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When things fall apart, strangely enough, it’s easier to remember reality.
BY MAGAZINE COLUMNIST CARYN MIRRIAM-GOLDBERG
It’s so hard to fall out of love with the present when things don’t go according to plan, and especially when they do. I am somewhat of an expert of this, getting so mesmerized by happenings and doings, typings high speed on the computer or diddling my time away by checking facebook status of people I hardly know that I forget where I am. I suppose it’s no surprise that the shiny things of life – little rings at the arrival of email messages, new videos to watch flashing across facebook, a story playing on the radio – divert me with ease.
Obviously, I’m not alone.
We live in a giant soup of distractions, vying with volume and flashing lights for our attention in the multiplicity of media (TV, movies, internet, Wii, phones, and any number of variety) and the gargantuan parade of tasks to be done in a day or night, setting our rising feet toward the bathroom or car, onto the freeway or down the escalator. But of course it isn’t the distractions that keep us from the present but what we do with them.
And here’s where the planning goes all to hell…
Or not, but at a price.
When things go according to plan, I’m following the plan, writing this letter to a student, walking without any sense of where I am and what birds are or aren’t calling as I head toward the car door and drive to pick up my teen from high school, all the way there debating in my little head what to do about dinner. I’m an expert planner but have trouble actually showing up for what I plan, which explains why I often enjoy planning vacations more than taking them. When there’s a plan, there’s a steady buzz, a sense of control in the universe, a feeling of well-being.
Holding too tight to a plan makes what life presents us with seem like flies that keep landing on us when we’re trying to work. Yet giving too much attention to whatever lands on us, to the utter distraction of the work or life at hand, can lead us further from showing up for the present.
When things fall apart, strangely enough, it’s easier to remember reality.
Not just easier but dangerously and jarringly necessary
The present shows up with aplomb when plans fall to the ground and shatter like cheap metallic Christmas tree balls. At such moments, I can see – through the lens of my little or big heartbreak – the present that has been here all along: the cottonwood tree right out this window, some leaves yellowing or becoming spotted with age in the weeks before those leaves start to loosen and fall. There’s also the steel blue of the sky, and behind that blue, the thunderstorm I can hear, but not see. Music plays, someone singing “Farewell lads and farewell lasses,” and for the first time, I hear the harmony in the chorus. The ceiling fan hums above, and the wooden floor shine below.
At such moments I fall back in love with the present, so rich and giving, so accessible and forgiving.
And at such moments, I tell myself, “Remember this,” and then – occasionally – I try to, when things go according or plan, flit off in various distractible directions or fall apart.
Read more of Caryn’s writing on her blog http://carynmirriamgoldberg.wordpress.com
and website http://carynmirriamgoldberg.com
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© 2011, The Magazine of Yoga, LLC.
