On paddleboarding

Yesterday was a beautiful end of summer day. I had waited around in the hope that my son would decide that he finally did want to go do something summerlike with me or even just go get a haircut. At 3:30 I could wait longer. I went paddleboarding.

Log boom Park sits at the northern tip of Lake Washington. The water there is fairly protected so it remains calm even with the passing speed boats and occasional jet ski. The conditions were great for paddleboarding and afforded me an opportunity to be with myself and observe my thinking.

I recently heard that the ego does not exist in the present. It only exists when we are reliving the past or worrying about the future. It came to my attention while paddleboarding that I was spending and awful lot of time thinking about the past, which means I was spending a lot of time identifying with ego. So I positioned my boat upwind of the landing and floated. I placed the life vest under my head and relaxed into the board with one goal - to be here now.

I closed my eyes and paid attention. What I noticed was a wave coming on the right side of my board and exiting on the left, coming on the right and exiting left, coming on the right, exiting left, while I floated effortlessly above.

Like the waves, situations, people, thoughts and feelings enter our lives and like the waves, so will they go. I am as powerless to prevent this as I am the coming and going of the next wave. What I can do, is try to place my board in a favorable position, then lay back and experience the now.

On Presence

What is it I strive to be if not honest and present in mind, body and emotion?  It is not that I must act on my thoughts and desires.  I must only acknowledge that they exist. So too, I needn’t share all of my inner experiences, these are intimate parts of me, intimate details that I want to be judicious in sharing.  After all,  what is the most precious gift I have to give, if not myself? So then, I ought take care with whom I share the gift of myself.  Vetting is a wise action when considering placing something valuable into another's care. 

How then, do I go about the process of vetting? How do I determine what is and is not appropriate to share and when?  Do I determine this based on your behavior, on what it communicates to me is appropriate?  Certainly not!  Yet this I have done as though I were a mere image of you! It is I who must determine, with the guidance of my higher power, what is and is not appropriate to share of myself.  I must not share for the mere purpose of holding your interest or out of fear that should I not, you will turn your attention elsewhere.  

I cannot rely on myself however to remain pure in action and intent.  I must rely on my higher power and awareness practice to hold my ego in check, to keep me from falling into my old beguiling ways, to replace these with new responses and to keep the end goal at the forefront of my mind no matter what my heart and body desire.   What are they but impetuous children, always wanting and craving, who no sooner obtain the desired object then become wanting for something more.  

Lastly, what of communication?  We for the sake of ease, fall into the trap of text messaging as what seems to be the main source of communication these days.  Are we not using this format as a shield, as a way to keep others at arms length, as a way to obscure what we really mean or feel?  Without the nuances of body language, tone and intensity of voice we do ourselves a disservice when we communicate in this forum.  I want to experience and be experienced in the fullness of presence, not just as text on a screen.  I want to bring to you my practice of presence.  Will you bring me yours?

On Coincidence

Coincidence - I don't believe in this as a principal. We may mis-ascribe the meaning to seemingly random events, to happenstance, but I find meaning in everything that occurs in my life, even when at the time, I cannot imagine what meaning there could possibly be in particularly hurtful events.

By being open to the possibility that there is something to be learned, some meaning inherent, I never fail to see it in time. It requires trust in a power greater than myself. Often, in the most painful of circumstances I have said to God, "I cannot imagine what good can come from this hurtful experience. I can't fathom its purpose but I know you have a only good planned for me. So I trust that this is somehow for my benefit though I can't see it right now. I trust you and supplicate myself before you."

It is never long after I do this that I obtain an answer. I find the meaning and indeed, the reward exceeds the suffering. In this I am never disappointed. My higher power never disappoints, abandons or inflicts harm for harm's sake.

On Attention

I am learning to focus on what I have rather than what I have not, the relationships available to me for nurturing rather than those that are not. It is a practice, to see what is in abundance rather than to focus on what is withering away. If I place my attention on what is withering, so too will be the fate of what is currently growing.

On Global Conflict

Having given up cable television last year, I rarely watch the news but CNN happened to be closed captioned on the screen in front of the chest press at the YMCA yesterday.  In the two minutes that I sat there, this is what I gathered: Iran is acting badly and Obama made a threat.  The media was analyzing with fervor whether or not Obama would follow through on his threat.

I found this humorous.  What I saw was the alcoholic/codependent dynamic on a global scale.  I heard the words of my sponsor - Say what you mean.  Do what you say.  It's ironically simple.  I saw the media scuttling around in a dramatic buzz like ants with a disrupted mound, like family members dealing with an alcoholic crisis of chaos and I felt - amazingly sane.

Time

Time. Wide open. Empty. Ready to fill with possibilities, so much so that I am paralyzed. This is why I sit here on my brand new computer which I was forced to purchase when my old one died a few weeks ago. I've barely used it because my son is on it constantly. I have to say...Niiice!

Who knew that in five years computers had gotten so much faster and had so much more drive space?! Now I have to start saving for the next one that I will undoubtably have to purchase five years down the road, kinda like the replacement car which I have not begun saving for yet.

Did I buy or give a car to my seventeen year old daughter? Heck no. Is there college savings? Some, but it didn't come from my pocketbook. Am I saving up for the wedding she will someday have? That's a laugh. Welcome to the world of most people, Laine. God knows, it is not how I grew up. Everything was given to me. I practically had someone walking behind me sweeping up my tracks. So it surprises me, of all the high expectations that I have held myself to all of these years, why was it so easy for me to let go of the idea that parents should provide these things for their children?

Just as I was about to walk away and end this with the question, "What do you think?" the answer came to me. I was able to let this go because as an adult, I've resented it. I've resented that my parents didn't allow me to grow up, to pay my own way for some things, to mature into an independent adult. I began at 37 what I should have begun at 15. So when my daughter leaves for work on a bike or a bus I take no pleasure in that, but neither do I feel any guilt. I lose no sleep over what she is going to do after high school or how she is going to pay for it. I have complete confidence that she will find her way. She may have little money and no education, but she will be far better equipped to deal with life than I was. Nope. No guilt.

On how I start my day

I wake and look into the mirror. I see circles under my eyes and think, you have not been giving yourself enough rest. I see flaky skin and think, you have not been drinking enough water. I see eyebrow hairs growing in and think, you need to take care of that and I recall that I've been telling myself this for several days now.

Today I awaken to the fact that these are not the words of love, but hate. I wonder, if this is my inner landscape, then what must I project outwards and onto others and if I do not treat myself with loving kindness how can I expect to attract others who will? Then I think how much better it would be to place my effort into this endeavor, to love myself, then it is to place my effort into seeking it from impermanent external sources as I have always done.

I go back to bed and imagine starting my day over, peering into the mirror and saying, "Good morning. I love you."