Ho Ho Ho
Like Santa, I have a little list. Every night I write down what I need to do the following day: get AA batteries, download document, renew membership, hem pants, email Nanda, call ... . Jotting these reminders makes me feel I am getting a grip on the chaos that is my life. It's a plan. But just about every night, I find the list from the night before and discover I didn't do many or any of the to-dos on it. Don't look for me on any list of enviable habits of the rich and famous.
Maybe since it's that jolly time of year that makes us crabby, yesterday I beat up on myself. Yes, for not being rich and famous, but more for seeing the same stuff listed day after day for more than a week. Get batteries, download document, renew membership... . No progress at all. Not even on pedicure. As the only life coach I can afford, I made me promise right then to stop being so stuck. I would drop everything right away and pass GO because those must-dos must be done.
The phone rang, a call from Germany. Then because the machine is shared, I moved the laundry from washer to dryer. The phone rang, a call from Kansas. I needed to eat something. I washed the dish. It went like that for over two hours. I was making my bed with clean sheets when I suddenly stopped and exploded: NOW, JUST GET OUT AND DO THAT LIST.
I pulled on my left boot. Jingle bells, someone was at the door. Right boot in hand, I limped to the front and there, wonder of wonders, was my Tibetan goddaughter who lives in New York. "Surprise!" she shrieked and reached out to hug me. "I've been trying since yesterday to see you and I have only one hour before I have to fly back. I had to take a chance."
I yanked off my left boot, made coffee and pulled her holidays gifts out of the box I had been so frustrated trying to fit them in. Now, Hallelujah! Off my to-do list. I didn't have to deal with styrofoam peanuts and bubble-wrap. "You really do have all the luck," a friend said last month.
What I must do right away that has never been on my list is admit my friend is correct. It just took forever to not be stuck on start and recognize this. Frankly, I've been held up, or held back, because one of the things not on my to-do list that I happen to do a lot is self-pity. With so much practice from so much not getting to do what I really want to do--get into Harvard, get paid for my food writing, be part of a non lethal family, get enlightened so I don't care about successes like that-- I've developed a real knack for wallowing. Strewn as it has been with the loss of lives, money and opportunity, my life has felt like the closet pole I wrote about that fell down and refused to be put back into place.
But something's changed.
I spent the month of July in an unfamiliar place for which I had no visa, and no clue how or why I'd arrived somewhere not on my to-do list. I behaved just like those vacationers who, when an earthquake or hurricane hits, trample over each other to get on the last plane out. I wanted to get far away from being that sick. Medication wasn't working, tests weren't revealing anything, As August appeared and it seemed I really was stranded, I fought my way over the phone into the attention of a medical sleuth, a highly respected infectious disease/travel medicine specialist who took more than a week deciding to take my case. When he deigned to put me on his to-do list, then found me "interesting and so intelligent" and discovered I had no primary doctor, he invited me to stay on the list. Two weeks later, the enormous organization he is part of closed to new patients. Who knew that being so sick would pay off big time? Just in the nick, I landed a topnotch doctor for the future.
When that doctor told me I could take a small trip, I beat it out to Vancouver to see my teacher before he left for Asia--since I wouldn't be going there any time soon. The rental car I got, a huge nine-seat soccer mom van, was far from the economy vehicle I'd signed up for, but I had no choice. It was the only car left on the lot. I was furious as I drove away. Well, who knew? That nine-seat soccer mom van was a magical blessing the day the monastery needed me to transport seven monks to a day off in Victoria. The monks would not have had their holiday without it.
Still, it was not the car on my to-get list. When I returned, I politely and honestly reported to the clerk that the car I didn't ask for had been very expensive to fuel, difficult to park, and scary to drive at highway speed. "I'm sorry we made you unhappy," he said and scrambled around the computer. After a minute or two, he looked up. "How about we take half off your bill?"
The clearest teaching that not getting what I want is the real happily ever after came next, in October. Since I couldn't go to Asia and since I hadn't been to Europe in 22 years, I decided, what the hell, I'll take up the longstanding invitation of a friend to use her apartment and enjoy a reunion. I haven't had a real do nothing but enjoy yourself vacation for at least ten years. But as soon as I threw my free miles at a ticket, she reneged. What the ...?!?!? Since a nearly free trip was the only trip I could afford, I sputtered with rage. I told myself to cancel the ticket, even if there was a penalty. It was the only financially sensible thing for a not rich and famous, but cash-challenged woman to do.
Something prevented me from getting around to that phone call on my to-do list: a trip to Boston to do a cooking demo and book talk. Since this required an overnight, I stayed with a friend, one who just happened to remind me her sister had a huge flat in Paris I was probably welcome to use. And I was. Had it to myself. Unlike the first apartment, a studio in the sterile 16th, this flat was fabulously located right in the atmospheric heart of the city on the border of the 5th and 6th, two blocks from the church of St. Germain des Pré. And to boot, it came with a free VIP pass to all the city's museums.
Coming home from Paris via Frankfurt was not on my to-do list. But the airline that gives you your earned free ticket gives you the run around with it. For free they throw in all the joys of tight connections, triple security checks, and missed flights, because they never let you fly direct. At dawn, I was to fly backward from Paris to Frankfurt, then after a long wait, onward over Paris to the US. What a pain but it was better than the option of Zurich or London.
When my dear Dharma sister in Frankfurt heard I wasn't visiting the bait-and-switch Parisian, and heard I had a ticket back to the US from Frankfurt, she suggested I cancel the first flight leg, take the high-speed train from Paris and spend a day or two with her. Who knew Frankfurt would be the perfect flight pattern? I got the bonus of experiencing the glory of high-speed trains, which America doesn't have, and I spent a cozy weekend with my friend and her family, seeing the city of Frankfurt. This not only added a fillip of delight to a perfectly splendid four days in Paris. It made my flight home direct. I did not have to end my vacation at a costly Paris airport hotel with shuttle, just to catch the 7:00 AM flight to Frankfurt and wait four hours there for the flight to the US.
Now because I didn't do what was on my to-do list, I got to see my Tibetan goddaughter. I think it really is true what the gurus say: the universe is trying to get me out of my own way so life is good. Pure and perfect, as the Buddha said.
I just have to remember the next time something on a to-do list isn't done, when some hope turns into fear it won't be fulfilled, it's better not to curse and fume and pity myself--at least not right away. It will be more useful instead to try to open space for the story to go on and play out. What i need to do, on the list or not, is remember how this autumn the stories magically played out with monumental improvement to the narrative. To do: keep the faith and be not furious when things seem to go wrong, but rather, curious about how not getting to do what I tell myself I need to do will turn out to be the happily ever after.
All the suffering I didn't want---all those people who died, the whole poisonous viper family I was born to and the seemingly endless foiled opportunities-- led me to the Dharma. And Dharma led me to open the powerful eye of wisdom that sees the magic trick that's been my life. Joy shows up disguised like Halloween kids playing trick or treat. Who knew all that sorrow was on the to do list for getting all the luck.
~Sandy Garson"Wordsmithing to attest how the Dharma saved me from myself!"
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posted by Sandy Garson @ 12:16 PM
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