Waving Goodbye

By yesterday afternoon I was exhausted and over- whelmed. Packing and making decisions about what to do with "stuff" were taking their toll. I realized I was doing the classic add-on. I wasn't just tired, I was "I am so exhausted what if I can't finish all of this, what if I get sick. Why can't I just go with the flow? Why can't I just enjoy this? And yada, yada, yada." In my head I know better and yet the siren's song of habit beckons. It lures me on to do it the way I have always done it. And that was yesterday.

This morning brought fresh energy and the opportunity to start over. Less add-ons. More just doing. More things flung into the give-away bag and the pot-luck potlach boxes. Tomorrow some friends are having a little "leaving town" pot luck for us. I thought I would take along a couple of boxes of the more interesting treasures I am parting with and let people see if any of it calls to go home with them. I thought it might be a fun end to the evening. Not quite a potlach but a nod in that direction, perhaps that pottery cookie jar might find a new cookie baker to keep company or the Christmas tea pot might settle in to a new cupboard.

On other chapters that required closure.... Yesterday I drove by the place where my homeless friend had her camper parked. She was gone, without a trace. In the past several weeks I had run out of ideas and energy to offer. I had to turn my attention to my own moving. Last Tuesday when I'd stopped by her camper was still there but she wasn't home. And now I was left wondering, what had happened, where did she go? As is the human tendency I expected her to still be there doing the same thing. When I found her gone I worried she had been towed away against her will. The thought crossed my mind that I could have done more. I reminded myself I didn't need to feel like I'd let her down.

And then this evening the phone rang. She remembered that soon I would be gone too, from my home, from my phone number, that she might not have any way of contacting me. She called to let me know she had taken her insurance settlement and found a bed and breakfast room in a nearby town. She wasn't clear what her next step was, but all the avenues we pursued that lead nowhere showed her that it was time to leave Victoria. Her settlement allowed her to pay off a sizable debt that she owed and now she could move on. She said that if we never met again she wanted me to know that I had been helpful to her on her journey.

All this was said with such humility and a sense of wisdom. Sometimes during the process she had just seemed confused and indecisive to me, but here she was at her best, speaking from a deep place of clarity and kindness. When she said she didn't know what was next and was simply waiting to see what came up, it reminded me of a true Dharma practitioner. And like a mindful practitioner she was taking care not to create a further wake of karma, by calling me and bringing closure to the little part of the journey we'd traveled together. She was, in essence, pausing at a fork in the road up a head and waving good bye. It was all spoken like a true Bodhisattva, with gratitude, humility, clarity and a recognition of our place in the cosmos, one where we do our part, but are not the conductor of this little travel plan. It felt good to know she was safe and dry and had taken the next step. She offered me her love and blessings on my journey and I to her, in return. A little sad, a little sweet, a little puzzling, like many of our encounters in this life.

About helping and attachment

Here is the continuing saga... In my head I knew I shouldn't be attached to how the story of my friend without a home played out. I meet with a group of friends every Wednesday morning and I had great hopes that someone there would have something to offer that might help this woman, a place to park her vehicle off the street, a temporary shelter where she could exchange work or care for housing, some sort of lead. But at the end of the morning it seemed no one could think of an option that might work. Maybe someone might even have a lead on the little chinook camper that she was determined was the only replacement for her wrecked camper. I felt my heart sink and saw all the signs of disappointment and attachment to results when the morning ended. A common scenario I think, we know some spiritual truth in our heads, but it plays out differently in our lives. Theory and practice sit at different ends of the highway. There it is reminding us of our work, the suffering we cause ourselves through our wanting, even if what we want is wholesome and/or altruistic.

I made some phone calls to people in the helping professions that I know and followed a few threads. I could still feel that agitation of wanting, the wanting to resolve the problem, of wanting to get it taken care of. None of my leads produced a definitive answer but each one seemed to lead in the direction of a solution. I could see the inclination to impatience. Where are those return phone calls?!

In the afternoon I went to visit my friend in her motorhome. She wasn't there. And for some reason that made me feel like she was okay, that life was going on for her, that I didn't need to rescue her. I left her a note and later she called back to thank me for my concern and offers and to remind me that I had already done some things for her, that all she really needed was for me to be there for her, that I didn't need to rescue her.

And so I relaxed into what else had to be done in my life right now which consists of finding homes for the pieces of furniture and other "stuff" that I don't need or want to take with me when I move and finding a place to move to when March 1st rolls around. I no longer felt the stress of one more thing that needed to be done.

And so tomorrow will open with a few options that I can follow up for her, now without that insistent attachment to the outcome. Because she has trust and faith in the universe that she was able to convey to me I can relax into whatever comes up. It doesn't mean I won't follow all the leads that come up. It just means I won't be stressed out or feel need tugging on my coat sleeve. What a gift she has offered me. Who is helping who?