This week…

…has been a bit challenging.  I’ve had a low grade version of flu, which has sapped all my energy. I’m feeling shabby and may not make it to see my students graduate. I also managed, the previous week, to trip over a bicycle I was fettling and I twisted my hand badly. Usually when I have a cold I can still potter and do things, but this time I can’t.

So when I’m in a space of healing, when I can’t do all the things I normally do, who am I?

It’s not an idle question. Joseph Campbell was famously asked “Who are you between two thoughts?” and he found that to be a very revealing inquiry. Who are we when we’re not being our habitual selves? For Campbell thinking was what he did most of the time.

I’ve discovered that I miss my old busy self. My Salvadoran friends call me the Bumble Bee because I’m always doing things. Now I can’t. This slight sadness is offset by something gentler: I can just be, observe, be gently happy, and not try to do anything. I have no one I need to impress, not even myself. Nothing urgent needs to be done.

And in this place the world becomes unimaginably beautiful.