“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.” – Rainier Maria Rilke

Yesterday as I was meditating, my daughter came downstairs and interrupted me. She said she was scared about school. Given that it was only her 3^rd Monday since in-person school started, it’s not a surprise. But my meditation time is sacred to me. I’ve found essential in helping me fill my pool of grace for the day so after I held her for a moment, I told her she could snuggle on the couch while I meditated. After a couple quiet minutes, she asked what I was reading. I didn’t answer. After a couple more quiet minutes, she said meditating reminded her about the small greenhouse they made at school. Instead of finding my calm, my whole system was on overdrive. I felt protective over my space and time that have so little of. I felt angry that I’d gotten up early and couldn’t even control my own experience for a few minutes. I couldn’t believe I let her be there in clear violation of the rule to wait until her clock turns yellow and then she made it about her.

And then when I reached that last feeling, the one about her making it all about her, I realized I had just lit up like a string of Christmas lights as my meditation teacher, Deirdre, likes to say. I connected a single experience with a whole chain reaction that had mostly to do with my ex-husband. He was a master of taking something that I wanted to do like hiking and make it all about him. He’d say “Let’s go!” But then he’d say we couldn’t drive to far so he could be back to watch a golf tournament on tv. And then he’d dilly dally getting ready because he couldn’t find his favorite socks. Then we’d finally get into the car and he’d need to stop so he could get a double-tall latte. When we finally get hiking, he’d go about half a mile and say he didn’t want to go much farther because he didn’t want to be sore the next day.

While I assume it’s completely natural for a 5-year-old to make things all about her, it was a tiring for a 30-something man to do the same. But what interested me about yesterday is that nine years after I ended that relationship and many years since lost its hold on my heart and mind space, that something simple could light me up like those proverbial Christmas lights. AND that it could do that while I was meditating to restore inner calm is the ironic icing on the cake.

The only fix I have is to unplug the string. To see the trigger and in recognizing it, steal its power. My daughter and I have been reading Harry Potter. They have an incantation, “riddikulus” that turns something scary into something funny. And maybe in doing that, I can reach a new level of meditation, one where I can do it when everything isn’t calm and quiet but even a little unsettled as well.