Less gas, more peace

I got a lovely and inspiring Christmas present from my best reina, Elizabeth: a holographic Batman on the cover of a lined journal, which continues the Batman theme inside with occasional phrases and pictures. It's fantastically fun; Elizabeth told me she purchased it at the Strand in NYC (http://www.strandbooks.com/home/), a trip about which she recently wrote in her own blog, A Room Full of Books (http://aroomfullofbooks.blogspot.com/2006/12/selling-pencils-in-hanoi.html).

I say it was inspiring because it's exactly the sort of thing I should have bought myself--but didn't have the good sense to--in order to help me out of my slumping self-pity and malaise. The first thing I wrote in it is a pathetic string of words I dare not even name a "poem", and which will never see the light of day. I might even paste something over top of it, just to make sure no one reads it, biggest absolute slaughter of a piece of writing that ever there was. The second reflection I put down Wednesday morning in shaky handwriting on the bus as it bumped along through the Highlands on the way to campus. I thought this little entry was worth making electronic (oh, how we young'uns hypervalue our digital resources these days...).

17 Jan 2007 9:30am
I am on the 29 bus heading toward campus by way of St. Matthews and Cherokee Park. Riding the bus is one of my New Year's resolutions, which I took up when possible in order to use less gas and to help alleviate my feeling of guilt and responsibility over global warming and supporting the imperialist state. The practice is also helpful as an exercise in relinquishing control--one of my most difficult impediments to peace of mind and soul.

The time of my life when I was at my best (to date) was the two year period when I was able to refocus my irrational need to control into a productive way to balance myself. I did this through veganism, time alone, and church participation (especially prayer). Now I'm trying again, working my way back to the belief part of things, and just starting with NO SUGAR and little-to-no dairy or meat.

Phase 2 of the redirection of my control issues is, as I said, to take the bus. This forces me to slow down, have empty time, to plan ahead (time of transport, packing my lunch, thinking a day ahead), and to give my velocity over to someone else. This is the hardest and the most rewarding part of riding the bus; to let someone else take the wheel and get me from point A to point B is a daunting task because it requires faith and trust, two things scarce in my heart these days, being generally a person whose motto is something like, "If you want something done right, do it yourself."

So you can understand how I can be of two minds (or of divergent mind and heart) when the bus driver suddenly decides to idle at a random stop for 3 minutes, or when the driver turns off the engine and steps outside to inspect the side of the bus! My intellectual brain tells me, "You have two hours to get to campus/home. Chill out. Even if you're late, you're not going to cause any big upset by your tardiness, in the grand scheme of things. You have all the time in the world." This used to be a much more effective method of allaying my irrational fears and anxieties. It is harder than it used to be, however; it’s harder to choose that thread of thought over the fear-based brain that is simultaneously telling me, “WTF is that guy doing? I’m nowhere NEAR campus/home! I’m f***ed if I have to get out of the bus here. I’m going to be late! WHAT’S GOING ON? WHY’S THIS HAPPENING???!!!”

But it makes me worry less just to write that down, actually.