Voye'm

Jeremy wears an old necklace he found in his grandfather’s things after he passed. I stumbled on it in his desk four months ago and asked about it. It is made up of an old, green strand of fabric and a brass pendant with the simple outline of a Japanese landscape on the front. It’s beautiful. We talked about his grandfather for a while after I found it, and then he put it on. I was helping him move and I think, more than anything, he put it on so it wouldn’t get lost. He hasn’t taken it off since, however, and, months later, it’s become part of the essence of Jeremy to me.  The pendant fits in somewhere between his smell, the old red plaid shirt I stole to wear on cold mornings and the way we both know that his beer will be cheaper, every time, but that he’ll taste mine and comment that he should have “ordered that too.” It has become part of my repertoire of things that make me come back to the quiet moments in which I feel like I have centered myself, and am aware of the love and the goodness that I often ignore in the loudness of being busy.

This weekend, I went to hear an old, dear friend play live music at a local pub. He plays often, but this time was different, for me. The bar was almost empty, and I sat with his brother (also a dear friend) having a beer after a ten hour work day and watching him play the violin for us stragglers – the ones that wanted a few moments more of the night. Afterward he danced with me to Mrs. Robinson at a bar up the street, and I thought about growing up together, and the way that my life has stopped, suddenly, and dropped me in Northern California near the people that made up my world when I was a little girl. I’ve thought, often, that it was an accident the day I was dropped here. Six months later, I’ve thought often that I should have been somewhere different. I’ve thought that I should have left sooner. I’ve tried to leave.

As we made our way through the crowds of people I grew up with, I yelled at some for a quick squeal and a hug, avoided others and commented, over and over again, about how crazy it is that this small town has remained so much the same.

There were new people, too. I met an instructor at the yoga studio I’ve been practicing at, and, in the midst of talking, told her I’d have to quit because I couldn’t afford to keep coming each month. She shook her head when I said that, and drug me over to meet the owner of the studio. She held me hand in hers while she grabbed his shoulder and said, in the din of the bar, that my name was Shanley, she had just met me, and I would have to stop practicing because I couldn’t afford to.

He turned from the shuffleboard table, and I smiled when I saw that the text on his shirt was about karma. He leaned in and said, right in my ear, that I needed to keep coming. “We’ll work out whatever you can afford,” he said. “It’s not about money. It’s about being.”

I thanked him. I thanked her. And, I walked away thinking I knew what he had meant. I thought he had been talking about him – that it wasn’t about the money, for him, and he wanted me to get to keep coming. But, later, I realized he was talking about me. He was letting me know that, for me, it doesn’t have to be about the money. Just like it doesn’t have to be about exactly when I get to move out of this tiny town. Just like it doesn’t have to be about exactly how many followers we gained on twitter, or if we made money at the fair, or just broke even.

It’s about being.

After working through the weekend, I took an hour this morning to cook myself an omelet, and read and write for a while. Beta yelled to me from the other room, and I helped her wash her hair in the shower. We giggled about her crazy fro, and how she looks like a “crem baby” when all the soap is running down her belly. She, too, is part of my repertoire of things that bring me back to the goodness in my life – back to being. In this moment. In the next moment. In all the moments in between. Just like violin solos at the local pub, sitting for a few minutes with an iced coffee instead of rushing through my day and choosing to prutz around my house in my favorite stolen plaid shirt.

Being.

What reminds you to be?