the view from our drivewayIt has been an emotional week. Everyone here is fine but events in the bigger world remind me to be mindful. Here is the entry from my journal on April 15th:
“There are so many people in the world. It hits me every so often – like now, riding on the subway. All these people and the expansive connective web of their lives that stretches out from them through their families and friends and acquaintances. It boggles the mind.
“I used to play with this when I was little – riding in the car, especially at night, watching as all the lights in the windows came on, wondering about all those families. I would see just how far I could stretch myself, sensing them all, and then see how long I could maintain the connection before having to let go from the sheer BIGNESS of it.
“We were rudely awoken this morning to the dog barking at passing police cars when finally I woke up enough to realize they weren’t passing. Three police cars blocked our driveway and countless more stopped traffic and let in ambulances and fire trucks. News 12 showed our house and the ruins of a motorcycle and nearby, the car it hit, looking little better.
“So, our morning was greatly changed. No school bus pick up since our road was effectively closed, but the policeman assured me he’d let us out whenever we were ready. Damage control with the kids: always the balance with Miss M about how much or how little to tell her – did she know the term “fatality”? Is she prepared if it gets discussed at school? And Lima Bean, conjecturing broken legs in true five year old fashion and me saying, “Let’s not make it worse by thinking bad stuff happened. Let’s hold the space with positive energy that no one was hurt.”
“It wasn’t until after we left the house that the bigness of it hit me. In the house it was a crisis, an emergency, if not our emergency per se. There is not time bigness, for tears, when there is work to be done in the immediacy of an event. The kids, the paperwork for my errands, lunches, socks and shoes, and its chilly so jackets today. And the energetic protection of our house, done almost subconsciously, to keep the negativity away from us.
I had felt so cold-hearted when Jen called to see if we were OK. She was aghast at the terribleness of it all. True to her reiki calling she is open to the world. I wasn't connecting to it in the same way. “I’ll keep praying” was what she said and all I could do was wonder at where my connection and my compassion were.
As we pulled into the parking lot of the deli, I found them. Past our street life was so damned…normal. Life was going on as if this hadn’t happened and yet it had, and lives were irrevocably changed. REM playing on the radio and suddenly it's there and I’m crying:
Everybody hurts. Everybody cries
Sometime.
There would be plenty of crying today – for those two families, in those two webs of connections. Plenty of crying. There are so many people in the world. I can play with the bigness of it all but only for a little while before it becomes too much for me.”
Sitting on the subway I hadn’t planned to write about this. When I trust in this practice and I follow the writing, it leads me to where I need to be. This incident might have fallen through the cracks of my consciousness if I had followed what “I” wanted, which was just to get over it and forget the whole thing happened. My writing keeps me honest. My writing keeps me connected - to myself and to the deeper meaning in things.
“I used to play with this when I was little – riding in the car, especially at night, watching as all the lights in the windows came on, wondering about all those families. I would see just how far I could stretch myself, sensing them all, and then see how long I could maintain the connection before having to let go from the sheer BIGNESS of it.
“We were rudely awoken this morning to the dog barking at passing police cars when finally I woke up enough to realize they weren’t passing. Three police cars blocked our driveway and countless more stopped traffic and let in ambulances and fire trucks. News 12 showed our house and the ruins of a motorcycle and nearby, the car it hit, looking little better.
“So, our morning was greatly changed. No school bus pick up since our road was effectively closed, but the policeman assured me he’d let us out whenever we were ready. Damage control with the kids: always the balance with Miss M about how much or how little to tell her – did she know the term “fatality”? Is she prepared if it gets discussed at school? And Lima Bean, conjecturing broken legs in true five year old fashion and me saying, “Let’s not make it worse by thinking bad stuff happened. Let’s hold the space with positive energy that no one was hurt.”
“It wasn’t until after we left the house that the bigness of it hit me. In the house it was a crisis, an emergency, if not our emergency per se. There is not time bigness, for tears, when there is work to be done in the immediacy of an event. The kids, the paperwork for my errands, lunches, socks and shoes, and its chilly so jackets today. And the energetic protection of our house, done almost subconsciously, to keep the negativity away from us.
I had felt so cold-hearted when Jen called to see if we were OK. She was aghast at the terribleness of it all. True to her reiki calling she is open to the world. I wasn't connecting to it in the same way. “I’ll keep praying” was what she said and all I could do was wonder at where my connection and my compassion were.
As we pulled into the parking lot of the deli, I found them. Past our street life was so damned…normal. Life was going on as if this hadn’t happened and yet it had, and lives were irrevocably changed. REM playing on the radio and suddenly it's there and I’m crying:
Everybody hurts. Everybody cries
Sometime.
There would be plenty of crying today – for those two families, in those two webs of connections. Plenty of crying. There are so many people in the world. I can play with the bigness of it all but only for a little while before it becomes too much for me.”
Sitting on the subway I hadn’t planned to write about this. When I trust in this practice and I follow the writing, it leads me to where I need to be. This incident might have fallen through the cracks of my consciousness if I had followed what “I” wanted, which was just to get over it and forget the whole thing happened. My writing keeps me honest. My writing keeps me connected - to myself and to the deeper meaning in things.
What question comes to you inreading this post? Trust the intuition and follow it wherever it leads. I can promise it will be rich, fertile ground...
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