Plate o' Shrimp

Witness

It’s 6:15 am and I am attempting to get back in the grind. Xena sits on her perch on my hard disk observing my shenanigans, and I find myself taking ANOTHER picture of my desk. This summer I found myself wondering why I took so many pictures of my desk, and now I realize I want to share with you where I spend a huge amount of my time. Mornings are and always have been intellectual prime time for me and today I am giving myself to Genetics.. the final is in a little over 10 days.

Larissa sends me books to read, as I do her. I have a copy of Reading Lolita in Tehran that she sent me that I just tided off the bed. In it I found a year old letter from her that basically posed the question “how does one decide to make major life changes when there is no guarantee that those changes will be changes for the better?”

I don’t have an answer but I have a start of one. I think some readers of this blog have been surprised at my candor and my willingness to both discuss my bouts of depression and anxiety and the rough spots of my transitions, and the most common response is.. “I am sorry it has been so hard for you, I hope things get better”

But it seems to me that the things that are important to do in life are rarely easy. We love to read novels and watch movies about doing those profound and important things. But now that I am doing this important thing, some folks seem concerned that I often find it difficult. I think this is due to the “everything happens for a reason and when you are doing the right thing the doing will be easy and make you happy syndrome” This I think is frankly bullshit. But I do tend to wax poetic here more about the struggles than I do about the joys.. which are considerable and somehow simpler and less profound seeming. I really do dig the fact that Shade can go out with my to most restaurants. And I haven’t found the words yet to describe the thing I can do in patients interview that gets people talking and more importantly helps them feel listened to.
There is a precept a remember from my time in the Zen Center that urges the zen student “To bear witness to the joy and suffering of the world” and this is one of my attempts at bearing witness. Life is more extreme, more profound, more difficult and more joyful than it has been in a long time. That is what matters to me.

posted by Sa @ 8:22 AM