The Story Hereafter

I am 55.

This is quite a foundation, built of stones and bricks of a million sizes and every hue on display. It looks formidable but it isn't even of seamless texture, leave alone uniform strength. Indeed many parts of it are flawed and, while setting the next stone, I must ignore them for the sake of the longevity of the edifice that will follow.

Looked at individually, each stone is a fascination of indescribable wonder: look closely and you would spot many variations of the themes of success, failure, serendipity, grace, anxieties, fears, love, rage, drift, empathy, apathy, inebriation, solidity, flexibility, sobriety, affection, patriotism, cowardice, and you will have identified but a microcosm, a tiny bit visible easily to the naked eye.

No matter what the station of our lives, we still have an edifice to build. And as we engage in it, with or without the tools of mindfulness, we draw on what has gone before.

I have done my share of sleepwalking. I have perennially deluded myself that there is a perfect moment to begin living mindfully and that that moment arrives at a well-defined hour or date that has one distinguishing feature – it isn't now. I have ignored the passage of time and fuzzily pretended that it wasn't passing or could be bent at any moment and even recalled at will. I read the signposting that confirmed the directions I already knew and I often ignored the ones that warned me of errors, even grievous ones. In celebration of my ‘heroic youth’ I often wore lack of mindfulness as body armour, proofing myself against assault by reason and awareness. And I survived because grace cuts us huge slack.

Oh, don’t get me wrong; plenty of good too has been my tailwind. Like everyone else, I too have benefited from millions of brief shining moments that, stitched together, make me who I am. Yes, in balance I am in the black.

This blog is a very personal story of the structure that will rise; of that elusive mirage called future that, upon arrival after some trudge, always appears, like a passing ship, and as a place called now; of my life that will follow.

A life that must be crafted, brick by brick.