What’s In Your Head?

I am here in Maine, where I spent the first eighteen years of my life. This second stint has already lasted 19 years, and I still don’t have a place on the water. How many times did I ask my mother why we couldn’t have a camp like nearly everyone else in town? How many answers did she give that were not the real one: that she simply didn’t want to be anywhere near water?

When my husband, kids, and I moved back here from Colorado, I still dreamed of a place on a lake and came close to snagging one right before the world stopped as abruptly as the music when someone grabs the needle from a spinning record. My lack is not a matter of money or effort; it’s more about perceptions and worth, enmeshed boundaries and what I believe I do or do not deserve. Be that as it may, I am sure that a whole cadre of people (certainly some of you who are reading this now) would maintain that the things I am writing about aren’t real, but that’s not true. They are far too real, and the fact that most of us can’t understand that has everything to do with how much power they have.

I was thinking these things earlier, when I was out on the back patio, where I had hoped to get one of my Tibetan healing bowls to sing. When I traced the edge with the suede mallet I had chosen from the basket next to the bowls, I had no luck, so I struck the bowl with the mallet instead and heard its beautiful voice. I did it again and again but soon realized that I was paying no attention to the sounds the bowl was producing for me and stopped. I mean, is there much point in trying to derive any sort of mindfulness benefit from tools I can’t even manage to pay attention to?

That got me thinking about my body and how disconnected I am to it, still. I thought, Maybe I need to try harder to figure this out. What book can I start with? Knowing me, I already own it, but then again, isn’t trying to get into your body (out of your head) by using your head to take in the contents of a book kind of counterproductive—or at the very least, ironic enough to give one pause?

That’s when I set aside the bowl and started writing, willing myself to pay attention to what was going on around me and take note of what I was taking in. I noticed that the shadows in the trees beyond the driveway were deep and dark, so it surprised me when I turned to my left and saw lots of light, bright green in the woods past the fence. The air was cool with a hint of moisture, as if the white clouds that blanketed the sky like wool batting would, at any moment, prove to me how much moisture they can hold. I heard an airplane somewhere above or in those clouds, the school bus had gone by on the road, stopping now and again to deposit a kid back home for a two-day furlough. Insects creaked and croaked and buzzed, while a lovely breeze played a soft background tune. Then, with camera in hand, I left the patio to try and capture the surprise of autumn arriving out of nowhere.