It has been almost 5 days since I have written, and I feel remiss.
More than remiss, I feel “overwhelmed” with thoughts and am attempting to untangle them.
I wonder sometimes, if we all feel the same things, and what varies is not what we feel, but rather our interpretation of those feelings, and the extent to which we can articulate them and understand them.
This past Memorial Day Weekend was beautiful. And, as the weekend wore on I felt the pressure of unmet expectations and the impending week. I amused myself by bouncing between feelings of gratitude and feelings of inadequacy.
Maybe I am a bit nuts.
I wish I could change the level of “sensitivity” of my harmonic sensors.
The weekend was full of great moments and also of moments lost on wishing.
Saturday night Susy and I went to DC. We got down near the Jefferson Memorial as the sun was setting. It was a beautiful night. The blue of the sky cast a blue hue on the trees and the water and the memorial. We walked like we had not walked for years. We walked to the Martin Luther King Memorial. It is a special sight. While I love the quotes on the granite walls, my favorite part is watching the people.
There is a different kind of pride in people’s eyes. While we all feel on some deep level the gift of freedom and liberty… and it moves us when we visit most of the memorials in Washington, the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial seems more alive, more recent, more relevant. People who go and visit realize that the history of that memorial is still in the making.
Despite your politics – the fact that we have an African American President, and that the majority of the country voted him into power, makes a bold statement for how far we have come with racism.
As I have mentioned on other posts, I am not a fan of our Presidents agenda, in many ways, but I am an outspoken fan of what his Presidency means and is accomplishing for us as a people.
People’s are almost as big as their smiles as they take pictures on the memorial. And, the quote behind them on the wall reads,
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” MLK Jr.
I can’t help but think that justice and harmony are related in some way. And, that all of our moments are “tied in an inescapable network of mutuality”.
As we walk – and I am filled with the hope and the possibility of the people at the memorial, my mind goes to Mr. King’s children, and what they must feel when they walk this monument. I am lost in the thought.
We walked through the Korean Memorial. The sun had set, and the bronze soldiers statues looked like ghosts reflecting in the night.
We walked past the Lincoln Memorial and through the Vietnam Memorial. Many veterans walking the memorials, leaving flowers. The memorials were alive in an unusual way. People were interacting with them actively.
As we walked through t he memorial, we walked behind an older couple. His jacket said something about being a veteran. The older woman wore a bright neon yellow T-shirt that read in BIG BOLD LETTERS… “NOW DO YOU SEE ME ASSHOLE!” I smiled. I wondered what she thought the day she bought that T-shirt. I wondered what she thought when she put it on that night. But, one disharmonic moment doesn’t define the night. The multitude of people there – in harmony – where far more powerful…
We went to the W hotel, and found our way to a table by the balcony, and ordered a bottle of champagne.
I was in and out of moments.
I was grateful for so many things; to live in such a beautiful city, to have the opportunities and the means and the health to enjoy such a perfect evening, to enjoy my wife’s company and smile… to live the life that I have the pleasure of living…
And, just on the other side of those thoughts, the moments where I wished to achieve more, to find more harmony, to prioritize better… I wished I could be smarter and more relaxed. I wished I could be more generous and more focused.
I hope to someday be able to just enjoy an evening without at the same time feeling that sense of all that is left to accomplish.
It was a beautiful night. I did so enjoy it. I am closer everyday to a life of more consistent harmony. But, I am not there yet. I believe that harmony, like any worthwhile discipline, takes effort and discipline. And, I remain a student.
There is another quote on MLK Jr.’s Memorial that I also love.
“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality, this is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”
Maybe for harmony to be fully unleashed, and to have the “final word”, the core of every moment cannot just be the “absolute truth”. Maybe harmony to be fully unleashed also requires at its core, “unconditional love”.
Harmony, like “RIGHT”, temporarily defeated is still stronger than “Disharmony” triumphant…
Maybe that is the piece that is missing from my puzzle. I have embraced the rationality and the objectivity of harmony, and I am trying to embrace it fully in every moment. But, there is a piece still missing.
Unconditional love, is perhaps what makes our absolute truth “empathetic” and what keeps us from feeling the edge of the “criticality” of the assessment that we give ourselves regarding our own life.
Maybe at the deepest core of harmony, deeper even than the absolute truth of the moment, is the idea of "Love Thyself"... unconditionally...
And, maybe it is that love of self that is the spark and the fuel that makes embracing the truths possible, seeing the best in others possible, and finding the boundless energy to keep on moving from moment to moment ... Maybe it is lapses in the love of self... that create the occasional disharmony.
I remain a grateful student… Thank you for missing me... Thank you for inspiring me...
Happy Belated Memorial Day ;-)
Yours in harmony,
Nestor