mindfulness is watching

it’s a little like being two people. no. multiple people. i am a colony of girls i am a company of birds my brain looks and divides observes and pronounces sifts through and lifts up. my brain is a ticker tape never ceasing, not even in sleep how can i ever be expected to pay attention to what? to how? to be slow is to be in-between to be peering through the space between behind within the eyes the green place high in the mountains with the warm pool and the cold wind to be mindful is to locate the spaces to slide down the endless hallways to open open open the universe of doors there are over 100 trillion synapses in my brain i have swum in these tiny lakes these creeks these wash-offs these oceans i have backstroked my way crawled my way pulled pulled pulled for the shore may your journey be ever so fruitful may you find your way through. i have found my way through. and out. it is disconcerting. it is electric. i am me and my brain is me but apart, maybe floating maybe on the ceiling maybe on the sky maybe just crouching on my right-hand side a little above like a sky-boat hovering periscopes up. yesterday i tested my brain while my brain tested me having given myself a signal a few days before three quick pulls on my hair at the back above the neck no one is watching a signal to note when the brain tossed up a “craving” and i would say “not a real craving” which worked great until walking back to my car from the gym/rehab i thought not of sugar but croissants and did not, rather refused/omitted those three little pulls, clever, clever brain. then i backed my car into a car with no one in it in the hospital parking garage then it was police on the phone security guards in person insurance on the phone police in person the owner of the car showing up and viola! also driving on an expired tag they did not charge me with this (not my fault the husband’s purview!) then off across town to the market for sumo oranges and other stuff so hungry hungry by then what a good thing to buy croissants. i willfully pushed aside all caution i was all gimme gimme now the brain had won out culminating in my impulse buying three little bags of candies– chocolate cashews, chocolate espresso beans, chocolate malted balls all uber expensive but who cares? and coming home. and unloading groceries. and hungry hungry hungry it’s 1:30 pm i ate at 6:30 am did the gym and all my other chores, Cinderella, so hungry hungry then settled in on the sofa with croissants and candies and what a wallop of a headache by bedtime and what a wallop of headache this morning. the lesson of course, is to not get into these binds– 1) keep crackers in the car 2) do not enter market when hungry hungry hungry hungry hungry. the most excellent news alert-the-media! is that the whole experience with my car didn’t hardly phase me. that my friends is a miracle. miracle of miracles. i am the principle principality i am the apple of my endless eyes and i cannot begrudge my brain its afternoon triumph its ages-old comfort of bread and sugar, i will be not berate my poor brain with its muddy gullies those ancient pathways rutted by years my whole life of emotional rain over the pastures spewing out from the bombs overhead acid rain toxic this and toxic that. instead, i will cradle my brain like the squirming vicious valiant frustrated wee toddler of the absolute ID it is and coo and make much of it i will compassionate my brain and gentle down my whooshing whinnying self, lower this great galaxy of bodies into that warm pool of water in the high mountains and look again. and look again. and keep looking. i will compassionate my mind. i will compassionate by body. i will float my brain around and around the pool like a duck, like a baby. i will water and lotion it and swaddle it and crawl in with it and be still.