I've been reading Zen again. Winter is the time for introspection; why not navel-gaze when I'm curled up under the blankets anyway? This season's first revelation came after losing my wallet for the, I swear, fifteenth time in as many days. This time it stayed lost for a good 48-hour period, long enough for nonchalance to fade into discomfort and mild panic. Until I found it, of course, in the pocket of the only pair of pants I hadn't checked, because they had been sitting in a pile of just-washed (and therefore innocent) laundry, though they were not themselves washed, nor innocent.


What I realize is that my habitual carelessness has turned to a true mindlessness - the opposite of the mindfulness I hope to cultivate in my life - so that I lose my wallet once a day, my keys twice, forget appointments and textbooks, arrive late to class every day for a week. What I realize is that the manifest disconnection between my mind and my life is merely one side of a deeper truth, one way that my psyche has chosen to deal with the fact that I am not living the life I should.


This was a tricky knowledge to come by: they say that the opposite of a truth is another truth, and one such is that I am living exactly what I want. This school is where I should be, no doubt. This major, same. This relationship, with all its struggle, is exactly right. So what then? I seem to have gotten the outline right but neglected to color in the details accordingly. See the previous entry, for example.


I deeply believe that the most important work a person can do is in their own life, each day. I am not living each day. Though the greater framework is right - I am where I should be - I am not how I should be. I am not holding to beauty and savoring my tea. I am not grateful for sunlight or shadow or the shoes I wear. Each day rushes from too-early alarm to exhausted collapse. Right livelihood but not right action.


On the prosaic side, one day he tells me that if I don't take care of myself, I can't take care of our relationship. And now, when I think of a spectacular new idea for a fundraiser that I don't have the time to plan, or when I blithely mention that I missed breakfast, he pokes me and asks if I'm taking care of myself.


And I'm doing better.