Coffee Moments

Just realise you are dreaming a dream you call the world and stop looking for ways out. The dream is not your problem. Your problem is that you like one part of your dream and not another. Love all or none of it, and stop complaining. When you have seen the dream as a dream, you have done all that needs to be done.~Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj


This is a quote that I got on Facebook today from Rainbow Treehouse. It applies to me more than I thought it could. You see, yesterday I chose to skip out for a bit on this dream. I had donated blood at the hospital. While relaxing in a chair and drinking some fruitlike drink, people were asking me how I was doing. I answered or I didn’t. I just wanted them to leave me alone. Then suddenly my perspective came from the ceiling. I saw the tops of their heads as they were busily talking amongst themselves. I didn’t hear the words, but I saw frantic movements – heads shaking, fingers pointing, and apparently voices raised because men in white coats took me to a reclining chair and packed my neck in ice. As soon as that ice connected with my skin, I was no longer at the ceiling.

I laid in the recliner looking at the mountains outside the windows and cried because I didn’t want to come back. The feeling I had had at the ceiling was one of immense calmness. Nothing mattered. Absolutely nothing. It didn’t matter that there was no money in my pockets. It didn’t matter that I didn’t have a car, and it really didn’t matter that my phone was going to be shut off shortly. None of it mattered. I had been in total peace, and I didn’t want to come back.

So, after being packed in ice for awhile, we gave it another go. I went back to the chair with some more juice. This time as soon as I sat down I remember putting my head back. I heard the man next to me complaining about people at a coffee shop, and then up I went again. It was just so lovely above it all. The voices stopped. I saw people moving, but I heard nothing. It was tranquility at its finest, and this time I meant to stay, at least until those white coats came back to haul me to the recliner again and pack me with twice as much ice. This time one of them stayed with me and kept talking. He kept getting after me every time I closed my eyes. I just wanted him to shut up and let me sleep, but he wasn’t having anything to do with that.

Needless to say, I didn’t get to go back to ceiling surfing. I finally got out of the hospital and back home. And today I read that quote from Rainbow Treehouse. Love it all, huh?

I’m finding the loving it all part a little difficult right now because I’m feeling indifferent. Tammy’s been getting tired of hearing the “I don’t cares”, but that’s how I’m feeling. She’s been on a rampage about our circumstances today. Me? I’m walking and smiling. There’s nothing I can do. I showed up at the hospital today to get more of my paperwork going for the job I applied for, but nothing could be done today due to their protocol. Okay, so not today. Next…

So, I went to my job where I sit in a store that sells artwork, mine included. Not a customer came in. Okay. Next…

When someone else came in to relieve me, I walked down the street to a yarn shop where they dye their own fibers. When I crossed the threshold, I just stood there looking at all the yarns hanging on the walls, the hats hand-dyed and felted, the baskets of roving, the knitted scarves, the shelves of books, and I cried. I held my breath as tears fell down my cheeks. I was in heaven. My heart opened wide and I just looked from the wool dolls to the felted jackets. Sweet baby jesus, I was home. I couldn’t move. I was in awe. I put my hand to my chest and just looked at the rows and rows of hand-dyed yarns.

The person working there said, “Wow, we love it when someone comes in who appreciates this so much.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off every single fiber in that place. She showed me felted purses and told me that everything in there was handmade, and the yarns were all hand-dyed in New Mexico. I knew I didn’t want to leave, but others started piling in, so I walked next door to an artist’s gallery and ended up making a new friend with the woman running the show there.

A few doors down is one of the coolest stores in town called Moxie. It’s owned by another new friend of mine, Katie. She wants to sell some of my artwork, so I promised I’d get it to her tomorrow morning.

This town is the most artistic, loving, accepting place I’ve ever known. I’m learning rather quickly that all my previous beliefs have been bullshit. I’ve stripped myself of absolutely everything materialistically, and I’m learning a new way of living. It’s much freer. It’s definitely scarier, and I’m learning to trust that I’m okay, over and over again. This is by far the hardest thing I’ve done so far – to be that peace I felt while ceiling surfing no matter what shows up in my life.

And one of the nicest, if not the best, occurrences in my life has been reconnecting with someone I met forty years ago. Our conversations go with me throughout my day. I carry his words with me as I sit in the store or walk down the street. I remember the sound of his voice, and no matter what’s going on at the time, I can smile easily.

I told him last night that all I wanted to do was lay down with him outside and let the sun heat up our faces, and at night be able to see the stars and the moon and be silent while wrapped up in each other. I want life to be as simple as that. My new friend at the art gallery called it “coffee moments” when nothing but a good sip of joe would be the most pressing thing of the day.

My coffee moments. I like that. I’ve spent my life creating urgencies as if every decision I made was life or death. I’ve run offices, done taxes, hired and fired employees, and now I want coffee moments all day long. I want to take a break from heaviness, and lay down in the grass with Dan and feel the sun on my face, feel his fingers on my spine, and as the day turns into night, gaze up at the stars together in silence. I want to feel the cool breeze ripple our hair, and in silence speak the greatest language of all – peace. Now those are my kind of coffee moments.