It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.
Epictetus
...a long dry summer ending, finally...at Hemlock Lake, down a brutally steep, glacier-carved hill from the trailer I was officially living in for the summer, water was so low it created a beach you could walk along for miles, into areas you couldn’t normally get to easily...saw a bald eagle, maybe three or four miles in, resting on a branch maybe twenty feet above...
...actually for most of July and August lived an hour north of there, at a friend’s house in Rochester...matters professional, personal, and really really personal having unleashed something that had been bubbling underneath for a long time...leaving pristine isolation too frightening to deal with....then, the same could be said for life in general, but that wasn’t quite as easy to get away from...put the dissertation on hold, along with some bad habits, got into yoga for the first time, and that, along with therapy, and the wonders of modern psychopharmacology, seemed to help...but only so much...
...apparently was feeling better somewhat, enough to be back at the trailer that morning, if getting ready to head into town for a few days...had a writing center meeting that afternoon, a class to teach to medical students...Liquor, Drugs, and Literature...came up with the title and course content myself...and was looking forward to picking up a copy of the new Bob Dylan CD, Love and Theft, released that morning....phone rang as I was walking out the door...my mom...asked if I knew what was happening...which I didn’t...
...everything was cancelled, but I drove to town, anyway...spent the afternoon at a friend’s house...nursing a migraine, she kept watching the news, while another friend puked in the bathroom...I took her dog for a walk...it was just another day to him...got stopped by a T.V. crew...said I thought it was important to be absolutely sure who was responsible before talking about striking back at anybody...or something...never saw it, but a couple people who did told me they appreciated whatever I said....gotta admit, there was some comfort that day in knowing everybody else felt as fucked up inside as I did...
We begin where we are and how we are, and whatever happens, happens.
T.K.V. Desikachar
...was going to yoga classes with a guy named Francois Raoult...great teacher as long as you appreciated his sense of humor....was wondering, hoping he was gonna mellow us all out somehow...lull us into some cosmic mellow head space far removed from all that... tell us it was all ephemeral, and didn’t matter, anyway...and actually make us believe that...
Epictetus
...a long dry summer ending, finally...at Hemlock Lake, down a brutally steep, glacier-carved hill from the trailer I was officially living in for the summer, water was so low it created a beach you could walk along for miles, into areas you couldn’t normally get to easily...saw a bald eagle, maybe three or four miles in, resting on a branch maybe twenty feet above...
...actually for most of July and August lived an hour north of there, at a friend’s house in Rochester...matters professional, personal, and really really personal having unleashed something that had been bubbling underneath for a long time...leaving pristine isolation too frightening to deal with....then, the same could be said for life in general, but that wasn’t quite as easy to get away from...put the dissertation on hold, along with some bad habits, got into yoga for the first time, and that, along with therapy, and the wonders of modern psychopharmacology, seemed to help...but only so much...
...apparently was feeling better somewhat, enough to be back at the trailer that morning, if getting ready to head into town for a few days...had a writing center meeting that afternoon, a class to teach to medical students...Liquor, Drugs, and Literature...came up with the title and course content myself...and was looking forward to picking up a copy of the new Bob Dylan CD, Love and Theft, released that morning....phone rang as I was walking out the door...my mom...asked if I knew what was happening...which I didn’t...
...everything was cancelled, but I drove to town, anyway...spent the afternoon at a friend’s house...nursing a migraine, she kept watching the news, while another friend puked in the bathroom...I took her dog for a walk...it was just another day to him...got stopped by a T.V. crew...said I thought it was important to be absolutely sure who was responsible before talking about striking back at anybody...or something...never saw it, but a couple people who did told me they appreciated whatever I said....gotta admit, there was some comfort that day in knowing everybody else felt as fucked up inside as I did...
We begin where we are and how we are, and whatever happens, happens.
T.K.V. Desikachar
...was going to yoga classes with a guy named Francois Raoult...great teacher as long as you appreciated his sense of humor....was wondering, hoping he was gonna mellow us all out somehow...lull us into some cosmic mellow head space far removed from all that... tell us it was all ephemeral, and didn’t matter, anyway...and actually make us believe that...
...instead, he said something to the effect that there were, in fact, very legitimate reasons for the anxiety we were all feeling...but that didn’t mean we should let it paralyze us, or prevent us from functioning...
...and that was the key...no mystical la-la land to escape to...nothing to do but deal with exactly whatever it is was we had to deal with...
shanti shanti shanti
shanti shanti shanti
6 comments:
A very gentle remembrance of that day, drjay.
And yeah, in light of the horror of it all, you'd think that everybody else would feel "as fucked up inside." But I remember on that day, right after watching the unthinkable live on our conference room monitors, the person I worked for made some incredibly callous "jokes," amusing only himself, of course. I just couldn't understand how someone could be so insensitive to the devastation and loss of life. He apparently was one who felt no need to deal with anything. That's one guy I never looked at the same way again.
peace peace peace.
thank you for sharing.
I find it interesting that you put this post up today. I don't know if you're into this (I'm not really, but kind of) but Mercury is in Retrograde so we're all supposed to spend September "reviewing and revising" our old lives. Basically, we're stuck with ghosts, on Memory land.
Something cool my teacher said last class, which is similar to your quote, is that we are always the same person, throughout time. We have the same basic principles, but as time goes on, we get choose what to do with them, how we create with him, what we perceive, and how we make our imprint on the world.
Horrific events bring out so many different emotions in people. It is good to look back to our own emotions on that day to remind us of how precious our life really is. We do not need to relive the memory, just understand it.
...nothing to do but deal with exactly whatever it is was we had to deal with... This really says it all.
Namaste,
Roger
we move on down the long trail that is life - no matter what...""We begin where we are and how we are, and whatever happens, happens."
T.K.V. Desikachar"
hmmm....perfect.
Now that sounds like one interesting course, Jay! "Liquor, Drugs, and Literature" hahahahahahaha. I love it.
I have been doing yoga for only about a year--but the biggest mental benefit I can tell (the biggest physical benefit is how much it has helped my back) is the balance it brings to me. I have a tendency to get really stressed out--anxious, really. After an hour session of yoga, I really feel so much more centered. I'm so glad I started doing it again (I used to do yoga long ago when I was an actress--that and Tai Chi).
Melinda
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