lifeinthealong.com
repository for the occasional perambulatory rumination

Mar

26

Still

Filed Under Ruminations

Still.

It’s my word of the year. I chose it myself.

I don’t mean still as in more to come or still as in I’m not finished yet or still as in flat lines. Still. Just still. Still as in the feel of a leaf traveling from its former home: the tree, to its next home: the ground.

Still as in meditating. Hanging the Do Not Disturb sign out for my thoughts.
Saying Ssshhhhhhh and I’ll be with you in a while.

I wake up at 3:35 and can’t go back to sleep, so I decide today - right now - is when I’ll try meditating. I focus on the sound of my husband snoring, but that is too erratic. I focus on god, our cat who is stretched out on his back along my side, but his cuteness is not a good focus for meditation. I focus on the tree shadows on the wall, but edges of the storm in nearby Alabama cause the shadows to dance, rendering them not a good focus for meditation.

I try saying Ommmmmm - quietly, to myself, but all I can think of is “Um” . . . as in that pesky filler word too many people use without even knowing it. I try paying attention to the images that appear on the inside of my eyelids, the strange shapes around the ubiquitous black hole. As I vow to commit the image to memory, I wonder how I can recreate that image, and first thing you know, I have strayed from the meditation.

Again.

I try focusing on my breathing - out, in. Out, in. Out, in.
But I’m not sure whether “out” refers to my stomach as it goes out to fetch air or to the air as I expel the breath from me.

I think about the word “still”, and I use it in several different sentences then decide that is enough meditating for the day. My best guesstimate would be that I meditated about 2.5 seconds of the hour and a half I spent meditating. So I get up, dress, and come downstairs to write. It’s something I want to do, something I’ve been told I’m fairly good at.

Still, I start . . .
Alison’s still here.
My shoulders still hurt.
They are worse than flat broke, but he still drinks and she still stays out of work to shop.

That’s all so predictable. Such familiar ground that tiptoes right up to whining.
I start again:
The hair on my legs still grows, but much more slowly. Thank goodness.

Still.

Still.

The one year anniversary is coming up, and I know I should write about it.
But I can’t.
If I take my fingers out of the holes, I’m afraid it will drown us all.

So I go to the shelf in search of that cute little book on meditation - the one that is so colorful and so entertainingly graphically designed. Maybe it’s time I read that book . . . but it apparently didn’t make the cut. It’s not here, so I’ll have to choose another book.

What’s this, I wonder, as I pick up a book called Getting Over Tom. Where on earth did this book come from?

“Still is the word,” I remind myself, knowing the whole while that I’m still avoiding, I’m just doing it more consciously and cautiously these days. I sit and try meditating again.

I think of the anchorites who begged asylum inside the walls of a monastery. I think of quilters and painters and sculptors who stay with their work till all else falls away. I look at the jar I wrap with thread as I listen to the soft voice of Clarissa Pinkola Estes tell the story of Demeter and Persephone. I remember writing my thesis and how reading it today makes me wonder “Who wrote this?”

I long to lose myself in creating something that will ultimately help me find myself.

I look around and see all the books on the shelf. They give me comfort. They destroy me. I spend so much time taking in the words of others, I have trouble putting out my own. Where does it come from? How can other people get an idea and stay with it long enough to have a book at the other end? Or a quilt? Or a poncho?

Why can’t I empty my mind? Why can’t I control my thoughts and bring them to a screeching halt?

I pick up the magazine that’s been on my desk for weeks, laying open to the article on meditation and read that meditating, according to Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche (somebody who, with a name like that, ought to know), is nothing more than noticing and being aware of your thoughts.

That’s it? I don’t have to empty my mind? You mean, I’m not a failure because I can’t completely stop my thoughts?

What a relief. I’ve been meditating all along.

~

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Comments

2 Responses to “Still”

  1. Debbie on April 14th, 2007 2:50 am

    You got through the anniversary . . . how?

  2. Debbie on April 14th, 2007 3:02 am

    Still

    I’m still hurting; not as badly as I was, but it’s sure still there–the ache in the chest.

    I’m still confused . . . now what? I still can’t figure anything out? Everything is still a puzzle to me.

    I’m still free-falling without a landing or a net in sight. But I’m still doing all the things I’m “supposed” to do.

    Still

    I want to be still. Take some time to just BE, but I can’t.

    The mind motion is still stuck in over-caffenated mode. I want to listen to the still, small voice that will illuminate all to me. I still haven’t heard it.

    I want to visualize a better life for me. Abundance. Empowerment. I want my inner resources to grow, but I still don’t know how to fertilize them.

    I still don’t know who I am. I still don’t seem to be able to enjoy the exploration. I want to.

    I want to be still and have that stillness represent peace. Oh, my dear, yes. Some peace. The inner dialog is anything but still.

    What do I do and where do I go to find what I need and want? What do I do and where do I go to find out what I need and want?

    I still don’t know.

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