43~ My wish list

Vipassana Experiencia. Day 8

What “things” make me happy?

-Reading a good book -Drinking mate -Doing Yoga outdoors -Swimming in nature. Correction: BEING surrounded by nature -The beach. Also the mountains. The rivers. -Studying what I like. -Writing. Observing.

-Reading a good book -Deep conversations -Photography.(...)

What dreams do I have?

-Visiting Bali -A little house in the mountains? (And yes, to review, but it still remained on the list.) -Writing a book? -Learning how to ride a motorbike. That was my new “permission”

Maybe it sounds stupid, but in the survival and productivity mindset of my mind, it had been a long time since there was any space for personal wishes. I think I was so busy “solving” that for way too long I wasn’t allowing myself to listen to them.

Do I think so? It’s more of an affirmation: I was definitely not allowing myself to listen to them! And, of course, even less was I giving myself permission to make them come true.

The house in the mountains had always been there, since I was 15, 16 years old. The promised land I’ve talked about so much. Visiting Bali was an old epic dream, one that endured alongside the heroine of my favorite movie Eat, Pray, Love. For some reason I had always felt deeply identified with her and with what she felt. That overflowing frustration of not knowing where to go? Then I read the book and discovered it wasn’t a work of fiction but her own story. That’s when I identified even more with her and felt less alone in this madness I had been living months earlier. Bali was too far-fetched a dream for a Latina who had never set foot in Asia, too idyllic to come true. Also too unproductive or impractical, and in my mind back then there was only space for things that “made sense.”Needless to say, I had never had the courage nor the money to make it happen—until now. I had told Joan several times, but it always seemed too far, too much project, too complicated, too too much.

For Joan, sometimes everything seemed too much, and up to that point I had never given it enough importance to do it for myself. Looking at it from here, probably the one who had never given it enough importance was me. And probably too, what Joan found too much was me, entirely, just as I was.

Jailsamer, India

Writing a book was a new idea. Writing had accompanied me since I was very young, but in the last years of my life, in some strange way, I had forgotten it. Before arriving in India, when I met with the guys who spoke with souls, I brought them that question so difficult for me—probably for many as well—: «What makes me happy? »

During my life I had always had many restlessnesses, many hobbies, many interests, but I could never choose just one. That, instead of showing me how abundant and creative I was, frustrated me terribly. Too many distractions, too many energy leaks, too many options. Why couldn’t I have just one, like everyone else? Like everyone else or like they made us believe everyone should have? Big topic to develop…

–I don’t know what makes me happy– I answered shyly, throwing all my personal power in the trash– You don’t know?– they replied– Really?... What did you like to do when you were a child?

I stopped to think… So many things I liked! Were there really that many? I searched the library of mental memories.

–Dance – I answered, knowing the reply wasn’t that– Write?– I rephrased, so timid I had to pronounce it as a question for it to come out of my mouth.

When I was a child and still didn’t have much imagination, or the confidence to write, I used to copy textbooks into the computer. Computers had just come out, they were a novelty, so that had become my favorite hobby.

The first text I copied was a story by Horacio Quiroga. The book was called “The Jungle Book”. A couple of days later, at ten years old, I wrote my own piece, inspired by his, of course. I called it El príncipe Águila. A friend of my dad published it in the town's newspaper and honestly, I really want to return to Argentina to find that yellowing newspaper clipping like a treasure. I remember the story was quite altruistic but so much time has passed that I don’t remember it anymore.

–Here I see it… – one of the guys who spoke with souls told me – I see a book with a sea on the cover. I also see "the world at your feet"… but in Argentina your identity runs deep risk, the only way out I see here is India… – He fell silent – They tell me you must not be afraid. They “tell” me to trust, to be calm, that everything will be fine, that you have nothing to worry about...

It’s easy to say that when it’s not your fucking life hanging by a tiny string, especially when “the way out” is a fucking Hollywood movie. Which part of my life that was crashing toward disaster at full speed was the one that was going to be okay? The love life? The professional? The personal?

Before they spoke those words my plan was to go to Argentina to receive love in the form of hugs and pretend to be crazy for a few more months. India had been an extreme resource one thinks of in moments of desperation, but I was too scared to take it seriously. Still, it seemed I was too desperate to keep pretending to be crazy.

Their words lifted the veil on something I had known for a while but wasn’t ready to see. People who connect with souls always tell you that “if it appears” it’s because you’re ready to hear it… Sons of bitches. All I could see at that moment was myself as a little wet chick drowning in an evil blender and now, instead of just being a wet chick I had to become a super chick and buy a ticket to India...What?

