Like right now—I’m not meditating, but I’m trying to write, and there’s a car parked in front of our house with a woman inside it. And this woman has been sitting in there on a conference call on speaker phone for upwards of twenty minutes, and I want her to turn off her engine and turn her speaker’s volume down / really I just want her to leave.
But then I shift my ears (metaphorically) and hear— just behind her car’s engine and speaker— the big road south of my house, and how loud that is, and I know that once this car moves, the road will take over as “sound that is distracting me from my peaceful writing experience on the porch.”
And I can tell that this anger, this distraction, is founded upon a deeper belief— that I deserve quiet. Why? Because I have been thinking of writing / planning to write / trying to and then stopping for most of the day? I didn’t write this morning and though I tell myself a story that blames the world and errands and phone calls for that, it is not true. I could have carved / created more space and so really: my anger at the car is perhaps misdirected anger, anger at myself for not writing this morning, anger at myself for getting distracted by the car’s noise, by the world itself.
This world:
which is so much inspiration and distraction to the square inch
so much heartbreak and disgust and confusion
too much luck
not enough quiet.
Prompts and thoughts:
When was the last time you were angry?
What belief was this built upon?
What is there not enough of?