Recently, I went on vacation with my two boys and my partner, Mike. Through the incredible generosity of some family friends of Mike’s, we got to stay for seven magnificent days at their beautiful and spacious camp on Brassau Lake in Northern Maine. The scene was idyllic: a large outdoor porch with comfortable seating sat atop a modest hill overlooking the lake. There was an open lawn, and a private dock with a float perfect for swimming and shallow diving, as well as access to canoes, kayaks, a motor boat, and a shed full of extra accoutrements, including a skeet thrower, which we made ample use of during the latter half of the week.
The first day we were there, my younger son and I took one of the canoes out for a paddle around the lake. He had been attempting without much success to fish off the end of the dock. I had suggested taking the canoe out to deeper waters so he could try his hand at fishing out there. The lake was calm and glassy, with the sun shining overhead: perfect for a paddle.
As we made our way out from the dock, beginning by taking a starboard tack ( so to speak) and hugging the shoreline, I felt everything begin to fall away. All of the baggage, both literally and figuratively, that I had brought with me to Brassau gently began to crumble. As I am sure many of you can commiserate with, it takes a lot of work to have fun: planning the meals, doing the grocery shopping, packing the coolers, getting the fishing gear together, loading the bikes, the dogs ( and all their gear – food, medications, first aid kit and the like), clothing, swimming gear, etc. It’s a wonder we as a species have survived so long with all the stuff that we seem to need just to exist, never mind relax and have fun.
But as I moved slowly along the shoreline with my son, all of that just seemed to melt away. The peace of just being with my son, not even talking, just feeling the joy of his company, watching him cast his pole as we leisurely cruised a shoreline of muddy banks and whitewashed tree trunks and loads and loads of tall, fragrant pine trees, was suddenly, just simply, enough. And as we unhurriedly abandoned the shoreline and made our way out to deeper water, my attention came to rest on something so apparently obvious, something so seemingly benign and passe, as to be easily overlooked, yet something that felt so resplendent, so rich with joy that it seemed improbable that something this simple could make me so exquisitely happy: the now, the immediate present, the immediate moment, here, in the middle of this beautiful lake, with my son, silent, spacious and quiet. And suddenly something deep within me dropped and fell away, and in its place, was a space: a space that seemed to have no differentiation between that which was within, and that which was without. And in that space, I felt ( yes, felt, not heard) something say: This is what is. This is all that is. This is all that remains. And in the silence of myself I became aware that I was being gifted a moment of grace. Something was trying to get me to understand that if I could just stop the endless chatter in my brain, the endless “to do” list that is always running, the endless struggle: pay the mortgage, balance the accounts, pay the bills, fight the raise in property taxes, get the applications done, the forms submitted, check the email, check the snail mail, clean the house, do the laundry, pack the lunches, plan the meals, do the work out, go for a run, make the call backs, go to work ( which has a pressing “to do” list all its own), make sure I meditate and write in my journal, etc, etc, etc. If I could just STOP that incessant jabbering in my mind which really was about NOTHING AT ALL, all I had left was PEACE. All that remained, and all that ever was, was PEACE. When I emptied my mind, all that remained, was PEACE. And in that peace, was FREEDOM.
On the ride home from Brassau, as I was reflecting on our week there and the canoe ride I so enjoyed with my son, I felt a gentle challenge arise within myself. Would it be possible to live my life, doing all the things that need to be done, without the incessant prattling on in my brain? Without the anticipatory anxiety that piggy backs the endless “to do” list which is always all about the future, and never about the present? As I was contemplating this thought, I realized that to open myself to that invitation would likely make me a much happier person. And as I rolled that thought over in my mind, I was reminded of a quote I had read many years ago from Ramana Maharshi:
Let what comes come.
Let what goes go.
Find out what remains.