Dear old man,
Today I went to the river. I’ll feed the swans or geese or ducks, I thought; they’re probably hungry. So, I packed a little back pack full of stale bread rolls, retrieved my bike from under its rain tarpaulin and off I went.
The morning had not gone well: mild hangover, 2 rounds of wobbly ashtanga, some misanthropic messaging, and a failed attempt at metta bhavana meditation.
If you don’t already know, metta bhavana is a high-end term for loving kindess, which I often resort to when I’m in a foul mood. The idea is that by sending loving thoughts to people you love/ hate/ don’t even know, it somehow plugs you back into the mainframe, and reconnects you to yourself.
Like I said, this morning’s attempt failed miserably, and only resulted in more misanthropy. The real reason I was feeling so down on other humans was because a sleepless night and an unpleasant epiphany had put me into a real funk.
I’m not going to get into it, but the main thrust was: people are rubbish; I’m sick of being dependent on crumbs of attention from those who pick me up and put me down like a toy; sick of the whole damn lot of you.
What a victim, I hear you cry. Poor you! Well, yes, poor me. I know there’s a plague on, but this is a direct side effect of the plague, so yes, I am a victim. Being locked in an attic to live inside my own head tends to illuminate things, usually dark things (forgive the mixed metaphor), whether I want to see them or not. Whether I drink too much wine/ coffee/ chocolate or not.
Eventually those dark suckers permeate the sediment of daily anaesthesia and swim into the psyche. At which point I try to stuff them back down with more wine/coffee/ chocolate.
Not today. Today I tried to metta bhavana them. Anyway, back to the river…and you.
When I arrived, it was swollen with stale bread and overstuffed swans, so I focussed on the geese. One bored-looking customer half nibbled at a crumb then floated away. So I focussed on the ducks, but they blatantly didn’t give two f***S and just stared into the abyss as I pelted them with bread.
The river bank, I then noticed, was packed with grey-skinned families in tracksuits all desperately chucking crumbs into the water and hoping for a reaction. So I robotically joined the ice cream van queue, then thought: what the hell am I doing? I don’t even like ice cream.
Defeated, I decided to call it a day and cycle home, which is when I spotted you. You were sitting alone on a bench, wearing a surgical mask and staring at the river like you’d never seen it before. I really wanted to sit beside you in companionable silence and stare together, but I thought it might freak you out.
Maybe you’d been newly released from hospital. Maybe your wife had died. Maybe you’d just had the vaccine and were experiencing side effects. Maybe you’d been shielding for a year and this was your first time outside?
Whatever the reason, my heart went out to you. I wanted to make you feel better. I wanted to make myself feel better. But we’re not allowed.
When I got home I did the metta bhavana meditation again, this time using the whole 10 minutes to send you as much love and light as your body vessel can handle.
I’m not sure if it reached you. But you reached me. For the first time in weeks I feel connected. Thank you.
JLO
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This post was previously published on Hello, Love.
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Photo credit: JLO