well, not much
Today it clicked! Like really clicked. Hear me out; what if I were to live like what I need is already with me now?—on my person, or in my suitcase, or in one of the five books I brought? Or in my dream journal or my life’s notes that are also with me? Or in the kitchen cabinet, under the bed, or tucked in the front pocket of my jacket? What if it’s in the documents I already have downloaded, in the knowledge I already know, and deep within the body I already am? What if what I need is not on the bookshelf of a store, or in a square on a screen, or in a virtual shopping cart?
What if I believed this entirely,
made this my default mode,
uploaded this as my newfound matrix?
What if I lived like what I need is what I already have? And what I have is already here. No need to answer or to beg the question. Live the questions, live the questions, they say!
Anyway. I’m in Spain! I’ve been trying to write for days; I set my computer up on the stunning balcony under the warmish sun, take a deep breath, and say aloud to myself, “Vamos!” My fingers attempt to say something profound like, “You are not a drop in the ocean. You are an entire ocean in the drop.” But Rumi already said this and my words don’t sound like his, they just sound like, well, words. Choppy yet void of depth. They sound like the opposite of an ocean. But don’t let my words, or lackthereof, fool you. I FEEL like an ocean—the whole ocean and the dripping drop. I’ve been feeling it all along and I really feel it now, meandering down the thin, winding roads of fallen empire’s past.
It’s simple really, it doesn’t need many words—this ocean/drop feeling, I am just a life living a life among other life’s living lives. It was this way back home and it’s this way in Europe. This is how it’s always been and so too how it goes. All the lives are just living their lives. I am but one—no less important, no more significant. Wow.
I’m around half way into my sabbatical and I thought I would have more meaningful things to say, but this is all I got so far—
3 mantra’s:
It is a good time to be nobody.
This one dings in my head like a meditation bell whenever I want to redownload instagram to my phone and/or make a post that proves I am living my life. It should come as no surprise that this happens semi-frequently, which is great, because like they say, mantra’s are made for repeating, and what better way to remember to repeat a mantra than to pair it with a neurosis? I think in the business they call this re-association.
Perhaps this very human urge of proving I am alive to others through a screen is not a neurosis. It is just a thing we’ve come to do for x,y,z karmic reasons, and maybe I don’t need to be so hard on myself all of the time. The karma is hard enough, ffs. Truly, my aim is not to be “above” posting or scrolling, I just desire to learn to stare at a wall instead. Have you tried it? It’s not so easy as it sounds. Thus, to flex this muscle, when I get the urge to prove I am alive on a screen, I repeat: It is a good time to be nobody. This infinitesimal hail mary gives me the chance, if I choose so, to put my phone away and come back to where I am, which currently is here—aquí! With myself—who is nobody!
With my phone face down, instead of proving that I am alive to others, I prove I am alive to myself. Sitting on the stunning balcony still, I allow my gaze to widen. With open eyes I slowly span my head in a circular motion as if the scene before me is trying to memorize the dimensions of my face so I can login. The balconies surrounding the plaza—the one I am overlooking, where there is always an elder Nana slowly walking through, and kids passing a soccer ball, and friends laughing, smoking and drinking cerveza’s—have hanging from them green, dangling plants.
Clothes are gently drying under the Spanish Sun, the breeze with the mild heat create a smell so fresh, no dryer sheet could dream of achieving. Below me are birds, pigeons having their own gathering when suddenly, all at once, together they leave to another location. Now a thought creeps in, wondering if these pigeons, these birds, share some sort of communist consciousness where they are not individuals but one organism with many beaks. How else would they all know to leave at once?
author note: I have since re-downloaded instagram, made a few posts to my story for what I believe are “valid reasons”, and then re-deleted it. I am what I am and what I am is human.
Life is where you live it.
Do you know how many people are living lives? I don’t just mean people—humans. I mean all of the “things” that are living lives on Earth. Minding their business, tending their families, scanning their desires—seeking out the ones they possibly can, eating—eating olives, having sex, pooping, gathering twigs to build a nest—build a family; sitting under the sun feeling its heat, looking up to the moon and thinking—are you for real?! falling in love, falling out, learning how to build, tearing it all apart; losing it, getting lost, finding again, kicking a ball, swimming around, carrying small pieces of leaf to feed a mushroom, having a trip, sometimes a very bad trip; living with oppression, recognizing where they are free?
Life is all around, everywhere, being lived. The story of being alone is a lie as old time. Forget it. Life is here. Life is now. Life is where you live it.
I already am.
see: original sentiment at the beginning of this.
Do with these what you will. This is just where I’m at, just for today. Ciao for now!
OK yes I too want to be one consciousness with many beaks.