Love my suffering? I’m not sure I’m quite up to that yet. Today has not been a bad day, it’s just a day, like any other that came with it’s own challenges and it’s own frustrations. It includes people not behaving in ways I think they should, doing things that I don’t like. It has me suffering from the attachments I made to specific outcomes, to ‘things and people as they should be – according to me”. It involves setbacks, my own and other’s. It has me spending a tremendous amount of time and energy on things I’d rather not be doing.

In other words, it’s just a day.

Look To This Day

Look to this day:
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of your existence.
The bliss of growth,
The glory of action,
The splendour of achievement
Are but experiences of time.

For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision;
And today well-lived, makes
Yesterday a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well therefore to this day;
Such is the salutation to the ever-new dawn!

– Kalidasa

It’s just a day, and in the end I get to choose how it affects me. That’s pretty much the sum total of what I can control today, and everyday. I can see what is beautiful, even in – especially in, the midst of suffering. “The bliss of growth, the glory of action” it’s all here, even when I don’t (won’t) see it. There is always more love, I may not always notice, but there it’s always there.

So today, the world is not as I would want it, so I will sit and drink my coffee slowly. I will eat small bites of very dark chocolate, letting it’s bitter-sweetness melt on my tongue. I will make a bowl of calorie laden macaroni and cheese and pour lots of hot sauce on it, and eat it cross legged on the carpet in front of the fire. I will read poetry from worn out and well loved books. I will talk to my dog about the bird-feeder and the state of the snow covered garden, and he will wag his tail and tilt his head to the side to show me that this too is fascinating and important to him. Later I may even tell him about my worries and my fears, and this he will take sagely and without judgement. Today I will think of my lover’s strong and safe arms, and I will close my eyes and rest my head and my heart there.

“There will be bad days.

Be calm.

Loosen your grip, opening each palm,

slowly now – let go.”