Instant Adaptations
Texas, 2009

What I love about humans
Is that we can be instantly adaptable
To just about anything

I walk in silence
With my eyes down
To sit silently in a large dim room
with about 80 others
As if this is what I normally do
As if meditating from 4:30 a.m. until 9 p.m.
Is what I normally do

Ignoring the fact that a 15 minute meditation
usually feels long for me
Ignoring the fact that my longest meditation
lasted an hour

And here I am for 10 days of silence
No touch, no reading, no writing, no movement

just me and my thoughts

My breath, my sensations

And stillness

On my first lively Texan ranch vapassana night
I walk to my private room
with the sound of crickets screaming
frogs vibrating the air with their calls and
coyotes barking at a distance
Somehow I find myself only a few feet away
from a skunk
cringe at the idea of what almost was,
but wasn’t

I shower in the hot water and pass out instantly
I pass out instantly here

Alone
Yet with shadows and scents of all my days and loves
Around me
Lingering
Cuddling me
With unconditional love that is all in my head.

 

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