Shopping and sitting
Monday morning. Hi. Good morning. Did you have a good weekend?
Well, I’ve been to the opposite ends of my world.
I’ve been pulled and squeezed and drained by department-store hell, wondering in a maze of airless-overcrowded-overstimulating-fluorescent spaces, trudging in circles, coming out hours later, eye-sore, foot-sore, with a remarkably small package. Breathe. Gulp water from my bottle. Lean on wall. Enough? Well, no: strongly perceived need for something else which I forgot. Further half hour of pushing, circling, up, up, rummage, queue, push, circle, down, down, glimpse daylight and plunge towards it, burst back out.
People do this for pleasure, leisure? I’m clearly an alien. That was Saturday. On Sunday I set down my bags full of clothes and gadgets, anger and anxiety, and dropped through mind into the quiet place. The bodies of others, not swirling, pushing, jostling, but side by side being still. Stopped. This. Now. All of us breathing. The wind in the trees.
Meditation is feeding your spirit, Martine said at the retreat, it’s feeding your being.