I find myself swimming
In an infinity pool—
logging the miles
for some outside demand.
Is this life? Just a series
of punch-ins-punch-outs-
happyhours-and-feelings
oftimelost?
I did it: I got a great place
to live, great roommates; a job in my field that is challenging and constantly
expanding my skillset; a city I’ve come to know and love that surprises me with
her hidden gems; a fellow social-justice aficionado boyfriend who tells me I’m
a goddess and refills my jameson without pause. I make enough money to be
comfortable, but still tight enough to feel like a ‘struggling (I don’t want to
say artist).’ Still on my parents health insurance. Fucking killing it, right?
Then why
am I choking
on tar,
impending doom?
‘You’re wasting time,
You’re stagnant.
You’re not peterpan.
grow up.’
‘a single moment is all
we need to establish our human will and attain truth.’
fuck yeah
you can change everything in
a moment!
But what about sustainability?
Fucking zen masters—cherry
blossoms in a blizzard.
‘DO MORE!’
she says--How guilt-ridden
and pathetic,
negating the real truth
that I was born whole
and that nondoing
is a more powerful currency
than any form of
accomplishment
in this society built on
objectification.
I cherish those moments late
at night before I get off my swing shift when I zip up my raincoat and meander
outside to breathe fresh air. I watch people utilizing their street-skills—charisma
to snag a pull on the bottle; resourcefulness to pick up half-smoked cigarette
off the concrete; audacity to snag someone’s tarp from their neatly stacked
pile to secure their own survival.
We have moments of pure truth
and understanding.
They tell me of their home
planets,
That justice will be served
for WWII,
That Jesus is coming.
I glimpse into their world
and it all makes sense.
These homeless angels are
crippled by their ability to feel
—pain, suffering, prejudice,
and institutionalized oppression.
The rest of us numb in heated
homes with ‘could-be-better’ wages and expensive hobbies.
It doesn’t add up. The people
doing all the work
—the cooking, cleaning, building,
nurturing, counseling, advocating, caretaking—
get fucked by the system. What
an exhausting insight to behold—breathing new definitions.
Social Work: the art of
balancing self-preserving ignorance while kindling fire for change.
With this awareness, I too
feel crippled by the depth of corruption
Crippled by the paradox of
change-within and change-without.
The yogis say to ‘make yourself whole,’
—how can one integrate when surrounded by souls swept out to sea by tides
outside their control?
‘Our human body appears and disappears moment by
moment, without cease, and this ceaseless arising and passing away is what we
experience as time and being. They are not separate, they are one thing, and in
even a fraction of a second, we have the opportunity to choose and to turn the
course of our action either towards the attainment of truth or away from it.
Each instant it utterly critical to the whole world.’
Paralysis by questions of
purpose
direction, and intent—a
diagnosis met by many aficionados before me.
The answer is there is no
answer.
The fact is we are all alone—
single islands of
consciousness
in this vast illusion of
import.
The only meaning we can glean
are the stories we tell
ourselves of ‘truth.’
Sometimes I drink chardonnay
in the afternoon like my mother and sisters before me and gaze over the
precipice, contemplating the time it would take me to fall and the feeling of
inertia and gravity and time suspended. Even for a short while…
Sometimes I sit by the window
like my jade bonsai, phototropic, growing towards the light in the shade of
doug-firs during my 15 minute meditations and I feel like ‘I got this, I am
whole.’
up, down, same thing.
*The quotes in italics are taken from the character Jiko, a 104 year-old zen buddhist/feminist nun in the book A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
