Space and Time

"Wherever we are, it is but a stage on the way to somewhere else, and whatever we do, however well we do it, it is only a preparation to do something else that will be different."

--Robert Louis Stevenson

I went to the orthodontist on Friday. I don't want to talk about it. Let's just say this is going to take forever.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons why I've been turning my eye to the past this week, and to times when I've felt myself to be brighter, deeper, more in focus. I'm taking out these moments, and turning them over in my mind as thought they were glittery jewels. I'm delighted by them. I'm also tortured by them.

I went to a party on Friday night at The Gowanus Ballroom In the cavernous industrial space, Morgan O'Kane played extraordinary banjo mountain music as aerialists performed feats of elegant strength 20 feet above. We walked among the huge art installations and lazed within in an enormous iron replica of Genie's bottle. The floor shook with fantastic, frenzied dancing, and I was transported back to 1995 when art and bluegrass and frenzied dancing were weekly occurrences. It felt odd but so satisfying to reinhabit that time and place.

I read this today at from Adventurer's Club:

While it's often fashionable to dwell upon what might have been, what's usually overlooked is that really and truly, it couldn't have.

Because, invariably, any romanticized versions of how things "might have been," are based upon fictionalized versions of the past.

This is such a useful quote. Those moments, no matter how pretty and significant, were merely stepping stones to this one, as this one will merely be a stepping stone to 2012 and beyond. Whatever has happened stays static in the past, though alive and beautiful in memory. As one of my professors said in class in 1995, quoting EM Forester, "In space things meet, in time things part."

What is meeting in the space I am in right now? My teeth are beginning to meet each other in the right places. I've been meeting my yoga practice everyday, faithfully, for two weeks now. And I'm soon to meet a new year and everything that it may hold.

Very curious about the glittery jewels to be found there...

Hello

“Quietly go to work on your own self-awareness. If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation." --Lao Tsu, Hua Hu Ching

Well dang. If that's the case, having braces is something near to angelic, and instead of brushing my teeth I should be shining my halo. I'm being facetious here because I'm not feeling anywhere near the seraphim lately. I start off on a good path and then find myself taking the easy road, when taking the more involved road is tiring but more satisfying. This is getting proven to me time and time again, in small ways, and yet I still insist on having that free bagel when it's offered, that extra cup of coffee with cream, and tell myself "manana, manana" when I think about my yoga practice or running in the park. My body is so soft, my anger is so easily roused, and the zen that I once prized in myself is seeping out of me. The shameful part is that I've willingly let it happen. I have blamed the braces, but that's also the easy road. It's not these bits of metal in my mouth, it's something else.

I want to catch myself like Holden Caufield catching little ones in the rye, and eliminate all that is dark and negative in myself. It's done with ample sleep and green vegetables, and yoga. It's done with dance parties and exotic travel and moments of silence. I have not done any of these things in a long time.

I found myself trying to make friends with my teeth last night. I was consciously thanking each tooth for all of the incredibly hard work each molar, each canine has done over the last two and a quarter years. I actually felt each tooth throb in each root as if to say, "You talkin' to us? Fo' reals? It's about damn time you said hello!"

Perhaps that's all it takes for the real transformation to begin...