i am not made of this

i went to the sangha spring-rain meditation last night.

It was long.  I've never sat for that long.  Sitting, a brief standing interlude, sitting - then a dharma talk.  75 minutes of meditation.  Actual pure meditation - much shorter than that.  Surreal thoughts and pounding heart and short-of-breath moments.

In the talk Jim (i think) said this phrase "I am not made of this," in connection with some chant or other.  I liked it, that I am not made of "this" which is the emotion that's taken roost in me for the moment.  Anger, fear, sadness - I am not made of this.  That is not my essential nature.

On the way to the sangha (?) I had to go get a bite and traveling south to Bloor Street watched people walking north.  Who was "serene?"  Who was headed to the meditation.  I ID'ed one on the money - and got a big surprise with the girl in the sparkly sequin top and the boobs-for-days - she was there too.

No judgements, baby.

you never know where it comes from

Beautiful day, I did some yoga in the backyard, true sun salutations - salute to the east, rays on my face when I went into upward dog... the canopy of trees overhead in triangle pose.  I love my backyard.

hopped on the bike early, a trip through Trinity-Bellwoods to pick up a cinnamon and brown sugar croissant at Clafouti, and then flipping through the Globe at the Dark Horse.  I'm going to take the picture now of what leapt out and made me cry.

Son, adventurer, life saver.

I'm barely controlling myself now.  That face, those words.  OK, tears now.

That sweet sweet face, and to think of his beautiful life snuffed out--  the pain his family must feel, and how immediately I go to what would happen to me if that had been my girl.

but to know that your child, at 16 months, was an adventurer. And to know, completely know, that he was a life saver... I haven't even read the obit, but I know my girl saved my life.  

And so, how does the death of an individual give meaning to life?  If contemplating death makes one realize the value in life is now, can only be now... but that's the Big Void, the EveryNothing.  A little boy dies.  A child you love dies.  All there is is pain.  Can you bring gratitude to your life after that? "Death" is easy.  Someone you love, dying, is something else again.

What I said yesterday

I think about death and what it can give you - an awareness of life.  Attention.  To have no more fear is to look at death every day and face the void and its certainty - and then to turn to your life with a sense of joy and possibility.  To look at the richness of the day. Death gives meaning - not god.

I still think - and I'm feeling all this stuff out - that Death in the abstract does all that.  Death that's reached over and rattled you-- torn you to pieces-- it would be so easy to go to a place of meaninglessness.

I'm going to try to read the obit now.

A head trauma killed him.  He never regained consciousness.  He became an organ donor at 16 months of age.  His father wrote the obituary, and says, "He taught others never to take a precious moment of family time - however mundane - for granted, and not to delay opportunities to visit friends both far and near."

Look it's Eugene!

Beautiful morning.

I think about death and what it can give you - an awareness of life.  Attention.  To have no more fear is to look at death every day and face the void and its certainty - and then to turn to your life with a sense of joy and possibility.  To look at the richness of the day. Death gives meaning - not god.

Eugene makes the cover of the Globe's life section

Thursday morning

it's hard to keep a blog.  It's hard to keep your house clean and make changes to it and deal with running toilets and feed your kid and work and see friends and write and find time to exercise and all that, and then to try to write this journal as well....

but here's my feets from 2 days ago:

Outside Whizbang.  the pigeon was immaculate in death.

so...

something beautiful

Found this stumbling

Because I want to remember how beautiful this world is.

too much

so much i want to put in here but it's late, i'm tired.

Morning coffee at Balzac's

yesterday: Tree of Life.  a sense of mystery and wonder - how life is incomplete without it, how i've lost it and want it back.  beauty.  and that i must live my life, not set about it grimly as so many tasks to be performed.

today: that I don't know if I want to be in story rooms anymore.  I think it really is time for me to move on to the next thing.  I may not be any good at it, at least not at the game that needs to be played today.

i hate those socks

I've been watching The Shadow Line and thinking, if you can't do that, why do it at all? The sense of a complete world, a vision, unique, flawed, still compelling.  I'd like to write that once.

Tonight: i had to dismantle the ruined roof of my gazebo, abandoned by the assclown from Oshawa who literally snuck away with his posse as I prepared dinner.  Now there's a mess of boards with nails prickling out all over piled up in my once-lovely backyard, a pile that needs to get gone before the big birthday party on Saturday.  However, the gazebo is better without a roof, although now completely useless as rain cover and STILL THERE.

there was something satisfying about hammering the crap out of it and clearing it away.  That physical labour thing, in reverse: once there was something, now there is nothing - i made it go away by myself.

crying on the couch, night two

realizing the guy isn't the reason, but simply a symptom, simply one more time I ended up alone.

fearing there's some fatal flaw inside me, and I'll never find the connection I yearn for.

treasuring the connections I do have, but tonight, again, they're just not enough.

a gratitude list:

Maya, always and forever.  Tonight all she wanted to do was read, and to know that I wasn't sad.
Ripley, who drooled while being petted tonight.
Dennis, who sent worried emails.
Raspberries.
Music.
Hope, which refuses to die - but feels faint and failing.
My house, as I come upstairs and feel that I am home.
The scarf I bought in Niagara Falls, which is vivid pink and cheerful.

There are other things in abstract, but those are real and concrete tonight.

Lunchtime on day one of Bomb Girls