Mandala

We take our seats at a white-clothed table in an empty Chinese restaurant. It’s Christmas Eve. Sunny, mid-seventies, and here we are reading down the menu – indecipherable characters in an empty restaurant. Not the Christmas spirit of imagination. But, not that many places were open, and it was ok. The quiet. A simple cup of tea I could take refuge in. And refuge was really what I wanted. It was a hard time, tense. Future on the line, playing it cool. I was getting by. The only thing I had to do was choose something on the menu and get sustenance for the day. My personal concerns I would tend to later.

We ate, and the waitress cheerfully brought the check. Cheerfully, I thought. She had no other customers to tend to. We crack open our fortune cookies. “People are waiting for cues from you.” My chest tightened in irritation. I had adopted the role of passive presence. Not saying much, not a hint of disagreement. There were enough cooks in the kitchen. I went with the flow and otherwise absented myself. It felt like survival. It felt like comfort. It felt, I told myself, generous.

Ten months hence, I reckon with this. Why not interject myself. Why not interpose body with its incontrovertible solidity. Heart’s constant flicker, why conceal it? Why guard every thought? My eye scans the little Left Bank of my desktop tableau, an eyeful of bohemian ephemera from around the world. Little icons of possibility, for a moment I entertain the world of it. Its microcosmos.

Later I’ll see the bigger picture, the great exchange. There’s interaction to be had. The mercy of the universe depends on my part played. Why not play. Why not excite some alchemy. Why not tempt synchronicity.  Why not call down the gods. Why not test my own powers. Why not enter the drama.

Because what’s done can’t be undone. But what’s the wager here? There’s only one way to live and it’s to actually live and risk the rippling of it.

I feel a nudge from some place of inner knowing. People are waiting for cues from me. I’m no blank slate. I put out a signal, proof of life. How judicious would I be with myself, ultimately, with these intimations?  Unrestrained, it could tilt orbits, topple planets. But the word is merely: cue. Not a cannonball into the time space continuum, but a butterfly flutter. So, I parse myself and begin with a recognition, a reckoning with myself. That’s where we all must begin. And end. In the center. And let the truth unfold from there.