Trajectories

Last week I spent a lot of time scraping glue off a plywood subfloor. I had taken off the linoleum first, and when I was pulling it off I thought the swirly patterns on it might be the grain of the plywood. But on closer inspection, I found that they were swirls from the combed application of glue before the floor went down. They left bumps on the subfloor which, when scraped off, revealed the actual patterns of the plywood.

The scraping-off process was laborious, so that after a session of it I would still see the activity when I closed my eyes – feel the rubbing of the scraper against the glue until it would suddenly slice through, and the persistent scraping that would eventually lead to the smooth gliding of the scraper over the clean plywood surface. And I found a parallel to this image in something I was thinking about.

All the swirly glue lines are like the trajectories I often assume comprise my life – the pattern of me driving on the freeway to go downtown, the start and finish of a task, the arc of mortal life from birth to death. I may think they show the character of my being, but they are not the true grain. I reach the true grain by ceasing to direct my attention along the lines of the trajectories, to get still and look (or scrape) down and under to find out what I really am.

There is much energy, and much money, directed to selling the notion that these trajectories constitute life. Most recently I’ve become aware of the vast propaganda machine that hits people at 50, saying, time to fall apart – you’re on the downward slide now. It took me a few weeks of being pulled under by it before I stood up and said no. I recognized that this trajectory, like all the others, was just another bumpy application of glue that needed to be scraped off the subfloor. I did step back and look at the scope of the lie: just as people are thinking they’re free from the ropes of careers and family raising, they’re asked to take on a new burden of self-absorption – that of imminent physical and mental decline. As I looked at the story, it basically said the same thing throughout its arc from birth to death: you’re not at the right time for happiness, fullness, maturity, and blessing. First you’re too young, then you’re too burdened, then you’re too old. So when I rose up in rebellion to it, I rebelled against the whole arc – not just the decline being sold to me now, but also the awkwardness being sold to me for my adolescent children, and the sense of the burden of careers, and the basic bumpy lie that good is somehow delayed or missed, instead of being the signature quality of every moment.

The true grain of being says, good is here now. This moment is a blessing. You have always been exactly good, exactly right, and you are now. There is no importance in the direction or placement of any of the trajectories of mortal life. The deep value of each of us has nothing to do with what trajectory we are on or where we are in the arc of that trajectory. It has everything to do with our constant relationship with the Mind that thinks us up, fresh, moment by moment.