One Moon

I set out from home with the intention of walking as far as I can centred in present moment awareness. I get half a block. I notice the shape of my neighbours roof, and the sound of crickets and birds, and see the last of the day’s sunlight falling on the maple trees that line the street. Then my thoughts stray, and I’m laughing at how rotten I am at this being conscious stuff.

Two and a half hours ago something beautiful passed out of my life, and I’m struggling to hold onto the present moment, fearing letting in the past, dreading the creeping dark form of the future.

Two and a half hours ago I said good bye, maybe forever, to something precious, something tender and loving, something painful and difficult and ultimately ephemeral.

I’ve said so many goodbyes in the last year that you’d think I’d be accustomed to. Not so. I’ve let go of so many things in the last year of my life that you’d think that I was able to step away with ease. Not so.

Its been coming for two weeks. Its been coming since my journey to Canmore. I thought that I could hold on, but I could not.

So now I open my hands, open my heart, and release.

I am not alone in my grief. I know there is another who is feeling the loss, the sadness. I am not so selfish to believe that my sorry is singular.

A friend tells me to make a list of all the things that I want to do. It’s a way to keep preoccupied. I take a stab at it: finish the summary of the Blackwater trilogy, and get it to a publisher. Focus on being a great parent. Love my boyz more than I ever dreamed possible. Eat well. Drink less. Run more swiftly, longer, and over harder country than ever. Read some inspirational books: World Inc., Blessed Unrest, The Upside of Down, Getting to Maybe. Read some mysteries. Write Becoming Sand over from scratch cause it’s a hopelessly sad, lovely story, but my first version of it, written a decade ago, really really sucks. Buy some clay and sculpt again. Meditate. Learn to play the guitar. Recruit some amazing new clients. Focus on serving three or four businesses and social profits really, really well. Love my boyz. Love my friends. Love my family. Love myself.

It all sounds great. Should keep me preoccupied for a few days. Maybe a week.

I walk for half an hour, pushing my mind back to the present moment each time it strays. I think of Thich Nhat Hanh’s book on walking meditation: The Long Road Turns to Joy.

The hardest thing for me to do now will be let go of hope. Hope that what has left my life will come back. Hope that the phone will ring. Hope that time will pass swiftly and with its passage that beautiful part of my life that just flew away (I really, really hate airports right now) will come back again.

I want to erase the pain. I want to find something that takes away the sadness. Kathleen reminds me that I have to feel it. Move through it. Not hide from it, no matter how difficult. She did when I left her. I admire her more than any soul alive.

Andy, her new partner, arrived this weekend, and they took the boyz camping at French Beach. My landlord has told me that my house is up for sale. It’s a good thing my challenges come at regularly spaced intervals.

I fear my evening meditation sit tonight. So much stillness. No place to hide.

I'm just going to feel the sadness, and let that go too.

The way to get through this challenge will be by staying grounded in each moment. Not playing over the tape of the past, not projecting forward into the future.

I round the bend and am walking down Princess Street towards my home when I notice the moon, a thin sliver hanging in the southern sky.

Can I do it for one moon? Stay in the present?

I can try.

But before I do I allow myself one small indulgence, a prayer, a supplication:

Thank-you
for coming into my life, gracing
me with your love and beauty,
tenderness and desire
Yes, you too are a gift
and I cherish the sweetness and
release the sorrow
and surrender to the mystery
And now
Let
You
Go

One moon. I can do this for one moon.