as we repeat the same brain patterns that seem programmed to carry us into our next adventure.  Smile, nod, cast eyes down … and repeat.

We may consider that there must be a better way to avoid the blood shed we know awaits.  Yet we still choose the same subroutine, day after day, night after full moon maddness.Watching our mind.  Watching our actions.  Wishing at times things would be different.  Witnessing it all and peaking through our fingers as we press our palms tight against our eyes at the moment of the kill.  Not wanting to witness the slaughter and not willing to turn away.  Day after day, night after sleepless night under a moon full of the emptyness that marks the passage of time.   Smile, nod, cast eyes down … and repeat.