December 7, 2020
Photo by Adam Nemeroff on Unsplash
Pondering what it is that I really long for underneath all the layers of wanting things to be different than they are, I contemplate everything that pushes my buttons. The sameness of day to day during COVID 19. One moment boredom. Another moment comparing my circumstance to others. Feeling the yammer of my to do list. Fear landing as COVID worsens everywhere across the nation and the planet and the sadness about all the death and suffering. Racial injustice. Politics. Climate. Wanting it all to disappear. Wanting, wanting, wanting things to be other than they are.
And then a moment reaching out and connecting with someone or with nature. Taking someone a meal. Going for a walk with a dear friend. Preparing a Thanksgiving meal over days immersed in the joy of cooking for others. Raking leaves and cleaning up the vegetable garden for winter. The breathtaking beauty of fall colors. Chatting with neighbors. Filling the bird feeder and watching all the birds flock to the feeder. Appreciation for my home, heat, running water, food, general safety and caring neighbors. The indulgence of yoga.
And too, navigating the very challenging terrain of meeting my old pup’s dementia along with his constantly increasing separation anxiety. Trial and error of medications and their side effects, to bring him and me some relief. Losing the stability of his legs, hit or miss, day to day. His loss of bodily control from time to time. Feeling the struggles of every variety of friends and family, and of being physically separated from loved ones and again, wanting it all to be different.
This longing, the underpinning of this longing is the yearning for heartfelt connection coming from a place of authenticity, sincerity. And not so much about receiving it, but tapping into authentic ways of being with all of this and discovering the inner resources which are innate, if I only listen attentively. All of these thoughts, perspectives and emotions, the stuff of being human. Heartfelt connection with what’s here for me and what’s here for you. Tending to my own challenges of heart with the same tenderness offered to others.
So the longing is for connection, longing for no separation between you and me, us and them. Maybe the connection doesn’t unfold in apparent big ways, but there is a ripple. When I drop the me and am simply present for you, the deep intimacy that I long for is right here in this moment. So how to practice with this? Checking in when attitude shows up, or when judgment shows up; irritation, stubbornness, drawing a line in the sand, whatever shows up, it comes with many different faces. And when all these wanting-things-to-be-otherwise arrive, I can stop and say to myself “I see you!” and pause and bring tenderness to my judgment, kindness to my opinions, kindness to your opinions and your judgments, remembering there is no separation in being human, just the causes and conditions, and the inter-fearing habit patterns landing in reactivity. In that moment of seeing clearly that aversion, attachment or deluded thinking has arrived, choice can show up simply to be kind in this moment. Kindness may show up in words or may be wordless, It might be checking in with my body language, my facial expressions, and also meeting your body language and expressions with softness, tenderness or the kindness of no reaction. An authentic caring can emerge.
And so when I meet it all with kindness, there is intimacy, connection, the thing I’m really yearning for. So I’ll end with this poem …
Kindness Naomi Shihab Nye
Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever. Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road. You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive. Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth. Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread, only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say It is I you have been looking for, and then goes with you everywhere like a shadow or a friend.
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