Adventure and Non-Attachment
Earlier this summer, I was getting the desire for change. I felt the time was coming for me to be more nomadic. As that desire stirred, my first instinct was to give up my home in New Orleans and move about. I set a firm move-by date for August 31st. But as the summer wore on, I began to notice I wasn't feeling too jazzed about that hard date. And no interesting opportunities or ideas were bubbling up as far as what to do. It all felt very rigid.
That's where I caught myself. If life's feeling rigid, it's usually a sign that we're holding too tight and we're too attached to a specific outcome. When it doesn't go the way we planned, we suffer.
So I backed up. I didn't give up my apartment. I had no idea what I was doing for the fall after having it in my head that I'd be gallivanting about. A few days later, at the end of August, a hurricane came. I packed up a week's worth of clothes and left New Orleans. A week after the storm, my family and I had relocated to western North Carolina. It was there that some ideas started bubbling up...
What if I stayed in North Carolina for a bit?
I'm not too far from New York, why not head up to the city?
Now that I think of it, I have some friends in Maine who've been wanting me to visit.
Effortlessly, spontaneously these ideas floated into my head. And they all made sense; one lining up after the next. The next day, someone emailed me out of the blue and asked if I was teaching in NC anytime soon. Now I was.
And so it unfolded. What was supposed to be an evacuation for a few days turned into a two month adventure. The adventure that I desired. I spent two wonderful weeks in NYC; I caught up with friends, I posed for an artist, and I got to sit under my old marquee on the 4th anniversary of my last show on Broadway. Elegantly organized.
I climbed the highest peak in Maine and walked alongside thru-hikers on the final miles of the Appalachian Trail. They'd been walking for over 6 months and 2,000 miles. I looked out on valleys completely covered in the most vibrant reds, oranges, and yellows. A park ranger said, "you couldn't have planned your timing any better." No, I couldn't have.
I saw a memorial for a kite-flyer and I made it to a lighthouse on a ragged cliff. It was the easternmost point of the US. I stopped in Philadelphia and had time with a dear friend as she neared the due date of her first child. We laughed and reminisced as we got her home ready for baby.
And each step of the way, I crossed paths with those looking to meditate. After each course wrapped up, many commented on how easily it all organized. How it couldn't have been planned or timed any better. No, it couldn't have.
And so I sit here now, smiling at what's unfolded. How Nature nudged me in the proper direction and I responded accordingly. Those early summer desires to leap, to move, were sound. My overplanning was not. Non-attachment isn't detachment. It's not that we don't care. Our desires are simply little tugs of intuition, nudging us towards where we're needed. When we get a desire, we act. But we aren't concerned with how it all plays out in terms of timing or details. Or even if that desire gets achieved.
The moment I stopped being so rigid, it all organized better than I ever could've planned. This is our practice. Each day, we're practicing letting go; not being so rigid. Soon enough, we're pros at it. And we elegantly slink into a life that's better than we ever could've imagined.
Ease up, let go, and watch what happens.