On Stillness

I'm sitting on a white Adirondack chair very early in the morning, peering into the distance across a quiet lake. I can just about see two geese or swans gliding along the far shore. A small girl in a pale yellow sundress is dancing dreamily on the lawn behind the family summer cottage. Further south, a man is sitting on the dock with his feet trailing in the weedy water drinking a cup of coffee. It's too early for speed boats, jet skis. All you can hear are the birds storytelling. The surface of the lake is free of ripples, undisturbed, an essential calm.

The girl in the yellow dress, the man drinking coffee, the birds, even the lake itself are all inventions. I go to that place when the sheer volume of the political static demands an exit strategy. When the pace of events becomes untenable. Sometimes, this fantasyland appears in my mind unbidden. If, for example, the person posing as our president decides to play Monopoly with the Saudis, I might suddenly find myself staring at the distant horizon, taking in a wider geometry. I know this place like I know my grandchildren, their smiling, their crying. It's a comforting, elemental rest stop I will always recognize, but for some reason I do not choose to visit it as often as I could. I remain as yet mostly in the noise, both the external noise and the internal noise. Comey, Comey, hear me, see me.

We are always excavating the waxy build-up of our own concerns and regrets. But now, there is so much more to worry about. Not only are we responsible for our own sanity, we're on the hook for the safeguarding of the rule of law, the survival of the planet. It's a one-two punch every day, the political right jab, the personal left cross. Stillness is a matter of self-preservation. Stillness and mercy.

Stillness is precious and fragile. It needs loving protection, old blankets to wrap around the ancestral crystal. It is easily damaged. The stories that barge into my mind uninvited when I give them an inch are boorish and self-important like Trump. They aren't mindful of the pain they cause, bouncing off the walls, knocking over anything that gets in their way. They are willful, infantile and grandiose, demanding their say. You know the type. They shout over everyone else, convinced of their own rectitude. I'm right! He's wrong! At the same time, the flavor of my old persistent stories is sweet and nostalgic like chocolate pudding. It's not the bad taste that lingers after a day of consuming retrograde Republican fast food. It's the pleasure of scratching an insect bite till it bleeds. I wouldn't open the door for these stories, these thuggish guests, if I didn't somehow enjoy having them around. Even in my dreams, some surly narrative is always elbowing ahead of me to get to the bar. To resist the hostile takeover of the American enterprise, I will need to fortify myself with stillness, a merciful stillness that furnishes a safe house for righteous anger. Without it, the rage will tear right through me.

The other day, I sunk down into a lower level of silence. I sat in a funeral home for several hours watching over the casket of a man who would be buried later in the day. This was in fulfillment of the Jewish observance of shmira, or guarding. People who sit shmira take turns attending the deceased person through the night and into the next day from the time of shrouding to the time of burial. I didn't know the man. He was not a friend or a family member. My role was simply to keep him company and witness the deep silence that enfolds us when the noise of life has run its course, the peace that can be so elusive while we're here on hold, listening to the canned playlist. Every now and then, I could hear a phone ringing, a murmured conversation far off in the building, but mostly nothing. The shouting match, the name calling, the physical and verbal violence and the lovemaking end in a carpeted hush.

And I thought....What was all the fuss about? Do our minds maintain a constant carping chatter just to distract us from the galactic silence that waits for us? And is that what he's thinking about, somewhere on the back porch of his non-awareness, when he's up tweeting before sunrise?

Something special from my friend Deb Koffman
http://www.debkoffman.com/tag/mindfulness/


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