How normal life feels. Which is strange. After all that I have been through, how is it that I have reverted back to so many behavior patterns and thought circles? Most of the time, it takes an intentful effort to regain the perspective on life that came so naturally when I was ill.
In retrospect, life was simplified, essentialized. You know the feeling when you are splayed out of the bathroom floor, feeling like there is absolutely nothing, nothing, except your guts, your tongue, and the white porcelain of the toilet bowl? (No, of course not a single one of you has ever felt like that!) Though I didn't actually spend very much time feeling nauseous, I spent a lot of time in that kind of mental box. But I not infrequently found myself in another, much more beautiful place. With all the complexity of the world dissolved away, a kind of clarity would sometimes come to me. The wonder of the world, of love, of connection, would hit me so hard that I would cry with simple, quiet joy.
I remember that it felt like I had opened a new window to the world, and that having looked out once, I would remain forever changed. But as my life mercifully has become more normal, my emotional relationship to the world, sadly, has become more mundane. The window has become smaller, harder to find. But as I realize this, I realize how important that window is to me, and I realize that I get to choose what I let go of, and what I hold on to.
5 comments:
Still thinking about you, Josh. All the time.
And thank you for sharing a little bit of that window with us.
josh, that is beautiful. it made me cry, and now it's giving me the opportunity to find my window again.
so glad you're doing well. i think there are several ways of finding the window without being in danger/crisis.
when are you going to get on facebook?
Josh, there is a lot written about this.... in the Zen tradition the saying is something like, after enlightenment, wash the dishes. It takes practice of some sort - meditation, prayer, mindfulness, - those are ones I know of, others might work for you, but it takes practice to train the mind to live more often in that state of mind you describe so well, of clarity, love, expansion.... but it is possible to do if you want.
Just fyi, from a fellow traveler. ellen
For your reading list on the mess that is the American health care system:
http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/health
Look for "The Logic of the Health Care Debate."
Should you like, I'd be happy to arrange an introduction to the authors. They continue to write about health care and I think you might inform their thinking in a way that everyone would enjoy.
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