I’ve been immersing myself in a lot of Buddhist books and podcasts lately – I’m reading Standing at the Edge by Roshi Joan Halifax and listening to dharma talks by Gil Fronsdal and I can’t recommend them enough, especially if you need a little sanity in your life.
Which apparently I do.
I’ve been reading and listening to these inspiring Buddhist teachers not because I’m on vacation and feeling so blissed out (although I am having some spectacularly good moments and days) but because I’m on vacation and even when you’re on vacation, you bring yourself (and your monkey mind and and your worries and the whole messy rest of your life) with you.
This is true of everything, not just vacations. (Look, I’ve recently had another birthday and am feeling really wise, so you should listen to me.)
Anyway, one of the things I’ve been reading about a lot lately is the Buddhist idea of impermanence – nothing lasts forever, things come and go, both the good news and the bad news is: this too shall pass. All we can do is try to actually be present in the moment that we are currently engaged in living – this is one of the main themes of The Kitchen Sink Sutra so you wouldn’t think I’d need reminding of it, having written an entire novel on the subject, but there you go.
This morning I was up early enough to see that Georgian Bay was like a mirror. While I had my coffee, I watched the water and the sky – and I could see that the day’s weather forecast was probably going to be right: rain was coming and if I was going to get a paddle in today, I was going to have to go now.
So I fed Gavin his breakfast, kitted myself up and hauled my well-loved and slightly battered kayak to the water and paddled off into the morning calm.
The sky was almost perfectly bissected – purple rain clouds and haze to the west, sun and white clouds to the east. I paddled east past slumbering cottages. No one was on the shore yet and not a single boat was in sight. I had the whole of Georgian Bay to myself. All that water, all that sky and me.
I don’t know if you like to be on the water, but I am drawn to water as if it is the life blood that flows in my veins. I experience a sort of peace and stillness when I am on the water that I don’t feel anywhere else – it’s like I can breathe again.
And so that particular morning, it wasn’t until I was out paddling that I realized how tense and preoccupied I actually was, which was quite a feat as it was only seven o’clock in the morning and I had only recently rolled out of bed. But as I say, life follows you on vacation and so especially do all the worries and anxieties and thought tornadoes that live in your head (well, in my head anyway) and so there we were, all of my thoughts and worries and I, out in my little boat, gliding across the still surface of my bay.
And then the sky changed. Banks of clouds that looked threatening dissolved and the timid morning sun beat back some of its cover and warmed me. I paddled on and before I reached the rocky point that I was navigating toward, the sky changed again and suddenly I realized there was a whole spectacle playing out over my head – a dramatic back and forth of clouds and sun and threats and promises and breezes and warmth and chaos and stillness. Coming and going. Passing from one thing to the next.
One of my Buddhist teachers would no doubt be able to elaborate so much more eloquently on this point but I can at least say this — everything changes, if you just wait a little while and keep paddling in the now.
P.
P.S. “Done with the Compass – Done with the Chart! Rowing in Eden…” – Emily Dickinson