Strangechord

Can’t sleep…

The other day when I had the afternoon off from work, the weather was gorgeous and I was feeling restless and pensive. I took a walk in inner SE Portland, around Ladd Circle area. The sky was brilliantly blue and the trees in folks’ front yards and I were just in love with one another as I walked by them. There are pretty little rounds of grass in that neighborhood, rounds that the street circle and I sat on a bench amidst the not-yet-bloomed rose bushes in one of those rounds. I sat very still and listened to the birds, the squirrels, the distant cars of Division Street, the rustle of someone’s pants as they walked by. My heart broke in a thousand ways sitting there so present and I felt terribly fragile and absolutely in love with the world at the same time. An inspiration took me: to enjoy every moment and trust the universe. There was something really fresh in this; a feeling of okay.

Today, riding the bus down to a PPO evening, I had an insight into why that had felt so fresh: that I have never really trusted the universe very much. From a young age, I have believed down deep somewhere that God/the universe would always throw me a loop when I instead needed a break. When I was little and I would sense that my mother was entering a manic episode, I would pray over and over, “Please, please God, please have her not be sick,” and then, when she’d be in a hospital a week later and I’d be in foster care, I’d feel so alone, that no one was on my side, that no one had listened or cared.

I think this is why, in my worst moments, I feel utterly alone. It also explains why, when someone is straightforwardly supportive of me or makes a generous connection with me, I am so touched. I just don’t expect it. When I had this insight today, immediately I vowed to trust more, but I’m not sure how. However, I recall something in a magical book I am reading of Krishnamurti’s talks that relates:

If I say my mind is crude and I try to become sensitive, the very effort to become sensitive is a crudity. Whereas, if I recognize that I am crude without wanting to change, without trying to be sensitive, if I begin to understand what crudeness is, observe it in my life from day to day; then that very observation transforms what is… In understanding the crudeness, there is sensitivity.

Krishnamurti, Think on These Things, p. 14

In other words, I’m going to hang out with merely noticing in the moment when I lack trust or expect the worst rather than grasp at changing. Hmmm… trust that the trust will cultivate itself. That I am inherently loved is so profound to me.