For Stillness

The air feels dreamy this morning, and so do I. That thin line between awake and asleep hasn't been fully crossed yet and to make matters more so, I must have slept so hard on one side of my head that my eye is swollen and my vision is blurred from it and perhaps I am still asleep, just dreaming this wakefulness.

When I was walking out into this coolness to get the paper, to feed the cats, my thoughts began to rise up, the way they always do, accusing me of every sort of inadequacy. This is how I begin my day, every day. This morning, still asleep and dreaming, or half awake and dreaming, I thought, What if I just let those thoughts go unanswered? What if I just let them flow undisturbed and put my attention elsewhere?

I thought of my longtime friend who sits zazen every morning and has for many, many years. What does he do with thoughts? Is that what he does? Sit on the bank of the river of his thoughts, breathing and watching them flow, not bothering to disturb them, not bothering to dip into them as he notices the deer on the other side of the bank, come to sip?
I don't know.

The air is different. It makes us yearn, fall does. We are suspended between summer's hot struggle and winter's cold season of too-much and too-little. Can I just rest here, for a moment, dreaming of nothing but this moment? Can I let the river of too-hot and too-cold, too-still and too-furious pass on without having to submerge myself in that rush?

Can I stow my feelings away for a little while, like winter's sweaters when we no longer need them, let myself just breathe with what is?

I suppose it is a discipline, which seems oxymoronic, to have to work so hard to learn to let go.

It is cool this morning and the air where it touches my skin makes me yearn, makes me sad, makes me desire, makes me wonder.

It does not wake me up. It does not push me forward, it does not do anything but touch me this morning and that touching is enough, I suppose.

I suppose it is. I suppose it is.