Pisando nieve en el último día de 2020

Faltan 141 minutos para que cambiemos de año y tengo ganas de escribir...acabo de poner un post, pero escribí el post hace varios días y quiero, anhelo, escribir algo nuevo aquí en los pocos minutos restantes de este año jamás imaginado y (ojalá) no realizado de nuevo en el futuro...

Faltan 136 minutos para que cambiemos de año...empecé este año en una cabañita a 30 millas de aquí y lo termino encabiñado en mi casa, como lo hemos estado desde medios de marzo...y no es que me haya molestado eso de encabiñarme, si voy a decir la verdad, pero es algo irónico, ¿no?, cuánto me esforcé para aislarme del mundo hace un año y el mundo acabó aislándonos a todos...es que ya debemos saber, mi gente, pero no lo sabemos aún, que lo más que intentamos controlar lo que nos suceda, lo más el mundo va a venir a golpearnos por los dientes...

Faltan 129 minutos para que cambiemos de año...fui a dar una vuelta más temprano hoy...esto es cosa de casi todos los días, doy una vuelta por ahí, una caminata de 15, 20, 30 minutos, 45 si tengo mucha ambición, fijénse que he descubierto que no necesito nada más...las vueltas son regalos de Dios...pero bien, la nieve tiene sólo dos días y el mundo sigue siendo blanco, no hubo casi viento y cuando pasaba por el cementerio por bruto pasé a un lado no limpiado y pedazos de nieve invadían mis botas...sentí el frío de la nieve derritiéndose contra mis medias delgadas, cosa que debió haber sido feo, pero fue de cierta forma satisfactorio, ¿quién lo vaya a comprender?...

Faltan 121 minutos para que cambiemos de año...por supuesto que éste fue año bisiesto, el 2020 lo tuvo que ser, un día extra de la mierda que era el 2020...Sonia está ocupada preparando las 1001 cosas que se tienen que realizar en la cultura peruana en el año nuevo, los niños (ya no son niños, son adolescentes, pero bueno, me entienden) andan en lo suyo y escucho Cafe Tacvba, "El balcón", supongo que yo también estoy en lo mío como suelo estar..."Los patrones han muerto y tú, aún sigues trapeando el piso de ajedrez"...

Faltan 113 minutos para que cambiemos de año y ni siquiera me he bañado...en la cultura peruana, se da una ducha y se acaba poniéndose un agua especial hecha con flores para que el año te agarre con buena aroma...normalmente le jodo mucho a mi esposa mucho y resisto que tenga que hacerme esto, pero este año me siento diferente, resignado...resignado, no...abierto, más bien...hay que estar abierto a cualquier remedio después de semejante año...

Faltan 109 minutos para que cambiemos de año...ya está muy de moda quejarse del año 2020 y supongo que yo también lo he hecho, pero la realidad es que no estoy tan mal...a veces el mundo está bien y uno mal, y a veces a revés, el mundo mal y uno bien...a mí no me tocó lo peor que tuvo que ofrecer 2020 y me siento bien por ello, aunque me sienta un poco culpable por esto...la culpa tiene sus propósitos pero también impide cuando no hay necesidad de impedimentos...total, el mundo no se mejora si yo me pongo peor de lo que realmente estoy...

Faltan 102 minutos para que cambiemos de año y me alegra que haya hecho esta pequeña escritura aunque no tenga mucho sentido...es raro que a veces Dios nos dé ganas de hacer ciertas cosas a una cierta hora, pero si una cosa aprendimos a duras penas en el 2020, es que a veces las cosas tienen su razón al no tener ni puta de razón...como cuando uno va pisando nieve y la nieve queda en su pie pero no es tan mal, es casi placentero, es de este mundo y yo estoy requete puto feliz de estar vivo en ello...

 

The Hermitage, the Deer, and the Chakras: It all comes together

MY SECOND, AND LAST, FULL day at the hermitage began much, much later than the first one. I’m not sure what time I had fallen asleep the night before, but it was late, and I vowed not to get out of bed one damn second before my body’s adrenaline told me I should. Still, I was shocked to see it was past noon when I finally gave one last stretch and walked over to my phone. No matter. I turned the coffee on and began journaling.

The day was spent much the same as the first one, minus my time with Ann Jackson. I read, I wrote, I walked through the trees around Prairiewoods. I baked another frozen meal and then I decided to head over to the Labyrinth. Maybe I would see my deer friends again.