All I did for months was hate them in silence. Who had control of my life now? What was I going to do with so much “truth”? Presuming that “that” was “the truth”, which I couldn’t even guarantee, of course. Those words generated in me a depth of anxiety I can’t describe. I think something inside me knew that underneath they hid some truth—and I’m not referring to the pretty part “the world at your feet”, I mean all the hell to go through that came just before that: Feeling disinherited by myself fighting with my own conscience? Self-exiled by choice? Dissociated? Leaving again, but this time as an escape and like a fugitive?

The point is that when you have a truth in front of you and it’s not the one you want, it doesn’t stop being true for that reason, and sometimes there’s no remedy to fight it.

No need to clarify which decision I made, right? Luckily they weren’t wrong… The cover of the book they “saw” wasn’t a sea, it was going to be a sacred river: it was going to be the Ganga—el Mother Ganga—and an image of Varanasi, which the moment I saw it I knew it was that, because it pierced me to the soul and stayed floating in my mind.

The photo of the good, Varanasi

It took me a very long time to understand. Now, in retrospect, many months later, I can see that what they told me wasn’t so wrong after all. In fact, it was quite accurate…“The world at my feet.” That’s what that journey left me with: “The world at my feet.”...

The first time I heard those words they echoed in me as desolation, but my guides were so, so clear… Now, with the calm that time brings, I can see it. From Argentina to Denmark, then to India, Thailand, and from there to Bali—because yes, that’s where the story ends, or where it truly begins, depending on how you look at it, like everything.I almost went around the world—and mind you, I had always been fortunate to travel a lot—but this time it was different. When you do it without wanting it or planning it, almost as an obligation with your soul, with a force that sustains you but you don’t quite know where it comes from, that thing that looked like a journey becomes almost a miracle. And I call it a miracle because honestly, it gave me back my faith.

That journey was toward the center of myself, so deep and so direct that I never saw it coming, but it was a decree and a salvation. It showed me that I could achieve whatever I wanted, it proved to me that I truly was the owner of everything that would happen to me from now on. It showed me that I held the rudder of my life, that I could start using it, and that it felt beautiful. I still had no idea what was going to happen, but suddenly I had stepped out of the punishment corner and now I was placed at the top, seeing it all like a T.E.G. board game. I still had no plans or conclusions, but I felt freer than ever before—and for me, conquering that was true freedom.

Yes, the little chick from the blender made it to Bali and, after a storm of meteors, it had become the Phoenix. ( And this is a spoiler, because at this stage of the story I’m still in India, still in the middle of chaos and destruction, but in the place where I am now, the lines of time intertwine like water—and instead of wanting to change it, I celebrate it )

Kerala, India.

Writing a book? It sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? But to my ears it felt as natural as making a banana and milk shake.

In some way, writing had been something that accompanied me all my life, in smaller or greater proportions depending on the moment. As a child, it was a way of vomiting sensations, of sublimating the anguish I felt, of processing what at my young age I otherwise couldn’t. Later, inspired by travel, it became a way to capture the magic, the tiny stories of ordinary people that because of that become romantic and sublime. A way of gathering proof that love, ideals, and dreams DO EXIST, just as my dad had always told me, just as movies and my favorite books showed. And fundamentally, writing to bear witness that this world without a little of all that makes no sense.

–Ladies and gentlemen: magic exists! And when we are attentive enough we can see it expressed in the small actions of real life, and everything becomes a miracle.

But by now it had been a very long time since I had written—several years, in fact—since I had arrived in Denmark, probably even before. Nothing had happened, but something in that voice had no content. It was empty, inert, asleep, sedated… it simply didn’t speak nor feel the need to express anything. Because the truth is I don’t write because I want to, I write because something in me urgently needs be shared.

What could have happened to it? There was no one there to ask that question; simply, all the space had remained blank and empty.

Writing had almost always been an escape, an urgency. So I had never given it a conscious physical space nor had I documented it wisely. They were always messy papers, written in random places that ended up in the trash. When I heard the idea of the book, it felt like a revelation that made sense, one I didn’t even have to force. Writing was what I always did. This time I only had to take it a little more seriously and basically, record it.

It was then that I naturally decided to document it. I don’t know when I started giving shape to that idea, I think it really just flowed. Of course, I put my intention into it. I bought a small portable laptop that I got for the first time shopping on a CyberMonday. The price was 1,111 Danish kroner—yes, two elevens. That was one of the things that convinced me to buy it, which, paradoxically, I only noticed after choosing it. It was perfect, I had to do it. Signs—and yes, that was the frequency my life began to vibrate on after my decision to fly to India. A whole great story of signs, synchronicities, universes, and gods. Hippie, very hippie. Even if I resisted, my favorite atmosphere.

