Sleepwalking

“The danger is not that the soul should doubt whether there is any bread, but that, by a lie, it should persuade itself that it is not hungry.” – Simone Weil

There are days when I am enthralled by the quietude of freshly fallen snow and even more so by the smell of my child’s neck, but more often than not, I am no more capable of bringing full presence to any given moment than I am of landing a spiraling jet plane on an iceberg.  I don’t know why it is so difficult to just BE … to be wholly present, to have all senses attuned, to feel the true aliveness of my being, I only know that my resistance runs deep.

But the stories and images coming out of Haiti have had me living life at full-tilt these past few days:  my shower this morning felt like a visit to a sacred waterfall, dinner with friends last night, a holy repast, and if I try to sniff Quinn’s neck one more time he may report me to social services.  But why does it take such a devastating, immediate reminder of the fragility of life to slap the sleepwalker fully awake?

I don’t want to sleepwalk my way through life, but without a concerted effort to stay present, my subconscious somehow slips into the human default position of “As Soon As/Then”. As soon as I shave my legs, then I’ll take a look at the moon.  As soon as I change that light-bulb, then I’ll memorize the color of Quinn’s eyes.  As soon as I get that tooth pulled, then I’ll speak what’s in my heart.

I’ve frittered away huge portions of my life “winding my watch on the way to the gallows”; so preoccupied with activities designed to distract that I’ve lost sight of my mortality, and in doing so, have lost sight of the preciousness of life.  My soul calls out, desperate to remind me, but inevitably gets put on hold, forced to listen to 1980’s muzak while the sleepwalker jabbers away on the other line.  At the end of the day, I usually have somewhere around 2,973 voicemail messages from my pesky little spirit, but I go to bed thinking, “As Soon As I get some sleep, Then I’ll call her back”. 

And then an earthquake hits or a diagnosis is made or the car runs off the road and I’m shaken out of my torpor.  Life hits the big screen again, in Technicolor, and I vow not to miss another single minute of it.

I start by checking all 2,973 of my soul’s messages and find each one saying the same simple thing, “I’m hungry”.  I step outside on this cold winter’s night and look at the moon and let my mind dogpaddle its way across the mystery of the heavens, I send prayers and money to Haiti, I memorize the placement of every fleck of gold in Quinn’s deep brown eyes, I speak what’s in my heart, I send more money and more prayers and then sneak in one last sniff of my son’s soft, sweet neck.