Wanting it to be Other than It Is

Friday morning in Farmer and the Cook and then at Rainbow I stared at the tomatoes wishing they were more local, more red, more delicious looking.  I stared at them as if I could somehow make them different. 

The day before I was in the T-Mobile Store at the mall.  I lost my purse 2 weeks ago and had been putting off getting a replacement cell phone.  I was agitated and annoyed that the phones and plan options had all changed and when I finally picked the phone, it resulted  in my plan going up a significant amount a month.

So, when I could not find my passport Friday morning, I did not really believe in its loss and assumed that with a little diligence, it would appear. Twenty-four almost solid hours of intense searching later, I have surrounded to the fact that it is lost to me and I am not going to the Bahamas with my peeps to swim with the dolphins.

Practice, or diligent and sincere effort (abhyasa) and surrender, or non-attachment (vairagya) are two of the core principles in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras.  As I looked through each file and nook and crannie vigilantly, I found myself "deciding" what I wanted to happen.  As soon as I decided what I wanted to happen, I could no longer see as clearly.  

When I started to picture myself in the warm turquoise waters, my searching took on an anxious frustrated quality.  I would get hit with waves of feeling stupid and irresponsible.  When I sensed that I had let people down, I felt even worse.  Simultaneously, when I would start to write the story in the opposite direction, that this was the "universe's" way of telling that I wasn't supposed to go, my searching became lazy and I started to isolate and protect from the possible ramifications. 

It is too soon and maybe not even useful to indulge in the "why".  The "why" seems to be the mind's valiant effort to explain the mystery.  And when the mystery starts to get explained, in the effort to become knowable and stable, it by nature has to become small, limited and ultimately incorrect.  The play seems to be to participate absolutely fully and let it all go at the last minute.

The plane left this morning at 6:40am and while I am sad, disappointed and apologetic, I feel like I have stepped into the stronger current that needs my attention.  Any more effort (sthira) and I would have been asking for injury, any more ease (sukham) and I might not have been adequately prepared to catch this next wave.