The quality of light shifts each morning from what lulled early dreams upon us to what may grant us some hope that yes, this too shall pass.  Or something.  My short walk this morning became a bit longer as I slowed but didn't quite pause to notice a small ball field covered in snow, reflecting bluing skies behind the Diocese board up in scattered mirrors of ice.  The frozen puddles offered up their wares atop a sleek surface: 2 Snapple bottles, the known foil and orange of Doritos, a torn and folded stack of corn tortillas next to their untorn, unfolded paper envelope. 

After a few breaths of sincere awe at the beauty of my one block commute from free breakfast to free wi-fi, I thought to share it with someone, maybe my mom, and this placing of other eyes in front of mine revealed that it was no picture postcard.  If I had taken out my tiny telephone, snapped a pic and txtd it to my mama, she would have 1) looked at it while driving, 2) looked at it while driving past, and ignoring, a doe and her fawn prancing through handsome acres of pine forest delicately sparkling with dew, 3) looked at it while driving past clean natural wonders and considered that it may have been sent as a mistake, 4) looked at it while driving through nature, wondering whether I sent it as a mistake or was I trying to tell her something, and was that something a cry for help, at last, from the coarse, brutality of urban life, and if so, would it mean I am coming back home soon?  Maybe for her birthday this week?  Never again to leave her for the city?  I did not take a picture.

Borrowing my mother's imagined distaste for urban decay, my cognitive landscape soon flooded with the knowledge of Haiti, and my neighborly scene looked magical again, splitscreen with true ruin.  Gratitude and shame rolled around together having charged break-up sex, as is their habit in this here heart situation of mine.  Perspective is a glorious and cruel charm.  There are days that my view cuts and flashes so suddenly, the suspension of disbelief can't be held long enough to compose a worthwhile status update.  My pulse races, feeling no ground under my feet, knowing there is nothing, absolutely nothing which will not shake loose, which will not dissolve, which will not look weird in HD.  When the light changes, our eyes change.  We ask for more, we ask for less, but, please, somebody give us better CGI so we can sleep at night.  We know it's fake, but we wanna believe, for the duration of one scene, that we are alive, that there are diamonds under all this rock, that one of these universes is the one, and god, maybe it's this one here, now.  But our consciousness of illusion is growing just a bit faster than technology can keep up, and it hurts, having to be here, lucid and uneasy.

Pema Chodron has written: "If we're willing to give up hope that insecurity and pain can be exterminated, then we can have the courage to relax with the groundlessness of our situation. This is the first step on the path."  Dear Pema: Typically, when outlining a progressive set of instructions with the intention of being helpful, the first step should read as something vaguely within reach.  With that in mind, giving up hope that we will can relieve our suffering or find something to lean on seems a bit more suited for step 7, level 13, difficulty settings on Total Mastery.  Can I get a modified step one?  I imagine myself telling Pema I have an injury which exempts me from practice.  Yes, severe.  Yes, chronic.  Yes, painful.  She does not hesitate to inform me that there is no modified acceptance of reality.  That it is not something that can be done in part.  I ask her if there is a way I can just get ready to prepare to become willing to start doing it, and then I can't really hear what she says.  Either something about the secret crystal caverns of Atlantis or to stop being such an insatiable brat. 

One of my favorite teachers is my best friend, Rene.  She recently summed up Pema's first step, my current dilemma and the only reasonable solution to it with two words: Stop fantasizing.  There is a difference between hope and fantasy, though I admit I don't know what it is.  As much as I'd like to pretend I'm a ferocious scrutinizer of the world, at heart I'm a believer.  Or, more accurately, a wanna believer.  I wanna believe in miracles, transformation and the ultimate goodness of humanity.  I wanna believe in god, in love, in healers and saints and magic prayers.  My apartment is left unlocked most days.  I don't zip my bag up on the train.  I give love and trust where it has not been earned and is not reciprocated, and not because I've never been burned, but because I'm still longing to have my experience proven wrong.  This is foolish.  It is neither compassionate nor wise, it is plain folly, and just as gross an error as it would be to shut myself in under the belief that there is nothing worthy of my confidence.

My other favorite teacher, Tom the Tutor, then poked his head into my mess of an attempt at faith and said, "if something is true, you don't have to believe in it.  Karen.  You're wasting your energy."  Thanks, Tom.  One can hardly argue with that.  But that doesn't make the truth any more discernible through these eyes.  I'm swamped with dreamscapes, counterfeits and well-intentioned fakers like me.  And sometimes I love them all so much, it doesn't seem that bad.  Believing is fun when its fun.  And one day at a time kind of works if I don't think too much about why it works.  But then the agony of discovering there is no Santa emerges, over and over again.  The bottom line is, I don't know how to navigate an ever-changing, completely phony landscape and still give a crap.  All the early childhood training tools for that kind of thing, Atari, Nintendo, D&D, Glamour Shots, Star Search (I'm in my thirties, give me a break) were off limits in my house, which is not to say that we didn't play our share of I-dare-you-to-call-bullshit-on-my-alternate-reality-right-now.  We did.  And I was the bullshit-caller.  Until the anguish of being that person sent me back to my poetry anthology.  Which is, I suppose, how its done.  Sometimes this, sometimes that, depending on the day.

Today I'm calling bullshit on me.  That's the work I can do for the moment.  That and I might compose a picture on the way home.  The Sun has brightened over the ball field.  The mirrors have melted, the shadows are crisp.  It is a weak masterpiece, banal, unspectacular, temporary, perfect.  If no one is passed out on the bench, I'll have a seat and enjoy the quality of light for a minute.  I'll think about taking it home with me on my handheld digital device, and then I'll decide against it, to practice un-grasping abstractions.  A modified step one. Take that, Pema.

In case you would like a more substantial way to practice getting with the truth, Yoga, For The Moment is teaming up with a local helper and fellow yogini, Misa C, to gather food, clothing and monetary donations for the people of Haiti.  Email me to take part.  Meanwhile, enjoy what light there is and I'll see you in class.