Cheryl de los Reyes Cruz

I can't think of a title for this post. I have four hours until my flight to Seattle (am writing Friday for posting on Monday), have a list of things I must do before then, but I wanted to put a few, albeit rambling and hurried, thoughts down.

First of all, yeah! I am somewhere here today (Monday)...I have to repeat that it might not have been the wisest spur of the moment thing I could have chosen to do because now it'll be even more imperative that I find a job, any job, when I get back. I have looked forward to this trip and lost sleep over it too.

Second, I went to the beach side shrine last week and found this...Well, so much for the cultivation of my non-reactive, peaceful mind a la Tolle, Chopra, and all those other wise people. Some bastard stole the f---ing Bhuddha! I fumed. Then I did this loopty loop thing, remembering wise advice like, mind nothing that happens, today is absolutely today, yada yada, then fuming some more, then getting annoyed for getting angry, and then getting annoyed for getting annoyed. And so on. My monkey mind pictured tall, squeaky voiced kids fed up with new age-y parents who go on and on about karma, compassion and responsibility stealing him away so they can send him round, like that garden gnome in Amelie, to get facebooked in one poster crowded room after another. Or wannabe gangsters in wife beaters and hair nets, swiping him to sell on ebay. Or some dissatisfied and vaguely angry housewife who complains about poor people taking advantage of welfare even as she watches first run movies for free over the internet, 'borrowing' him to decorate her backyard shrine, the barbecue pit. And so on, you get the picture. What can I say, I am a work in progress...

A few days later I found the Buddha safe and sound...Whoever created this shrine, I realized, had taken him down to place a new bit of wisdom on his chest for the benefit of us judgmental, monkey minded folks. Thank you nameless, faceless people! I really need the help.

But here is yet another challenge: reduce selfishness, have few desires. How? If I do that, how will I reach my goals? And yet Tolle says that it is by not desiring that I will reach my goals because to desire is to come from a place of need. And as an elephant cannot birth a giraffe (my own translation), happiness cannot come from that anxious place called need. But if I can do some Jedi mind trick on myself, believing I already have what I desire, then I will get what I desire. So now I desire to not desire. So I can escape my cage of misdirected longing and get everything I want...help!

Third, and this is totally frivolous, but I saw Star Trek and Night At the Museum recently. And they got me thinking about string theory and the spiritual concept that every person is a universe unto his or herself and yet is also part of the one totality. I mean the things that happen in the Night at the Museum universe, preposterous in ours, make total sense for that reality. The same for the universe of Star Trek. Going further Star Trek shows universes within universes, entire lives played out simultaneously because of some small factor that divided one into two, and God knows how many more. There's Captain Kirk, in one universe, growing up fatherless and always getting into trouble. In another there is Captain Kirk, overachieving son of a proud father. Heartbreaking. And amazing that, according to string theory a choice can divide an entire universe into two! A woman can take a train. Or not take it. Boom, two parallel worlds. No wonder some of us have so much trouble making up our minds.

And this made me think, and feel somewhat existentially depressed, about how another me might be out there living an entirely different, and quite possibly more fulfilling life. One me might have married that really nice guy the me here wasn't mature enough to appreciate. Another me might have gone to vet school instead or finished that novel she started four years ago, or gotten into Pixar when it was still a start up, or gone to The School of Visual Arts in NYC as once planned, and then...and then...

Why am I going on about this, string theory, who cares? I have laundry, packing and errands to do. So, I'll end with this thought: Yeah! I am somewhere here today (and yet I am also here writing this post)...because I have desired to visit this city for awhile. And I am (probably) happy, sunburned and full on donuts. Till next time...