On the Ride Of Your Life, Sometimes You Have to Hold On

The porch and yard and driveway are covered in leaves and twigs that have shook loose from their oak trees. The rake is locked up in the owner's storage unit, and even though I predict the fruitlessness of this, I sweep them off with the broom anyway, knowing that a gust will bring them right back to settle out side the window where I sit on my yoga mat. Nature rules supreme here.


“As I let go of the need to arrange my life, the universe brings abundant good to me.” Deepak Chopra’s voice soothes.   I am once again in the middle of a 21-day meditation challenge; the fourth and final theme of the year is Abundance. This week, centering thoughts circulate around letting go of expectation and anticipation. 

I have been forcefully trying to arrange my life this past week.  To "get it together" I chastise myself, scouring Craigslist for housing in Los Angeles, applying for countless jobs online, writing friends and colleagues to let them know I'm available, that I am in need of a little work, knowing the seeds I'm planting are a little late in the season.  My last job of the year has been rescheduled to next April, and my end of year budget is tight.

I haven't had to send up a flare like that since Mountain View Apartment days, circa ’96, when all of the residents were out of work, behind on the rent and steeped in college loan and credit card debt. That, I silently say to Deepak's voice, is something to be thankful for.

I know I am just anxious. Trying to arrange things. Waiting for responses, hoping for a germination and forgetting that it is the end of the year, and the time for tying things up, and storing them away, making room for 2013.

I recently heard a report on NPR that 85% of resumes submitted online never get a response. Spiders crawl through submissions, picking out pertinent words that someone has keyed as necessary and important. If a resume doesn't have X number of those words, it gets auto-deleted.  It would be nice to be acknowledged; such as a form letter sent via Internet “Thank you for your application. You’re not qualified, etc.”  But this ether. This unknowing, this silent phone make it particularly difficult to obey Deepak’s mantra today.  

Maybe the silence is what I need right now.  “Be in the silence”, I will myself.

When the alarm went off on Thanksgiving morning, it was Tony Bennett I woke up to. "Life is a gift" an aging but familiar voice was crackling out. Half awake, I know the day is going to be filled with missives of gratitude starting with Morning Edition. I was not feeling this gratitude. I turned off the radio and opened my computer; bracing myself for the inbox cluttered with email blasts from various organizations I've donated to, an unoriginal choice of words ("thanksgiving" "giving thanks" or "gratitude") in the subject line.  Delete. Delete. Delete.

No doubt, I was grouchy. I am sick of making a gratitude list every day, and that this feeling of defiance should come on THE day of "THANKS"… well let's say the irony was not lost on me.

I brewed a pot of strong coffee, decided meditation would not work for me today, sweatered up and headed down to Lecount Hollow with Pepper, skeptical that his puppy poodle joy wouldn't be enough to change my attitude in time for dinner at Deb's later. The ocean hits the first sand break hard, broken buoys and clumps of seaweed litter the beach, signs of a storm. There is no land to see beyond where I stand. This is the edge of the world. I like that this is a jumping off point, a place where adventure is imminent and that these miles of protected shoreline are constantly changing, reflecting the order of a world in perpetual motion with unpredictable results.

For years, I try to live by the principle of staying present, keeping it simple.  When I’m cranky like today, sometimes this means adopting the simplest tactic of "Stop, look and listen" a jingle lodged in my brain directly from childhood, from Saturday Morning Cartoons and the animated PSAs that would run between Lucky Stars commercials and Batman.

Simple gratitude to me can be sheets on the bed and a ceiling over me. That morning, I wanted a hot bath in one of the Dorchester Hotel's deep marble tubs.  And that thought alone, the memory of my last trip to London, mysteriously caused my brain to shift gears to a Kentuckian who lent me a gentlemanly hand with my overhead luggage on the plane back from Maui last February, and the car Vanessa arranged to pick me up at the airport when she got a last minute gig, and couldn't come herself.

When I stop and look down, I see three sets of footprints on the beach with me, one hot-blooded soul who has shed their shoes, and another with treads and those of a bigger dog than Pepper. I can see their silhouettes by the wreckage of Marconi Station.  

I am not alone, I think and smile to myself. 

After dinner, my now antiquated LG phone beeps and Deb picks it up. We have the same one, and she says "It's yours", handing it over to me. There is a new email, and I glance at the subject line which states "Happy Thanksgiving". I quickly read through, and then stop and re-read it. The message overwhelms me, filling me with gratitude and awe.  

The universe has a way of turning things around.  It must be those constant revolutions around the sun, keeping us off kilter.