It was only for a few moments this evening, but I did, I really did…
We were taking a pre-cocktail hour exercise hike up the mesa. My wife was in the lead as always. She bounds ahead like a deer and never stops to rest until she reaches the top, well before I do. All the way up I slip slowly farther and farther behind, no doubt due to the 30 pounds I need to lose. Today I imagined what taking off a backpack that weighed that much would feel like and understood why she beats me.
But there I was, hauling ass and panting like a locomotive at 7,000 feet with a cool breeze in my face. Earlier my wife had mentioned a rental in San Cristobal, where we used to live, and I was thinking about housing. San Cristobal? Absolutely stunning up there, half an hour away, a real northern New Mexico village in the mountains. Elk, bears, stillness, national forest, stars that shine so bright they hurt your eyes…
“It doesn’t hurt to look, and what a great excuse to drive out there.”
(How does she DO that?)
Momentarily confused, I remembered that wireless or satellite internet access would cost twice as much as my current DSL — case closed! That’s when it hit me: just the other day I’d complained that there were plenty of wonderful places to rent, but they were all out in the country… Marveling at the ludicrous calcification of potential in my life, I realized I don’t know anything, not really. Dumb as a post, that’s me. I make up little stories, little rules, and they become reality:
“Can’t do that, it costs 30 bucks more each month.” (IDIOT!)
“She wouldn’t ever consider living in the boonies again.” (NOT TRUE!)
“We have to live in town, because she has a studio here.” (SO???)
I figure out how things are, and that’s the way they stay. In the process, I cheat myself out of my most cherished dreams.
As I hurried along, watching her move out of sight around a bend, something opened up. All of a sudden, I didn’t mind the extra pounds around my waist. I felt like I’d found a tiny, invisible hole where the universe came blasting out right into my face. The hole got bigger and bigger and became the whole world. Anything was possible. I was swimming in abundance. I felt lucky. That was it, the spot, the hole, the place, the zone: NO LIMITS!
I’m not kidding. For a few moments, everything was different. The feeling didn’t last, but neither has it gone away completely.
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Those “little stories” are what keep most people stuck in the muck.
Ayep… and yet, if one doesn’t listen to them, reality can change instantly. It’s truly staggering to anyone who used to think “that’s just the way life is…” I think the problem is that these things run so quietly in the background, most of us aren’t even aware of them, but they determine absolutely everything: life, death, health, opportunity, etc. etc. etc.
Also passing this on from my Jungian analyst in Zurich, who got it from a Korean Zen master: “Very easy GET enlightened. Very hard STAY enlightened.”
Ayep…
yes….being human gets in the way
If you can look at this life as a practice, it gets a lot easier to forgive oneself for forgetting what we know.