The Suitcase

I’m packing my new suitcase. It’s pretty cool.  It’s black and orange and has lots of zippers and compartments to stick stuff in. It’s even got an extended handle and wheels. It’s perfect for cramming last minute trinkets and trash that I will find and bring home to The Monkey.  I’m pretty happy with my new suitcase.

My suitcase sits empty on my bed. As always, it’s a formidable task to decide what exactly to take.  For the organizing, folding, sorting mayhem, I unleash my type A-OCD; She loves this stuff.  She springs joyfully around the bedroom, yelling:  “OKAY!  Here’s the plan!  First!  We lay out all the outfits, with shoes and shirts and pants and belts and underwear and socks.  Once we’ve done that, then, OH THEN!  We get to organize and pack all the clothes by type!  Underwear together, then pants, and shirts... OH my goodness, don’t forget power cords!  Must not forget those.  This. Is. So. Much. Fun.  

I sit starting at my now packed suitcase.  I wait.  There is no sense in gnashing the steel teeth together just yet.  There is still more to find it’s way inside.  It always does.  I never go anywhere without it.

‘When the student is ready’ I whisper to myself.

Then, it arrives.  Silently, it glides inches above the floor. A black shadow. Cold, putrid, rancid.  It smells like stale cigarettes and 3 day unwashed hair. This faceless shadow furtively crosses the floor, ascends my bed and hovers above the suitcase. I look at it, watch it, again trying to figure out where it begins and where it ends.  I can’t see through it and the one time I tried to touch it, it enveloped my wrist so tightly my hand went cold and numb.  

‘When the student is ready...’ I whisper to myself.  

The shadow pours into the suitcase, spilling itself over all my neatly folded and sorted clothes.  It oozes onto every fibre, every nook of both content and container.  It makes itself comfortable and nestles in for yet another journey.

‘When the student is ready...’ I sigh, close the suitcase and methodically guide the zipper slowly around the parameter of my rectangular baggage.  

There are 192 hours in my journey.  3864.82 kilometres travelled.  An ascension of 4540 feet from sea level.  I take this journey to marry pen to paper.  

‘When the student is ready,‘  I announce to myself.  

The Pen moves effortlessly across the paper, spilling out words like blood splatter at a crime scene.  Painful words, words never spoken, written, considered.  They don’t make sense.  They are ugly, raw, imperfect words.  I don’t want to read them again.  Obviously, these words don’t belong to me...they cannot be mine.  

Can they?  

Let the pen go. Write the story.

As I run, I hear a faint whispering in the trees; ‘the Teacher appears.’

The Pen continues to glide, day and night.  I can hear the words now. I feel them. They weave a story.  My story.  

Questions are swept away silently with the fog.   

I sit starting at my now packed suitcase.  

I wait. 

I close my eyes.  

I breathe in. 

I wait.

I smile.

A hundred and twenty hours

I’m about to admit something...it may come as a huge shock to you, so it’s probably a good idea you sit down for this. Alright, here goes (deep breath): 

I...I am a negligent blogger. 

There.  It’s out in the open.  I think we should talk about it.  I know you been thinking it.  So no more skirting around the issue. I’m ready, let’s have at it.  

I’ve been struggling with my blog.  I’ve been struggling with my voice and more troublesome, my story.  Based on my recent:  ‘lather, rinse, repeat’ course of life, I haven’t been compelled to my keyboard.  There’s the obvious reason: the damn sun hasn’t shone in Halifax in about 3 weeks and a strange looking bearded man has taken up residence next to the church on my street. He was keeping me up with all those damn animals on his ridiculously large boat.  And, just in case he’s reading this, for the last time, NO, I haven’t seen a unicorn, you pothead.  

I’ve started several blogs on topics, meaty topics.  I've been tossing them into the air, see if anything sticks. Dating? Motherhood? Supercool tube socks?  But no fingers danced on the keyboard.  No magic, no spark.  It became painfully obvious to me I just have not been aptly inspired. 

This 40 list is tough, let alone Big and Scary.  Anything worth doing should be.  I’ve grappled with items on The List fairly well for the past 5 months, making strides and generating some wonderful insight.  But, I’ve hit a plateau in my current state, a blockage.  My ‘Immovable Beast’ has bested me.  When I began blogging, I committed to not posting for the mere sake of posting.  I’m not that kind of blogger.  

So, the facts became insurmountable; the routine of my day/week/month had me feeling limited and my ability to create, disabled.  It was obvious; I needed new stimuli, I needed to rest; I needed to shake things up.  It was time to get out of dodge.  Escape, just for a little while.  A change of scenery was required and some time to recharge and reset.  Time to imagine for awhile.  

And by God, that is precisely what has happened. I have been reminded of my favourite Buddhist teaching:  ‘When the student is ready, the teacher appears’.  

Five days.  Five overwhelmingly rich days in my life have just occurred.  In 120 hours, the teacher has placed before me unbelievable gifts.  Previously dormant emotions have begun to awaken. I have been immersed in jaw-dropping majesty, heart expanding connections, conversation so dense, rich, complex and pure that I could literally feel my brain tingling and my soul expanding. I have been living a series of experiences devoid of judgment, heaping with acceptance, bathed in love.

I want to cry and laugh all at the same time.  I want to hug everyone I see. I want to jump up and down and wave my arms and yell:  “Hey, C’mere! Look. At. THIS!  No seriously, it will completely blow your mind!” I’ve deduced something marvellous has happened. It is scary as hell; overwhelmingly surreal.  I’ve cleared my brambles, cobwebs and prickly thorns and revealed my spirit.  I’ve delicately extracted it from way within its dark little hiding place and gently laid it in the sun, giving it nourishment; whispered words of love, tenderness and an abundance of encouragement. 

I hope when I come down from these mountains, packed up, security cleared and plane boarded, this won’t have been an apparition, merely a spectacular dream.  I think I’m going to hang out way up here, 4,540ft above sea level, for another 120 hours, just to make sure.