Gray

This morning started at 7:07 because I was afraid that sleep would linger until 7:18 and then someone would have to come get me. This morning, Tarrin read me quotes out of a book I had written off as too fundamental. The author talked about not boxing in truth to anything, not even to an unconventional thought process, and I felt ashamed that I’d thrown that book out because the words seemed too Christianese and the author talked too much about “things that I already knew”. 

This morning I sipped about two ounces of Vietnamese coffee with my co-worker who I feel mildly connected to because she knows the smell of an Oriental market and reminds me of my grandmother. 

This morning my boss is wearing bright blue neon colored jeans and an orange plaid shirt and shiny pleather flats and I think she looks more divine than she ever has in a fancy dress and tall heels. Mismatched clothes and shiny flats make me  think that her armpits probably smell like sweat when she steps out in the Houston weather and maybe she farts on her couch at home and she probably gets boogers and her shit stinks. She seems more Divine today because she looks more like me, she seems more relateable, closer to the earth with her flat shoes and comfy clothes. But clothing is just a part of our illusions anyways, so. 

Tomorrow is my Sabbath. Today I’m like the Gentiles and  I’m wondering what I will eat tomorrow morning when we have no tortillas or coffee or bread. Tonight someone will be talking to us about white privilege and how to “move from guilt to action” or something like that. I’m prepared to be confused yet again because some people call me white and some people speak to me in Mandarin when I’m walking down a sidewalk. I’ve often been left wondering where all the in-between people are and why even issues of “black vs white” are made black and white and what about all of us gray people in our gray areas.

Sacred Sun, Sacred Rest

This weather reminds me of Seattle. Red's from Seattle.
It was gray and wet outside and I was happy for that. Gray skies and wet pavement means rest and warm beds and warm coffee, hours of drawing and creating and reading and naps, candles and slow movements; the silent presence of my housemates as we all independently do whatever we'd like. Motionless on the couches except for the turning of pages, on the floor of a bedroom wrapped in throw blankets; silent, but together.
I took my first outdoor breath to a brilliant gold, my favorite color. The sun was setting, Do you feel that?! It's chilly out here! She said this with a smile as radiant and gentle as the light that illuminated her hair and eyes and skin, The pavement was puddled, the sun was staring at Herself in a watery reflection. The earth was enlightened, the sun kissed us above our heads, from across the freeway, in the shallow puddles under our feet.
This day of rest was Sacred. This moment told me that all is good and all is awakening. This moment told me that I am brilliant, that the very essence of all that was beautiful in this external moment exists inside of all of us as well, and my heart beat a little quicker and my eyes gulped and swallowed as much as it could and I felt content. I felt present and I gave into my heart's longing to just be, to just exist. 

Little Bodies Full of Knowing

I like to imagine that babies already know everything. I like to imagine that they are the wisest beings on earth. So wise, in fact, that they need not tell anyone about anything (unless, of course they’re hungry or their arms are trapped in their blankets or they have something in their eye). Knowing makes them content; experiencing God in the depths of their silence is enough.

It’s as if God can tell them every secret, give them the answer to every small and large question because their silence will keep those secrets safe for a time.

I’d tell you about Truth if I could just keep my head up, they cry.

But don’t worry fellow mortal, my mom is making me do tummy time for ten minutes a day now, so soon I can teach you the ways of the Infinite. Soon enough and then you too shall know, they coo.

But then they sleep off all of this infinite wisdom, cry out all of the compassion they feel for all of the clueless people they know. They have it all figured out until one day they say their first word, take their first steps and begin their journey back to the infinite places from which they came; forgetting all that they understood until in time they re-learn it, realize it all over again.

Truth then, is kept safely in a baby’s silence.

* "I’d tell you about Truth if I could just keep my head up", something Tarrin jokingly said when we were discussing this idea while holding Quentin (shown above), our city director's baby. 

On Those That I Miss

Your words are always simple, but I know that your feelings touch depths that some are too afraid to explore. I miss you, Tay! I really miss you! And I know that you do. I can feel your pained, voided, heavy heartbeat behind those words; the longing of a mother for her child, for late nights watching Forrest Gump, for walks to the coffee shop, for laughing off irritation and realizing that we’re not as hardened as we feel.

I translate your simple, I really miss yous, to, Please come home. I’m hurting and I really wish you were here to laugh with me.

We’re both really good at laughing.
We’ve both been healed by our laughter.
//
I remember that time we were house-sitting and they had a cat whose purr sounded like people chatting outside. I’ve shared a little of that moment with other people and now that cat’s little purr has turned into an inside joke.

If I miss one thing about you, I miss your humor. I realize now how it’s so much like mine.
There is that temptation to take my missing the way you made me laugh and turn it into longing for who we were and then bitterness for that no longer being available to me.

I’m seeing though, the wisdom in not plucking a flower in order to take its beauty for my own possession, but rather, leaving it planted so that it may remain alive and beautiful.

So I will leave our memory a memory and no longer try to morph it back into a reality. Seasons are seasons. They are born and they are taken away by the wind.

Our sorrow has carved much room in my heart for joy.