The Best of Both Worlds

I’ve just returned from a very special bike ride. It was an interesting trip and as part of it I stayed for a night and a day at a monastery for Retreat.  I was there before some 44 years previously on Retreat with a friend. It seems an impossibly long time ago, and I remember the week with great fondness. One day after a big summer storm, we were down at the monastery’s private beach and I found a washed up huge wicker elliptically-shaped boat-fender attached to a rope.

On a whim (or should that be on a limb?) I tied it to a dead tree which hung over the water and with my shoes and socks off and jeans rolled up over my knees, splashing around, digging up handfuls of clay, I found myself slapping the clay joyfully on to the hanging fender, where pretty soon a large face began to form. As I remember it, as far as human faces go it was quite grotesque, but fun anyway. I really enjoyed myself and each day after that I went back to the beach to see how the face had weathered. By the end of the week it had completely transformed and was sagging somewhat (especially the mouth) with the weight of water and clumps of seaweed—it became ‘out of this world’ and I loved it.

The point of the story is, the other day I wanted to spend some quiet time on this same beach just to see if I could experience the memory and the joy again—to rekindle the feelings.  In the process, I nearly missed the here and now real-life opportunity to experience directly everything there was to experience right there and then. In fact as it turned out, I got the best of both worlds. Not only was there the joyful memory, but also there was the joy of actually being there and being able to see, hear, touch, taste and smell everything that was there on the beach, that was happening as it happened.  And the truth is that that particular direct experience was amazing and terrific too. I’m really glad I was able to recall and let go of the previous memory, and at the same time be present to experience all the other stuff too, to make a new memory. This time amongst many other things, I had the joy of making something else to leave on the beach—an arrangement of a few stones to sit on. To sit on and reflect. Which I did a lot.

At the end of my Retreat when I was leaving, one of the monks said to me ‘You’ll come back and see us again?’  ‘Hmm…’ I replied. And then with a wry smile he added, ‘Maybe in another 44 years?!’ There’s a lesson in that too.

Drilling Deep

It was all going so well putting up the shelf—I like a bit of DIY—and then my ancient electric drill decided to give up the ghost. I didn’t mind the forced pause though and got to work immediately researching how I might repair the fault and finding out what new and better drill I might get if a repair was not feasible. Finally, after much deliberation, I decided to treat myself to a new drill which I found as a great deal online. It was perfect and I was all set and excited to buy it, when....... my daughter kindly offered the loan of her drills saying very sensibly that we could share them.

My mind was not prepared for this turn of events at all and instantly rebelled with ‘Nooooo!! I want my own new drill!’ What can you do with a childish mind like that? It eventually calmed down (luckily the offer was sent to me by text, so my reaction apart from lamentably sharing my feelings with my wife who famously gets all this stuff—sorry Christina—was largely an internal one) and I was then able to accept the drills reasonably graciously. Phew!! 

By the way, these drills that I’m talking about and now using are great..... and even older than my broken one!! 

There’s a lot to be said for allowing time for the mind to settle before always doing straight away what it wants you to.