So Dear Reader — this blog here is mostly a mirror of a blog I keep at alana.kpyusa.org, sharing the stories from my practice, in a lose temporal order. However, in the past year, there have been 2 times I shared ‘bonus’ stories, real-time updates about my practice in response to a move I made to New York in late 2016. I have decided to go ahead and include that same material here. So, the next few blogs will be out-of-order and contain reflection from my move and my NY life around 1 year-in.
My Dear Readers, I am going to beg your pardon today and take a break from our regularly scheduled program (a loose chronology of highlights of my dharma practice) in order to write something from the present day. I am in the process of moving, SF to NY, and to be honest, the faithful adherence to an ordered blog is a bit challenging when my stuff, dharma notebook, life and thoughts are all disorderly, strewn about, buried in boxes and so forth. So, at least till the dust settles a bit, you are going to get a preview of whats to come in this blog, i.e. thoughts from the blog’s distant future, my present life.
I have been thinking that moving is a lot like starting a new life, a rebirth. There was a cause to the move, my desire for a better life, to escape things I don’t like and seek out ones I do (in particular, my husband’s old job, which was a huge burden for us both). There was imagination of what it would be like, better, not worse, of course. There is effort, and money, spent to bring the move to fruition. There is the need to rebuild, re-establish my life, my stuff, my sense of self in these new circumstance.
And let me tell you something my friends, this move has been hard. Horribly, terribly hard. Perhaps the details will come in another blog, but suffice it to say, the stress, the effort, the planning, the disappointments have been enormous (ok, one detail, I messed-up a tooth from jaw clenching in my sleep because the noise of honking and sirens and yelling through the night is so stressful). Before, when I imagined all the glitz of a NY life, I didn’t see the dirt, the noise, the crowding, cold, nature-free city I have found myself in. I couldn’t have imagined the work it would take just to move, the struggle to live here, the sense of loss I feel from my old life, and the people in it.
The problem though is I’ll forget. I know I’ll forget, because when I first moved to SF I hated it too. It took time, but I “fell in love” and the horror show it took to build my life there became a distant memory. Sure I know I felt bad at the time, I remember, sort of, but it was worth it right? For the life I eventually built and loved (and then had to leave so quickly…), worth it I’m sure, well sort of, right? For the place that gave me the standards, the ‘norms’ to which I compare my new city and find it so very disappointing (and grey and cold and ungreen and unclean and uneco and unfoodie and unorganic and un friggin NorCal). Worth it…in hind-site, in the haze of amnesia and getting used to things and adjusting and re-imagining that keeps me tied in Samsara (cycle of rebirth). Pain when its raw is so motivational, we all want escape, but as it dulls, as the scar forms, we find a way to move on.
Here in NY the forgetting has already begun. I already find myself adjusting. Finding the noise fades to the background, the dirt becoming less noticeable. Its all better then it was before (my jaw has un-clenched) so it must be all good, right? My expectations, my imagination, adjusting. I get used to it. Familiarity I have come to realize is my nemesis. It makes me forget the pain, it numbs me to the discomfort in the world. It also, as a double F-you, makes the pleasurable less delightful. My first ice cream after being a vegan was the most delicious thing ever, but over time I got used to ice cream again and its just not the heaven-in-my-mouth it was when it was new, unfamiliar.
I however, I don’t want to forget. I don’t want to gloss over my suffering. Its real and it sucks. What it takes to prepare for a new life, to set it all-up just so, to adjust myself, my hopes and dreams its so so hard. And then to tell a story later on that it was all my idea, all under my control, all good in the end, that it was actually fun, built my character, its not true. I don’t want to keep being pushed into a new circumstance by my imagination of what it will be only to be shocked, disappointed and then lulled into complacency as I adjust. I don’t want endless rebirths, thinking each one will be different than the last, that it will be easier, that the trade offs are in my control, that its worth it.
And for all of this, as far from my fantasy as the city has proven to be, did I get what I wanted, a better life? In some ways — my husband’s job, for now at least, seems better and less stressful. But better capital B? How could it be? There are always 2 sides. There are always trade-offs. I imagined only one side (wrong view), knew there would be trade-offs but thought I could hedge, I could control which they were, that things would be on my terms. I was wrong and I feel the sting of it, and the dull ache of an angry tooth…