Naming It For What It Is

MGL shows up everywhere.

He is at Joe’s when I am trying to concentrate on the Latin names of plants. I fumble my words as I dig in the very gardens that he and I first met in.

When I try to meditate, he pops up like an obnoxious computer icon in the corner of the screen.

During yoga class, here is right there next to me, shoving his mat in the way of mine.

Once, he even follows me into the bathroom.

I breathe this all in and notice it for what it is; simply energy. I really believe this. A thought is just a thought. It is our judgments of those thoughts or the emotions that we immediately leap to that actually make us think the thoughts are real. Suffering is notoriously the result of this pattern.

Later, MGL shows up at the dinner table. I invite him to join me, naming him for what he is…and he disappears. This was how the Buddha faced his own demons sitting under the tree where he attained enlightenment.

Only bouncy energy remains. I can feel it my gut, in my skull. How strange to be human. How unceasing are our thoughts. How predictable are our assumptions. I chuckle at the energy, because it is no different than any other thoughts that I let go of in the same way.

The weight of the situation lifts like paper in the wind. At its core, pain is the same as joy; they are two sides of the same coin. I take heart in this.