I'm Not Good At This

I'm not good at this.

And suddenly nothing I ever said or cared about or practiced really matters to me at all.

I don't do the things I'm supposed to. I don't drink enough water and I know it. I haven't gotten enough exercise. I'm behind on papers. I eat anything. Meat included. I cannot snap my fingers and be happy. It's not easy. I don't know why I ever made it sound like it is. I'm bitter at the sound of my own advice.

I don't make salads. I cannot meditate. I gave up reading books because I forget the words in front of me in a matter or minutes. I have not opened my emails in days. I miss phone calls and don't return them. My sink is full of dishes. My suitcase is still empty and Friday is just seconds away.
I don't do the things I'm supposed to.

The things I'm supposed to do.

What is it that I'm supposed to do?

I need to be there. And yet I am here.
To get there I must board a plane. I must pack. I must close bank accounts and exchange money. I must say goodbye and wish people well. I must figure out what is next.

I need to do these things. Now.

But I don't.

I just don't do them.

I cry. I think about you a lot. I write. I think about friends here. I watch them pack. I watch them leave. Disappear. I smile with them. We share food. We have some wine. We laugh. It feels good. For a few moments. My mind goes back to you. To other places. To that time you held my hand in church and rubbed my fingers to make them long and skinny. That was years ago.  I haven't gone to church since 2006 or something. We all had dinner last night as the group of Asian Peace Builders got ready to head to the Philippines.  Such a warm group of people. So many big smiles and beautiful eyes. I like to imagine where they will be tomorrow. And next year and 10 years from now. We relive memories of classes together. Of my dogs wandering down the school halls. We hug and smile. I'm okay for a bit. More than okay. I'm happy. Proud. Loved. My mind travels back to you. You're telling me you don't want to make the salami pie but you are rolling the dough. You tell me you don't remember how many eggs but you are cracking them. We watch the video I recorded of you later and you love it. You smile and laugh at yourself. You watch it a few times. You curse a lot.

Is it true you won't be there anymore? You won't do this? You won't come to my house? I won't wait by the door to let you in as you pull up in your white Chrysler? You won't wear your gold jewelry? You won't complain about the coffee? Who will I sit with at Christmas? Who will sleep in my childhood bed? Who will be my Grandma?

I come home.
I said home. I mean my place in Costa Rica. My little room overlooking a big green yard. The windmills to the left. The sunsets to the right.
I come home.
But I don't pack.

I take a few things off the walls. I'm supposed to do this.
Things I drew in the past few months. Quotes I like. Photos of places I imagine myself in the future.
I cry a little bit more. There's a photo of you in every room.
I don't care about these things.
Not right now. Will I care soon? When will that be?
Have you ever lost interest in a dream?

I don't dream. Not in the past couple of weeks. I see sunsets. But they're just colors.
I want better things for the world. For the people suffering. For the injustices. But, honestly, I stopped trying to believe I can help. I cannot imagine how to do so. Will I remember, one day? Will I know, sometime soon, what it is that I was placed on this planet to do?

I lay in my hammock. A lot.
Sometimes, this is what it feels like I'm supposed to do.

I see the same things I have been watching since August of last year.

Yellow breasted birds that land on the power line in front of my balcony and occasionally glance in my direction before flying off over the pool or the mountain or landing in front of another person in another place.

A little nest perched in the guayaba tree is finally fully of tiny beaks and I watch them poke up and down and I watch their mother come by with little wormy gifts.

There's a big iguana that rattles the tin roof in my neighbor's house, which makes the dogs go crazy. Three of them now. But one's just visiting. Trying to find a new home for the other two. It hurts. I don't want to leave them. They know it, too. They're extra cuddly today.

The clouds are coming in. It will rain soon.

The day is almost over. I could have sworn I just woke up.

I walked this morning. Up to one of my favorite trees. A maze of branches and roots and vines and leaves and weeds and nests and soil and bugs. Dirty things that all of a sudden I like more than the pretty ones. A mess of a tree. Not knowing where one thing starts and another ends. I climb it. I rub its rough bark with the palm of my hands. With my fingertips. I hold on to thin vines that I think will be weak, but they are strong. I stand on branches. I look up. Sometimes, you can learn so much from just watching. From trusting. From trying. From not being afraid. From getting dirty. My mind travels back to the Magnolia tree that used to be in the front yard of my house in New York. My older sister and I are climbing it. She falls off. The tree dies one year. No more bright pink and white flowers. My Dad cuts it down. It's just a stump now. Grandma is riding a big wheel down our front hill in the blue, red, yellow sweater that she always wears. We're all laughing.

I'm back in my hammock. Thinking about you. Watching the tiny bird beaks. Listening to neighbors talk in the distance. Writing. This feels like what I'm supposed to do.

Who makes these things? The rules of life.
What is it that I'm not good at?

Order. Routine. Numbness.
Balance. Acceptance. Non-attachment.
Discipline. Dedication. Duty.

How does one get good at such things?

Practice. everyday.

And then it is lost. In an instant.

For we are always trying to get somewhere.
Do more. Have more. Be more.

An illusion of the mind.

All we have is this very moment.

Am I wasting it? As I sit here. Un-packed. Un-bathed. Un-anything.

I can't feel right now.
I see it all. The birds. The tiny beaks. The playing dogs. The beautiful skies.
And I don't feel that sense of admiration. Inspiration. Beauty. Bliss. That which I used to know.
What is it that I'm supposed to do?
Because I can't remember. And I can't feel it.

Not until the next wave of chest-shaking cries come along.
Emanating from the gaping hole in my chest when I feel that you have stopped breathing.

Exactly one week ago today I came from the airport and into your room.
And you held me.
And you, too, cried in a chest-shaking way.
And you told me you loved me. With your eyes closed. An empty stomach. A dry mouth.
A pain that would have been too much for anyone else to bare.
But you kept fighting.

I'm not good at this.

It just takes time.
It's what everyone says.
It's what I know myself.

Time.
It's hardly ever a friend.



__________________________

Don't call this world adorable, or useful, that's not it.
It's frisky, and a theatre for more than fair winds.
The eyelash of lightening is neither good nor evil.
The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold.

But the blue rain sinks, straight to the white feet of the trees
whose mouths are open.
Doesn't the wind, turning circles, invent the dance?
Haven't the flowers moved, slowly, across Asia, then Europe,
until at last, now they shine
in your own yard?

Don't call this world an explanation,
or even an education.

When the Sufi poet whirled, was he looking
outward, to the mountains so solidly there
in a white-capped ring, or was he looking

to the center of everything: the seed, the eggs, the idea
that was also there,
beautiful as a thumb
curved and touching the finger, tenderly,
little love-ring,

as he whirled,
oh jug of breath,
in the garden of dust?

-Rumi