Broken

Not much is said about the need for school administrators to be pastoral. People like to skip that part, and dear Whatever, I could certainly use a break from it. Kids, teachers, parents, all relentlessly asking you if what they think is accurate, or pumping you for information, in the hopes that you have that one juicy tidbit they haven't been able to drag out of someone else.

Really nasty things happen all the time behind the scenes. Families break apart, children suffer, and most horrible of all, no one takes the time to consider human impact. The cycle of hurt can't seem to find an outlet, so they come to you and ask you to make it better. The hard truth is you can't, and even if you could, you won't. Try saying that diplomatically. It can be done, but it uses a great deal of emotional energy that puts you in the position to start the whole cycle over again in your own life.

When the silence returns--and it always does--we can start to heal. It will take time. It will take some outbursts and a whole lot of listening, but it will happen.

Cacophony

"A former Desperate Housewives star exploded as a child was found in a field in Indiana after a phony defamation case which challenges our conservative values and distorts the justice system."

That's about all I could understand from the blaring news reports assaulting my solitude. 

I mostly like airports, but I guess I've isolated myself from cable news enough to be slightly shocked by the uptick in its absolute, reality skewed coverage.  It's a problem.  I attempt to sink away from the sound and hear behind the background.  There's a type of peacefulness there.  Like the drone of a bee-hive, but much busier. 

Moments like these are the real challenges.  Trying to stay present and open in this sea of noise and opinion is overwhelming.  Back to the breath. 

Home-sick

Long story short: I'm sick and I want to be home.  Details are not relevant, but suffice it to say, I'm feeling a bit rudderless.  When considering my practice, making decisions and just generally getting on with life, I rarely factor into the equation that I will get sick, I will not always be functional, and someday I will shuffle off this mortal coil.

These experiences should be a call to remembrance, a delicate movement toward becoming focused on the present moment, and the experience of joyfulness, but all I can think about is how bad my throat hurts and that I really want to be home amongst my known things and the love of my partner.  I should be at home here, or in solitude, or in the midst of absolute adversity.  I'm not there yet.  I fear the life-lessons that will prepare me for that time.

So, here in the midst of miniscule suffering, I look toward the future knowing that this is gentle preparation for things that will come.

Pathfinding

I've always shied away from the use of threshold imagery to describe life choices: closing the door, but opening a window, etc. The decision making process is so much more biological, fractal even, that the illusion of some sort of binary, yes-no process makes little sense.  One day, while agonizing over a decision I thought would be life-changing, I starting picturing tournament brackets gearing down toward the final outcome.  It didn't help.

I think what I missed, and many of us ignore, is the illusory nature of time.  Our perception, though we fight against it, doesn't give us the benefit of any future certainly, so we run , screaming to the past to help us predict an outcome which allows us to be smarter, faster, better and safe.  Sometimes it works, though more often than not, it renews old assumptions and prejudices, reinforcing synaptic patterns that never really served us well, but do offer familiarity--greasy comfort food for the soul.

I'm facing some tough decisions in the coming year. It would be wonderful to be fully present during those decisions, my mind opening to the radiant light of thisness, but that will likely  not be the case.  I'll be stressed, angry, intensely demanding, and generally unlovable.  I will have moments of calmness, insight, and joy.  I will be all over the map.  I hope the warning lights in my consciousness start blinking at those times and I return to my self.  I hope that I can find the strength to just sit down and stay down until I can remember that all I really have going for me is breath, love and this moment.