Something amazing has happened. Despite fending off texts and avoiding Instagram posts from relentless friends, B-list actors, and influencers all telling me that I need to meditate during the pandemic, I have entered another cosmic plane and become a living meditation. I’m not sure if they hand out black belts for being Zen, but, if they do, I’m totally going to get one.
Before the pandemic, I never noticed how often the paintings on my walls got tilted. There’s a picture of a tree in my bathroom that I honestly didn’t even know was there. I guess I was so busy running in and out of rooms on my way to do the things that capitalism demanded of me that I hardly noticed it. But now, after a year of solitude, I’ll find myself—toothbrush in one hand, squished toothpaste tube in the other—staring, trancelike, at that tree for most of the morning. I stand there with a mouthful of peppermint foam and my mind flashes images of picnics with loved ones, Frisbee with dead Presidents, and conversations with talking squirrels, until drool rolls off my chin and lands on my sock. That’s when the trance is broken, and I notice that the picture is crooked. I straighten it and start my day. This is what the spiritually savvy call “staying in the moment.”
When I remove my shoes, I don’t just mindlessly kick them off, as I did for my entire life up until now. These days, I untie each one. First the right one, next the left, and then I take my feet out, one at a time, before returning the shoes to their designated spot in the closet. All these years, they’ve never had a space that was just theirs, but they do now, and that’s where I put them. I recently realized that everything has a soul, and that’s why I will never wash my sweaters again. I’m not sure that I would call myself a monk, but I would understand if you did.
I have really improved my skills in the kitchen. I’m not exactly a better cook, but I do know exactly how long it takes to fill up my water glass after I put it underneath the faucet and turn the water on. I have just enough time to cut a piece of bread for toasting. I don’t have enough time to put it in the toaster, though—I have to turn the water off, which I can do by balancing on one foot and leaning away from the cutting board and then leaning back to start the toasting. It’s like a Buddhist ballet that no one gets to see, but that’s O.K. It’s in the doing. Over and over and over again.
I have risen to the level of Cleaning Expert in the kitchen, or, as my daughter describes it, “gone batshit crazy.” She doesn’t understand that I’m functioning as one with the universe now and can think several steps ahead to see that, when she is in the middle of her last bite, there is ample time for her to rinse her plate and put it into the dishwasher or, better yet, to hand wash it while she is swallowing—that way she can complete eating and cleaning at the exact same moment, giving her time to vacuum her room before Zoom class. But, hey, you can’t expect a kid to be enlightened.
Some people, like my wife, would say that I’m trying to create order in a chaotic world that I have no control over, but people like that seem pretty lazy to me, and they probably go to bed without thinking about how they forgot to wipe down the teakettle. But that’s fine, I’m thinking about it, and getting up to clean it is something that the Dalai Lama would do if he had a cheap teakettle from Bed Bath & Beyond—but his are probably clay, which means that I actually do more work than the Dalai Lama and my wife put together. This isn’t about keeping score. It’s about plotting slow, measured revenge.
For my mental health, I changed the news settings on my phone and turned off notifications. I no longer let updates on the apocalypse bombard me non-stop, as they’ve been doing all year. Now if I really want to know about the end times I have to actively open at least two more apps. During the past two weeks, there have been some hours when I don’t even think about doing that. Unless I’m in the bathroom, where I’m afraid that if I stare at that picture of the tree one more time I may crawl under the sink and live there for the rest of my life, which I would accept if I had to but would rather not.
I have also developed uncanny abilities—not exactly superpowers, but I am now able to read entire books while thinking about other things the whole time. When I first realized that this was happening, I would reread the paragraph or two that I’d missed, but my subconscious—or, more specifically, my third eye—told me that it wasn’t necessary, so I just kept reading and thinking and have now read more books than ever before.
I have an over-all sense of stillness now, too. From time to time, I used to enter a room and not remember what I intended to do. This would always lead to a frantic sort of dance, where I would wave my arms around and furrow my brow and, if I still couldn’t remember, run off to another room. But now, like water, I flow into the room and, when I can’t recall why I’m there, I just stand, like a fountain or a still pond or a leaky pipe. I don’t fret; I don’t try to remember; I don’t even feel. I just stand there until someone calls me, I get hungry for a snack, or I notice that I’ve stopped crying.
So download a mediation app if you need it. My life is one long, non-stop, molasses spill of a meditation. But I am humble. I know that I have a ways to go. For some reason, I’m still not completely confident about which light switches do what. I want light but I get fan. And my flossing hasn’t improved. But who needs teeth anymore?
Om.
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