Maiden Voyage

heaven is now

Yesterday I headed into the Square for some last minute pre-vacation errands. Had to pick up some cash, get one last book and buy a new bathing suit. Don't even get me started on this whole bathing suit thing. Why anyone ever thought that the best thing for women to swim in is a skin tight sleek piece of fabric that you have to wedge yourself into, is beyond me. Why can't women swim in loose fittting madras bermuda's like men? How come men's bathing suits can be light and flowing and cotton? No rubbing, no chafing.

As the heaven's opened yet again in this monsoon summer, I ducked into the Harvard Book Store, skipping the micro sundae I had planned to have at Toscanni's–after the bathing suit episode I lost my appetite–and planning to pick up a copy of Dan Brown's the Da Vinic Code, to complete my trilogy of his books for beach reading. However, they had removed the 20 % off sticker and I just couldn't bring myself to spend the 30 bucks on the hardback book which I would read on the beach, getting sand in the spine, pickle juice and potato chip grease on the pages, so instead, I browsed. Spent the bulk of my time in my new favorite place, the philosophy section. Don't even ask. I don't know how this happend to me. I used to never even look at a book unless it was fiction. Now I finger Gadamer's Philosophical Hermeneutics as if it were gold.

I drifted over to the new paperback section and I noticed a newish book by Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear. It was time to leave, but the rain had become torrential; I had no choice but to start reading. I love Thich Nhat Hanh's voice; no matter what he is saying, I hear the soothing quality of it right away. The premise of the book, from what I could absorb in seven minutes through osmosis, was the illusion of duality, of birth and death. Instead he uses the metaphors of water and wave, of a match burning it self up to illustrate the cyclical nature of all things, of things manifesting when conditons are right and not manifesting when they aren't. And that instead of waiting for some heavenly afterlife where all is perfect, perfection is now. Right here in front of us, if we will only stop and perceive it. Of course although a simple idea, not an easy thing to achieve. He used the word 'home' alot, which in my transitional phase in life, grabbed be, saying we are home, now, right here.

I headed out in the downpour which was fast dwindling into drizzle and the sky had that grey quality that saturates the colors and makes everything appear vivid and alive. For six blocks I walked in the brilliance of the moment,-it almost hurt my eyes-and wondered how it was that life can be so awesome and we miss it most of the time because we are rushing to do the next thing or replaying the last hurtful event or planning how we will get through the time between now and then. I felt a renewed sense of purpose for my vacation: even if constrained by too tight synthetic swimwear that reveals unsightly bulges, even if it rains every single day and we all get cranky, even if I am not at all productive, even if I return as pasty white as I am right now, I can practice, as much as possible, being, experiencing, and existing in the perfection of the each and every vacation moment. No small task.