“Another day wasted. All useless. All wasted .” Mary thought as she lay down in his bed.
“Another failure...” She looked at her trusty notebooks, full of notes, techniques and ideas. She wondered about this many times.
Tomorrow another day will start, the sun will rise again, thought Mary as she laid down in bed, the cycle will repeat itself: Despair, hope, search and, lastly, failure in action. Could this wheel ever be broken for her?
She reached for a book on her book pile, hoping for a motivational quote:
“Planning anything becomes a form of bravado. And there must arise the awful temptation, cognate with despair, to damn the future altogether, expunge the future tense from our vocabularies, and stand with our backs to the blank wall of death. This act is suicidal, for the death of the future is the death of joy, almost of soul. We can avoid it, as I have said earlier, by concerning ourself regularly and vigorously with new beginnings. And we can attempt the even more profound renewal, available I think only to the old, of partially shedding our individual selves and participating in a grander social and biological identity of living.11”
She was a bit shooked by the quote, but quickly found herself motivated, he made a note about this passage and went to bed not having understood what the passage meant. A habit of her, becoming motivated without understanding things.
Although she was tired of this repetition she had hope, hope for a better tomorrow, and what else she needed to have if not this? In her there was something really special, she was sure, she was different from other people, she wasn’t destined to their fate.
She went in bed, lying awake for long, becoming warm but not tired. The clock kept going 22:30, 22:40, 23:00, thoughts of many things to do passed by her mind, most of them forgotten as soon as thought, 23:20, 23:40. She unplugged the clock and left bed.
Someone2[2] once said that meditation in troubled times is the only thing that can relax you. She was right, though she didn’t feel like meditating right now. God’s know what was going in her mind, what caused such restlessness and sleepless.
She looked outside her window thinking about her future that foggy thing that she hoped would be better. “We have to choose, either the future is sure and boring or is unsure and adventurous. I choose the unsure option” She thought to herself. “I choose the unsure option…” She thought less convinced of the statement now.
She watched the moon, it was a beautiful full moon, she always liked the silence and calmness of the night, the timid and wet colour before dawn. She tried to depict it several times but something always escaped from the canvas, that uncapturable sensation and feeling… or it was her that didn’t know how to paint. She prefered the first explanation.
Then something moved in her garden, it was a strange animal. Before she could rationally decide what to do the animal started picking her flowers. Her favourite flowers.
She picked up her shoes and went outside, the animal left her garden and went into the darkness of the night. She followed it. It was some sort of big rabbit, he noticed her and started running. She started running behind him.
After long the animal arrived at a large home, full of plants, trees and flowers, toys and games, it reminded her of some ruined home overtaken by nature, the rabbit was planting her flowers in a vase. It was humanoid, a humanoid rabbit, not the grotesque type, it looked cute, his ears were long and fluffy, its skin was warm and smooth, his face looked morbid as a pillow.
“Where I am” was the first thought that passed for her mind “for how long have I run?” She tried to turn back but she tripped on something.
The rabbit came closer and land her a hand, she took it. “Sorry, my garden is a mess.” He said in a humane tone.
She looked around, it was indeed a mess. She was very confused, “it’s a dream, it must be a dream,” she said to the rabbit.
“I don’t know, but what does it matter in the end? Just live the experience and stop rationalizing. If it’s a dream you will return to your home, if it’s not you will have a new life.”
She was surprised by the response and looked around the garden “why you don’t clean it up?” She said nearly habitually.
“I am, look,” he said pointing his finger to a shovel near the door steep ”today I put that into place “tomorrow I plan to put this car toy into a box upstairs.”
“Why you don’t do it now?” She asked
“Because I would force myself to do so” he responded “forcing is never good, at least not in the long term.”
“Yes but if you force yourself just a bit you would be able to clean all the garden in one day”
“Why should I? I am happy to clean it, one step at a time. I just alter the river slightly from time to time when I need to.”
“The river?”
“It’s a metaphor for life”
“Ah,” he said, “but why you don’t motivate yourself and clean it in all one day?”
“Why should I?”
“Why you shouldn’t, that is the real question”
The rabbit understanding that the conversation would go nowhere said: “there is a real wise rabbit not very far, he will explain everything to you, wouldn’t you like to meet him?”
“Sure!” She said enthusiastically, believing that this wise rabbit would show her a new way of life and break her wheel.
Notes throughout the text:
[1]This is a passage from one of my favourite books, Time and the art of living, the full passage reads “VIII.27 [pag 119] Apparently one of the steps of aging and dying is the rejection of the future. When we are old we do few things for the first time, many for the last time. We stop projecting our identities forward through the years and think more in terms of months.
[2] Shunryu Suzuki in Zen beginner’s mind, here I distorted the meaning of what he said, he said that zazen was the only thing that could help you in very difficult moments.
