Speak the thoughts and say what they show, say where, say which, say why, say how, say when… All you ever do is attend the show and say what it is and where it goes and what our ears want to tell us and your nose discerns and your fingertips touch and point to and to whatever your curiosities, wherever your wanderings wish to take us… Attend to the flow. Tell us what occurs to you… What seems to make sense… Or maybe no sense. Tell and show… Attend to the flow, tell and show.
~from The Spiral-Bound Notebook
Beyond eight lanes of traffic only a mile or so away, the morning rush with its thousand travelers in steaming vehicles sipping their Starbucks, texting their friends, speaking aloud their two cents to the morning talk shows; the shining towers of glass slowly release their myriad raindrops, rivulets streaming down, splashing out to freefall down into the surrounding mulch and landscaping. It is undeniably a sort of castle set atop a hillside close at hand but beyond the reach of the modern towers of the city, the old cathedrals, the historic districts, the discos and fast food restaurants.
Having been constructed in 1858 the still glowing conservatory wore a timeless elegance, architecturally sounding out each of its vaulted lines straight upward, garnering the great force of linear simplicity in its framing so as to accentuate and companion its most vital guest, it's paradisaic cause and Edenic purpose, the light of the sun.
Here within, millions of life forms could grow freely and into their true identity, co-mingling one with the other and thereby mutually supporting what would later be called biodiversity, a sort of natural harmony of living things to be enjoyed not only by scientists in search of answers for earth's future, but also for each visitor invited to reimagine the wonders of these living surroundings so similar to their own.
Here is where over 200,000 people will visit in a given year, where buses filled with children and/or the elderly will deliver groups, rewarding the youngest with a foretaste of the finest future they can imagine and the oldest, who knows but perhaps a certain sense of the same.
Here is where Zoe found her way to more than she'd ever imagined. Here is where she waits, again long hours throughout the late morning at the top of the rock. But of course she does so quite differently.
She never waits. Not nearly in the same way that most would. Contentment is not a thing she works at, it is how she manifests as a being. Being is what she does, she is, and that is all.
The comparative mind belongs to another, she may tell you. The way of others is to perhaps live in constant evaluation of what is; what is present, what is missing.
For them, whatever they possess must needs be the very finest and best, which will carry them a very long way but never forward into their fullness. Instead, on their phones, faces lit by the false light, they scroll up and up endlessly assuming that one or perhaps just a few more flips of the thumb upward will bring them to their perfect boots and coats, their cars, couches and televisions and updated kitchens and baths every couple of years. They will want to show you. They will want you to see their life.
In many ways, to the extent that she knew she had this gift, Zoe tried to simply exude contentment. There was no point in trying to teach it or point out when people were needing to be more patient or less attached to this or that.
This is why they had gotten along so well for as long as they did. They rarely preached to each other about how to be. Rather they always were working, or so it seemed to her, at being… Manifesting what they wanted more than talking about it. Showing more than telling.
Still, if you asked her, she would tell you it was all a little more complicated than that. Much discontentment arose that rainy night she jumped out the open window after all. Her foreboding upon making those first frigid steps out onto the wet concrete of the city's night and all of its dangerous possibilities was still not stronger than her dissatisfaction.
So, a contented creature… Indeed. Nevertheless, there were moments that demanded a shift in vision, perhaps even a different way in to contentedness, one that could send one straight out into the high winds of homelessness, of rabid raccoons and stray dogs and animal control trucks.
No comments:
Post a Comment