GETTING THERE

Since my personal New Year always begins on my birthday, I am not one given to thinking about or making New Year's resolutions. Since I strive, everyday, to live with myself -- my faults, fears, doubts, and idiosyncracies (I am a Scorpio) -- I am given to making adjustments and revisions year round rather than making them at the conventional time.

But it was two days ago, after reading the editorial section of a parenting magazine that I didn't subscribe too, that I began to think about what I would want for the coming year if I had to name one thing. That one thing would be this: to be a better human being.

Angel, what are you talking about?

Well, I'm talking about understanding myself better; getting hold of my inner fears and doubts; learning the true art of living in the moment so that what I later give out to others is a reflection of my own inner peace. It seems to me that those people who are happiest in life are the people who have some deep and pervasive understanding of that simple concept.

I talk alot about Buddhism and Taoism because the study of both (or either) requires active engagement. Buddhism and Taoism connect me to the TODAY of my life. Not when I reach Heaven and not so much of a focus on even getting to Heaven but how to survive and thrive in this world. How to be at peace with myself first. How to direct my conscious mind and how, more importantly, to live gratefully and fully aware. And I am mature enough now, to recognize, that I don't have to be all of one thing, that is all-Christian, to the point that I miss out on what is good teaching for my soul while I am here on earth.

In my Dharma study the other night, I came across the term: TANHA. It is the word the Buddha used in the Second Noble Truth to define the cause of suffering which is translated as "craving" or "unappeasable wanting." I learned this in Sylvia Boorstein's, Pay Attention for Goodness Sake.

Hhmm.

Unappeasable wanting?

She writes: "Wanting so much to have something that you don't have or wanting so much to have somehing you have but don't want to lose, so much so that the mind cannot rest. The having or not having becomes a pre-occupation that fills the mind with the painful energy of greed or aversion. Seeing clearly therefore becomes impossible. Recognizing that neediness is suffering, feeling the pain of longing in both the mind and the body is the [first step] toward untying the knots."

And Buddha taught: "suffering is the extra pain in the mind that happens when we feel an anguished imperative to have things be different from what they are."

So what has this to do with me? What am I suffering with?

Well, I am a mother and a writer, struggling always to find time to write, to get projects done. Constantly questioning whether my time would be better spent searching for a cure for AIDS or some other Nobel Peace Prize winning occupation. I struggle and suffer most on the days that my writing takes fourth or fifth place to the minutiae of life: emails, food shopping, laundry, dropping off and picking up. Midnight meeting me at my desk, laughing at the black rings around my eyes. Laughing at the cup of coffee that I swear will get me through the next chapter. Laughing at my green tea fortified with ginseng. Slapping my face with its cold dark hand as I bend over into Downward Dog, hoping that the blood flowing toward my brain will keep me at least until 1 a.m. And I go to bed, resentment as thick as molasses, filling my chest and coursing its way through my veins. Resentment that is as lethal as cyanide.

And I am a human, getting older, struggling with finding the time to do those things that I love to do: cooking, yoga, gardening. And I am an activist, trying hard to encourage a whole lot of lazy people to recycle, use less paper, donate old cell phones to shelters for women victims of domestic violence. And I become angry with myself when I tip into Wal-Mart, tail tucked, reaching for that five pack of Spiderman underwear that retails for almost 3 dollars less than the other stores, knowing full well that the young woman who sewed them with her bare, raw hands, is earning .62 cents on the hour and probably has dreams of being a writer or an artist or a painter or a dancer or anything besides a factory worker. And I struggle. Suffering with my choices because I, part time worker that I am (because I am a writer) need to shop on discount.

But here is what is important to me, and here is what is key ... that line about wanting things to be diffent from how they are. I mean, how foolish and how much of a time waster is that? I remember a line from a little .45 record I used to listen to when I was little: wishing doesn't make things so. Why not learn to embrace each moment for what it is? Why not learn and embrace a new concept of time? A concept that is not linear, rather, cyclical; a concept that is not at all Western. Why not see the inter-relatedness between what is happening now and what is desired for the future? Surely that has to be the path toward greater happiness.

And so, I think that that's where I am. Doing what I need to do to organize the days a bit better. A load of laundry here and there rather than a whole bushel on the weekend. Speaking up and saying what I need when I need it. Pulling back from what I think I "need" in order to write. Just simply write. But mostly, I think, seeing that the NOW -- the time that I am writing this novel or this next collection of poems or that collection of essays -- NOW is THEN. Raising these two children and laughing with them trying to get their two feet right on the Twister. Sitting down at the sewing machine with my daughter (her very first sewing machine) and teaching her the beauty of making something by hand. Taking time to wander aimlessly through the yard. Fill the bird feeder and dump the stale water from the birdbath and fill it with fresh water. Taking time to go to the farmer's market for that cilantro or fresh sage or fresh thyme and learn how to cook that recipe NOW, rather than when I retire. Dancing like I don't have a bit of sense to that new Zap Mama CD which my daughter, grown-as-she-wanna-be absolutely loves.

Raising myself and my children and my art.

The three are inseperable. Inter-related. How can I enjoy the tomorrow, how can I make tomorrow a reality, without enjoying, fully, the NOW?

And lastly, perhaps more importantly, establishing a new paradigm, a new concept -- a more workable way of looking at time. A concept that does not work around 24 hours. I'll expand more on that when I have better language.

But for now, this what I would hope for, if it had to be one thing.

ANGEL