şimdi
Will my life be an ongoing parade of guessing?
Footwork is less fancy than the steps I learn in dance class. I glide far more easily on the rubber floor. Barefoot, sweaty, beating my hands against my thighs to the rhythm of the music.
Do I wish my daily interactions were this smooth? Undisrupted as the linen napkins someone dyed to match the table cloth. Light green with yellow dishware. I feel like I'm inside a lime as I fork the salad from my plate.
The plants are watered from a pot shaped like a cactus. Its bright green is faker than its laking thorns. What is natural is more work—mowing the lawn, trimming the bushes, watering the plants, and collecting the plums and figs from the trees before they fall to the earth and get mushy—drawing insects larger than my thumb.
The ants work together to carry the cookie crumbs from the wax paper bag I set in the shade. They choose the larger pieces and move in tandem with the chunks on their backs. A balancing act. They understand the potency of collective feedback. or perhaps they don't. Do ants think? Or are they simply moving from automation that keeps them alive?
Likely the latter.
I am no different. I accept less-than-desirable behavior out of a need to feel close to people. Is it wrong to receive people as they are? My work this week is tolerance. My attitude is even, unwavering, and keen to push things forward despite the efforts it takes. I labor over those events and people who promise me return. Why put your effort where there is no feedback?
I have drifted a little away from my purpose, and if the sails on the boat are crooked, it is my doing. I don't need symmetry in all that I touch and see. Flaws remind me of what is real. Nature is full of cracks and uneven edges. Petals wrinkle, thorns bite, and branches snap by the wind.
Not everything bends as easily as we hope. Some things break and cannot be returned to the source. I cannot hook a branch back to the trunk of a tree, and now the appearance of the yard is uneven. Something is missing, and only I know it because I saw the tree waving with all its boughs on all sides every morning for two weeks. With one limb missing, I feel forlorn. The tree doesn't, of course. It is inanimate.
Do the neighbors feel the imbalance? Do they even notice?
The cats don't care. They're too busy trying to slip through the iron bars into the home. I chase them out by snapping my fingers. I don't need to say or move much. They feel me before I act. My energy is strong, and they know the boundary has been set. It is firm.
We are all testing each other at varying points of conversation and interaction. I can feel it when someone is resisting me. I feel it when someone presses me away or holds me at arm's length. There was a woman in the workshop who drew me in and then spat me out. I must not have had the flavor she preferred. These things used to bother me, but now they don't.
I had a date and chocolate cookie on the break with seeds sprinkled on top: pumpkin and sunflower. I wanted to order a coffee, but the line was too long. We had a yin practice in the afternoon, and I was glad I skipped the caffeine.
What I want from a relationship is shifting. I don't have a list. I don't have a goal. I don't have an agenda. I want to receive people and work with them as they are. No more manipulation. More questions about them and less concern for myself.
I feel good. I am grounded. I know how to take care of myself. I don't need to be validated. I am leaning into the rhythm of wonderment.
To wonder is to marvel at the way things are, to appreciate the mystery that encases each moment like the soft skin of an apricot. Do you bite into a fruit for the pit? What I seek is the tenderness, the sweetness of its insides. The burst of character and sticky residue in its ruins!
I suck on the seeds to strip them of the pulp before spitting them out. I choose to wring out every event before I move on to the next thing.
My foot is asleep right now, and my leg is tingling from the blood cut off. We are flexible creatures unless we choose not to be. All things move within and around us; the only choice is how far we will go into the fluidity or if we will block the flow.
I choose motion. I choose escapism. I choose the imagination. I choose mysticism. I choose the frenzy of feeling and the fervor of staying alive.
Breathe in, breathe out, and there is a beat between the creation and the dissolution.
What is it to accept what is? What is it to accept who I am and what is occurring in the world?
I chose to gift myself a new name, not out of a lack of acceptance for who I was, but to redefine how I wanted to appear, speak, and move through the world.
I choose to write and teach yoga because these activities help refine how I articulate my experiences.
The guessing game begins when I get into it with other people. It is maddening not knowing how others feel and think and why they do what they do!
The intention is everything - I will always push until I touch the source that speaks the truth, even if I do not like what is expressed.
Acceptance is an action. It is not enough to speak about it or write about it. To live it is to practice it and develop perseverance; I must go to other people and work with them as they are.
Interactions with humans are only sometimes smooth. They do not need to be. The ripples are what give contours. The highs and the lows, the long lines and tiny perforations. This practice is of tolerance. How much of others will I tolerate? How can I become more observant without being withdrawn? How can I stay open to receive what is while maintaining my integrity?
It is too simple to say, set a boundary. It is far easier with the cats. They are not allowed inside, and they know it.
Photo source.