Quickly, my relationship with that 1,111 laptop became one of the deepest and most meaningful companions for me — I didn’t know it, but it was going to be many long years of friendship — and before we realized it, it began to occupy that place of “companion” in my life, like my new travelling guitar.

That was one of the first acts of faith. And the truth is it wasn’t something conscious; it was just a feeling so soft and so strong at the same time in which I simply allowed myself to be. I think sometimes that’s how truly one’s own paths feel. They sustain us so gently that they are almost imperceptible, everyday, natural. Like a kind underground current that, without us noticing, leads us to the most wonderful shores of ourselves. That thing that was there just flowed and I just listened. It felt so mine that I can hardly register when or how or with what intention. As if I hadn’t doubted it for a second, and in a moment when I doubted everything—even my own shadow—that was a lot.

And although it seemed imperceptible, it was there because something pushed me to move in a certain direction and I did, and it seems it turned out well, because here we are, you and I.

The last of the wishes was a Yapa. Since we were in “ask” mode, let’s give it everything, right? And here it goes: I had always wanted to ride a motorbike. That feeling was an old, constant desire but as still and inert as a plaster statue. Why had I never even tried? Would it be too much responsibility? Something too serious for a woman who at times felt she didn’t know how to be an adult?

It had always been a dream but it never took shape, relevance, urgency, or action. It was just there in the haze, sunbathing with a Mojito on the beach, like the rest of my life… As if I had thousands of years to make it real or thousands of lives to carry it out. As if it would magically happen one day just for the mere fact of wishing it, or as if it were so unproductive and purely pleasurable that for that reason it had no importance on my to-do list. Because in truth that to-do list didn’t even exist as such; they were just a couple of shapeless words floating in anonymity.

That’s when I realized I might have been getting a little stuck on my own things I wanted to fulfill, and that my dreams had become bourgeois and turned a bit gray. Uniform gray, the kind that almost has no color...

–When I get out of here I’m going to rent a motorbike and learn to ride. Then I’ll go back to Argentina and get my driver’s license!– sometimes order doesn’t change the product–. I had almost become an amoeba, but suddenly I had a small project that made me want to make it real.Just thinking about it made me want to live, to feel the adrenaline, the music and the wind on my face. To travel roads, stories and countries. All of that represented so much of my way of living… How could I have never done it?

It was probably something small, but having the desire to fulfill a dream just for pleasure returned some life to me and a personal motivation I realized I had lost. A simple personal wish, not very useful, not very productive, not very serious or constructive. Something born only from wanting to… Ufff, how long had it been since I’d done that?

I had become stiff and I swear I don’t look specifically like a stiff person in life, but in my internal structures I could still feel that rigidity. With my look and style it still seemed like no, but social mandates weighed on me as much or more than on everyone else.

–And I’m also going to go to Bali! Even if I haven’t solved my life or my existential questions. Even if it doesn’t make much sense or I don’t have the money, even if I still haven’t solved “the important stuff” nor how I’ll live the next months or where. Even if I have to spend those savings that weren’t meant to be spent and later have to borrow money for when I decide to come back… I’m going to do it because just thinking about it makes me happy! Because, fucking hell! If not now, when? ... Because life is only one, and I don’t know when I’ll have this opportunity again in front of me swaying in a miniskirt right under my nose... I’m going to do it because I deserve it, because I’m brave, because I’m free and because I choose to answer to no one but myself about my choices and little by little I’m becoming a kind and permissive being with myself... To hell with it… I’m going to enjoy, once and for all, with all my being! …Or else what?... What am I here for? And even more, what am I alive for?!...

Sometimes the most obvious things are the ones we overlook the most. Most of the time we don’t even perceive them — they become part of how we are, how we act and think. But there, in Bodh Gaya, among those walks between trees and morning light I realized: I was living in postponement. Postponing because I didn’t feel worthy of enjoying myself until I “sorted things out.” Sorted out what? Who knows… Everything? My life? My future? Where to settle? Where to live? Being completely sure about what I want to do? What I want to live from? What I want to work at? Having life all figured out?... Being dead?

There was the point.I needed certainties and I didn’t have them and that was driving me crazy. But the problem was posed wrongly. First: because those certainties I was looking for didn’t exist — and that was a beautiful difference, because it wasn’t that I hadn’t found them, but that they didn’t exist! Big point.

Second: because although people “seem to know,” very few really know exactly what they want… — and between us: do they really know? Is that knowing a museum piece, static, or does it have the natural movements of life’s avatars? Anyway: congratulations to them! If they know that they know, fair enough, but in the end I think most of us are in a game where we all pretend we know where we’re going, while in reality we’re eternal seekers trying to decipher what life is about.

