Sunday Blog 119 – 21 January 2024
I was scandalised the first time I heard of the Buddhist notion that we have no right to the fruits of work. Despite stumbling on this knowledge as a teenager, as I near my sixtieth year I’m still constantly falling forward into the future. Especially for those tasks that are dull. The only reward is to have them done. And while I’m completing such tasks, I’m not fully present. I’m visualising when it will be complete.
And as we have been finishing the very last tasks of closing up our family home of 65 years there are plenty of dull tasks, such as cleaning bathrooms. And then of course there was my unbalanced, maniacal devotion to keep the pool sparkling. I wanted the fruits of that labour, goddamit.
And now, it’s all over. The house is all done and settles on Wednesday. It’s time to hand in the keys.
Taking leave, finding the right goodbye to the house seems hard. This morning, I awoke from my very last sleepover in the bedroom I preferred to sleep in when I stayed overnight. And washing over me were memories of when I’d sought refuge in my parents house 22 years ago, the night after surviving a home invasion. The initial waves of flashback I experienced and moved through were had in this very room. To know that this refuge is gone forever has been felt today as a piercing loss.
But a quiet moment in the morning, in the back yard with hazy, early morning sunshine and clamorous bird song opened up a portal to the present. A little glimmer of goodbye, of resting in what is.