finally, i know what it means to experience serenity. it’s completely mundane, it turns out. to just be and not do. not force. not hurry. to exist, and relish that process of existence. in treatment, they told us to treat ourselves like plants. there’s nothing so complex about it, this search for serenity. it begins by taking care of yourself.
yes, it’s taking the medication, but it’s also taking long quiet walks through the woods by the river. it’s pausing to watch the squirrels, stock still at your approaching footsteps. it’s looking up at the trees overhead, taking note of their vascularity, which always reminds you of your own. which then reminds you of just how strange it is that there’s a squiggly piece of meat inside you that’s directing your every thought, your every move. perceiving every sensation, making a story of every piece of information you’ve ever taken in. and it’s just that, the ego — a squiggly piece of meat.
sure, i could look back in regret at every way i’ve disregarded it, this precious ego. denigrated it, dismissed it, denied it. but there’s no point in regretting. without those terrible things i’ve put myself through, i wouldn’t be here. it wouldn’t be now. i wouldn’t be me.
in the past two months, i’ve walked through the fire. i’ve been destroyed and i have destroyed. i burned it all down without even really meaning to. i burned it down with the assistance of my squiggly piece of meat, but not at its conscious direction. the ego thinks it knows what it wants. it acts. it does. but it doesn’t know. not really.
in reality, the ego keeps ups stuck. it wants us where it knows us. mired in that deeply comfortable uncomfortability it’s grown accustomed to. it’s safe there. it’s familiar. it knows where all the emergency exits are.
that was me, in that place i describe. the comfortably uncomfortable. i’d done the things my ego had directed me to do, in vain search of the very serenity i get to sit in now, here on this bench at the end of a dock overlooking the huron river, where canada geese squawk loudly in the background and don’t bother me at all.
my ego sits behind a laptop screen and tries to think of things to say. things that are good and smart. things that are so good and so smart they get published and read by other people on the internet.
here, now, with this pen and this book, my body is writing. my hand is moving across the page without conscious thought as to what i need to put down in order to be read. to be seen. to be understood. appreciated. this time, it doesn’t matter whether anyone reads this at all, because i realize how absolutely inconsequential my story is to anyone but me. i can acknowledge the fact that i’ve finally come to the exact same conclusion that every person before me, who’s actually paused to give it some thought, has already come to.
my needs and desires are uncomplicated. to live a good life, i only require some pretty simple things. food, water, sleep. to be with other people. to feel the sun on my face and know that’s god. that i’m loved. that i’m important, but no more important than anyone else. and i’m promising myself that from now on, i’ll pause when i feel the warmth of the sun, and i’ll look up at it, and remember to breathe, because it reminds me of what a simple and glorious thing it really is to be alive. what a vast statistical anomaly it is that any of us exist at all.
at my meeting last night, an older woman named sarah (who, incidentally, reminds me a lot of my sarah) stood up and shared what a beautiful thing it was to be in a room full of beings, each with their own divine spark. how very rare it is for people to expose that spark, that most holy being within, and allow the other sparks to speak with theirs. as she spoke, i imagined the church light up with glittering flickers of energy. each person in the room releasing their spark, finally willing to be in communion with others after years of pushing theirs down. risking the heartbreak and vulnerability and embarrassment that our egos threaten us with to stay in charge. to keep that spark locked inside. what a sacred rebellion this was then, all of us together in that room, letting them out like so many fireflies.
over the last two months, i’ve walked through the fire and survived. my life fell apart, and it hurt a lot and it confused me a lot, and my brain buzzed with static electricity. and now, it’s finally quiet and still. and i’m here sitting by the river, watching geese on the water. and i can finally begin to see the great gift i’ve been given. the enormity of life — the universe — smashing what my ego thought it needed to be. things fall apart to come together. now i understand. i’m walking now, setting one foot in front of the other, and i know i no longer need to manipulate my path. i know i’m being guided. that the universe is wise, and will show me where to go. who to be. and i feel closer to my own little spark than i ever have. maybe i’ll even let it out tonight.
Holiness, indeed. And beautifully put.