The point is very few are awake enough —and brave— to admit that. The sublime “I only know that I know nothing” from Socrates. The societies where we grew up are surely the first to point at us from the corners with an accusing finger. Not the societies themselves, of course, but the people who live inside them, who probably don’t do it consciously, but somehow their shitty prejudices reach our energetic, mental, and emotional field, and they affect us. They corrode and perforate us from the inside, telling us we’re flawed — and I don’t mean it metaphorically, I mean it because I’ve heard it — And there, we enter again into an illusion, feeling once more that we’re alone in this. That it seems we’re the only ones, that it seems we’ve made a mistake. But the surprise, interesting and unexpected, is that the more we open up to talk about the doubts, uncertainties, and frustrations we carry, the more alike we all become. In the end, the questions, fears, and insecurities that everyone bears are quite similar and that, instead of being an exception that makes us feel wrong, becomes the common denominator. Suddenly we can validate ourselves, truly look each other in the eyes, meet the other’s soul and also stop holding our breath. Beautiful, isn’t it?… To breathe.

Balis´s Flower

Wouldn’t it be easier and healthier to be able to take on those existential questions that transcend us all with more ease? Life, death, existence, purpose, who we are…

The ancient traditions that only a few still listen to preserve these questions. They are hidden treasures in yellowed pages and stories of wise people. And the truth is maybe they’re nothing more than the same ones we ask ourselves every night while eating leftovers in front of the fridge light, staring at nothing at all. The difference is that the wise allow themselves to. Normal people were taught that that’s a waste of time, and unless your answer is going to be measured in numbers that have monetary value — or could generate it at some point — better not to waste your time.

Permission is something they repress in us from childhood and the Ego ( and also the superego) is the guardian that keeps all that in check.

And where do we fit in all that? We don’t — and that’s the problem.

And it’s not that I was a millionaire who could afford to do all this, nor that I was born with a silver spoon, nor that economic fears and monetary questions about how I would live the next days, weeks, months or years didn’t affect me… Of course they did! Every day, every minute. I traveled as a backpacker with the lowest budget I could. I weighed the options and guarded every Indian rupee with the greatest awareness I had, but the thing is sometimes we have to allow ourselves that too, and we are the only ones who can do it. I had some savings, but I couldn’t touch them, because “that” — my mother would tell me — “that” was destined for when I really needed it, for that important project or for “my future”… Wasn’t this it? Wasn’t I living in my future? Wasn’t this probably the most important and conscious decision I had made in my life?

When was I going to allow myself to live? When I turned 50?

When was that moment going to arrive?

Maybe it wasn’t something that would simply arrive by magic or decantation as we think. Maybe it was something I had to build. Something each of us has to build.

PD: Wow.

I realized I forgot the most important desire.

How the mind is, right? I’m a psychologist and even so there are things that slip away from all of us...

My most important wish was to fall in love, a partner to share my life with and build projects together. I think if you asked me what I want the most, the very most in life of everything I could want or desire, this would be the answer.

Too cheesy? Too clichéd? Too much, too much?

Probably yes, but I’m proud that after all love always remains the ultimate reason. In Argentina, in India and probably in many, many other parts of the world.

So why, when I made the wish list, didn’t it even appear, if it’s actually what I want most in life?

For a long time I hid the “too much,” I tried to control them in a little box to see if I could make them gentler. I never managed to do it well and that energy came out anyway. Sometimes healthily, sometimes not so much.

Maybe I didn’t write it on the list because it was something so deep and depended so little on me that it wasn’t even worth writing...

« Eso no se elige » I used to say...

“That isn’t chosen”? Really? Sometimes we must question the phrases we repeat to ourselves... Did it really not depend on me? Nothing, not even a little?

In the end, don’t we get what we create?

Aren’t we the ones responsible for planting the ground so that everything can develop?

Was I planting my seed?

Was I really trusting?

It was my greatest desire and it was so deep that it was even hard for me to let it out.

I hid it like my greatest treasure and not only did I hide it, perhaps in that process I also drowned it.

Why? Was I that afraid of it? Afraid of what?

Big, big topic, right?

I was still very far from being able to open up about any of this at that moment. The time to reflect on love would come much later in the chronology of this inner journey — because we all know that to be okay with another you first have to be okay with yourself, and that’s the essential part we all skip. Obviously I wasn’t anywhere near that; these were going to be advanced elucidations and you can’t open everything at once. As a Buddhist nun friend used to say, “the knowledge for which we are not prepared in this moment, we can put in the library for when we are ready for it.”

I didn’t ignore it, I could see its name from the couch where I was, but it was still a little while before I could understand what was happening in there. For the moment I looked at it with love, sitting next to my current to-do list. Its day would come; for now, riding a motorbike along Bali’s roads and writing sounded like an amazing plan, probably the most fun of my whole life.