Dear Friend,
If I ever needed a lesson in inner peace, where I’m staying now is the perfect place for it. Yesterday Chiara, her parents and me, worked in the garden.
I was put in charge of the lawn mower. The garden is four thousand square metres of hillside. The lawns all slope. They have upwards of a hundred trees to cut around so it’s not half an hour’s job.
Beyond the garden is countryside. A few scattered small holdings and farms. Vineyards and a horse stables. A new foal was born recently.
There’s one other house on the hill, occupied by a lovely couple who help out Chiara’s parents whenever they can.
If you’re looking for idyllic, this is as good a place as any.
And yet, there is upset here too. Unfulfilled needs. Communication that goes awry. Concerns about how each one of us is seen in the eyes of the others.
It doesn’t matter where you go on the planet. There isn’t a beach or a mountainside where your false self will not follow.
Inner peace is cultivated right here and now, wherever we find ourselves. Not a stick to beat ourselves with. Compassion. The short cuts in our brains are not faults we are to be blamed for.
Sitting on the balcony looking at the alps a memory emerges.
There was this kid in my class at school who I judged harshly. I never spoke to him, as far as my memory serves me. I’ll not use his name. This isn’t a story that ends with a heart warming resolution. Let’s call him Don.
Why I disliked him so much? His body language, the way he walked, the tilt of his head, the way he spoke, all signalled to me that he thought the rest of us beneath him.
I don’t recall him having any friends, now that I think of it.
He was good at sports. We played on the same teams.
His clothes were better quality than everyone else’s. I’m not sure how, because we all had to wear the same polyester uniform, but as much as I disliked him I was also jealous that his family were better off than us. He had a sheepskin coat I envied. I was also wary of crossing of him.
He had a quick temper, could give out a tongue lashing and follow it up with his fists too.
The kid strutted. Even the hard kids left him alone.
Around that time I’d gotten into something with a girl in my class named Fiona. We played this ‘game’ where I would insult her and she would chase me round the playground. She was a lot bigger than me, unusually tall for her age, I think we both enjoyed it. It gave me a bubbly helpless feeling to be chased because she wouldn’t give up until she caught me and shook me around a bit.
It felt like early experiments in courtship. She was a kind hearted intelligent person, I liked her but didn’t find her physically attractive. We wouldn’t be dating. We were only twelve years old.
One break I was standing on a low wall looking out for Fiona, when I heard a distressed moaning sound coming from somewhere behind me. It turned into cries for help followed by more moaning.
Turning I saw Don.
The playground had a wire mesh fence all around it. To enter you’d walk down a few steps through one of the gaps in the fence. If you wanted to you could practice chin ups on the metal doorframe.
Don had decided to do that.
He was probably showing off.
Problem was the fence wasn’t in the best state of repair. A loose wire had formed a hook and he’d managed to get the hook of it lodged beneath an eye lid.
He was trying to pull himself up to unhook his lid, but that was clearly causing too much pain and the strength in his arms was giving out. He couldn’t lower himself to safety either. He was hooked like a fish, dangling two feet off the ground.
“Ugh h-help.”
I think I was the first to notice what was happening to him.
I stood and watched. I wasn’t entirely frozen. I didn’t want to help. Fiona was looking for me to play our little game, she didn’t hesitate, tall as she was, she grabbed Don’s legs and helped lift him up.
“Go get a teacher now!” she shouted over at me.
I did run then. By that time some teachers were already haring across to the dangling boy, now caught in Fiona’s arms.
We were shooed back to lessons. An ambulance came. There were rumours Don had lost his eye.
He hadn’t.
He came back to school a week or two later with an iodine stained patch he had to wear a while.
After seeing him so vulnerable my attitude towards him softened. We still didn’t talk, but he seemed more human to me. Maybe he also felt less inclined to lord it over us after his public hanging.
Fiona lost interest in our game after that.
It was a relief of sorts. Time to move on.
As a coda, on the day of my cousin’s baptism, I got into an argument with my dad over what I should wear to church. It was one of the first times I flexed my teenage muscles. The only smart thing I had, in his opinion, was my school uniform. I was adamant I wasn’t going to be seen in it on a weekend.
Dad quickly demonstrated to me that I would, him being no push over and all.
I mention it because Don’s family were also at church for a christening of their own.
He was wearing a blue jacket and grey trousers with a seam down the front and that sheepskin jacket of his. His whole family looked like they’d stepped out of a magazine.
I began to realise that despite my intimate involvement with his world, I just didn’t register in his. Probably no more being than that kid from school.
The one who ran around with the ‘fat’ girl.
The games we play in our minds.
Not our fault.
But definitely our responsibility.
It’s so much easier when we learn to drop the judgement, allow the world to be as it is. Focus on our relationship to what’s going on inside of us.
“Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.”
Meek meaning kind, humble, compassionate. As we free ourselves from the grip of the false self we find personal peace to be our reward.
No judgement.
Just the work of becoming.
Till tomorrow
Love
Mikey.