I took it even slower than I had the first day. No deer this time, but I was in for another treat. No more than a quarter of the way in, I felt something cold touch my nose. I looked up and there were a few big, fat, wet snowflakes falling gently down from the sky. I walked even slower, trying to match their rhythm. Within about ten minutes the snow was falling with some momentum. When I got to the center of the labyrinth I knelt and I prayed. I thanked God for this beautiful moment and I just let the snow keep falling on me.

By the time I got back to the hermitage there was a layer of snow sticking to the ground, and it was still coming down good. Before I forgot, I texted Ann Jackson—she had offered to meet with me again before I left the next morning if I wanted to. I had decided I did. We agreed to meet again in her office at 10:00. Then I sat down in the recliner, sipping on a glass of water and watching the snow fall as day slowly changed into night. It was the sort of thing you normally might really want to share with someone, but I was quite happy to be by myself.

The Chakra book sat peacefully to left. It ignored me and I ignored it.

 

*********

 

I ARRIVED ON TIME FOR my meeting with Ann Jackson. She was dressed much the same as before, which I suppose could be said for me as well. We talked about how my two days had went. I told her that I had walked a lot, journaled a lot, written a lot, put some of it on my blog.

“Would you mind if I read your blog?” she asked.

“Of course not. That’s what it’s there for,” I said. “Let me write down the address for you.”

While I was writing down the address, she asked, “What have you been reading?”

“Well,” I replied, “I’ve got this like thousand-page history of Christianity that I’ve been working through, and I made some progress there. Some devotional material.”

“And what about this?” she asked, holding up the book about the Chakras in her left hand.

I smiled slightly. “I…looked at it.”

She smiled too. “Not your cup of tea?”

“No,” I said. “I appreciate you loaning it to me, but…no.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “It’s certainly not for everyone. Anything else? Did you get to walk the Labyrinth?”

“Yes!” I said. “Twice. Once each day. Both days were incredible, especially yesterday. I was out there, literally in the Labyrinth, when the snow started falling. I just felt…so blessed. No one was around. It was just me, the Labyrinth and the snow.”

“How beautiful,” she murmured. “Did you get anything out of it? That was your second time—you said you went the first day, as well?”

“Oh my God,” I said. “The first day was incredible as well. I’m in there walking the Labyrinth, and all of a sudden I was surrounded by, like, four or five deer. One of them actually walked right up to me. Like five feet away.”

“Really?” she said. “Mark, do you see what is happening? I told you the first day, you have an energy. I could feel it. And that deer could feel it too. You let go of your fear out there, and she felt one with you. She could sense your…” she paused, “…your energy is greater than you give yourself credit for.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“In Christianity we call that the Holy Spirit. But it’s got a name in just about every tradition,” she continued, and her eyes darted down and to her left very quickly. “I feel, Mark, that you have a tremendous energy. You just need to be patient. And keep praying. And stay open to that feeling, that feeling the snow gave you, that feeling the deer gave you. That energy…that connection.”

 We continued like that, and the hour flew by. We hugged again. She asked me to stay in touch, and I said I would. I walked back to the hermitage and busied myself preparing my things for departure. Sonia was on her way to pick me up.

 

**********

 

OF COURSE I TOLD SONIA all about it. The trees, the prairie, the Labyrinth, the deer, the snow, the reading, the writing. And I was effusive with praise for Ann Jackson—her warmth, her sincerity, her caring, her simplicity, her perception.

“There was just one weird thing about her,” I told Sonia several nights later in the kitchen. She was cooking and I was eating black olives, for some goddamn reason. “She kept trying me to get into this thing about Chakras.”

“What in the hell is a Chakra?” Sonia asked.

“I don’t even know—something about seven energy centers in the body and…”

I stopped. Something clicked. Or, more precisely, something suddenly shot up into my consciousness from my subconscious. An energy force field the size of a football field. Time in a hermitage slowing down and going deeper. Energy emanating from the body. A deer so in connection with me that it walked right up to me without fear any fear whatsoever. Ann Jackson’s eyes cutting down and to her left.

Towards the Chakras book.

“In Christianity we call it the Holy Spirit,” she had said. She hadn’t said the rest because she didn’t want me to tune out. But now I understood.

“Hold on a second,” I told Sonia. “I need to write something down before I forget.”

I walked into the Red Room, where I do my journaling. I opened my journal and scribbled down:

Write about:

Hermitage

Deer

Chakras

I walked back into the kitchen. My heart was light, the way it is when you finally give in and laugh when you watch a silly movie.

“So what was this thing? Chamras?” Sonia asked.

“Eh, I don’t know,” I said. “Something Ann Jackson was into. Something Eastern. Way beyond anything I can comprehend.”

 

END