how to find your "is"

i'm going to pretend for a moment that i'm wholly secure, holy right, wholly whole. i'm going to see whales in my writing and little translucent snails born just this morning sliding along new pavement. if i focus on one little thing, one wee, inside-out snail gaining over an ever so slight dull gray rigidity, if i see its flesh tensioning over each incline and compressing in the lows, if i listen for the soft, steady grate of friction sending out minute, bitty sound waves, if i taste the slick goo as the pavement would, feel it encasing me and preserving me like a transient wet wax, if i plod along in my new day, with my new body in a mist as new and old to me as all memory, i realize i can shut everything else out. the world becomes mangageable. this seems like such an obvious and maybe even a childish thing to do, but what power lies in the specific!

my life, i feel, is forced upon me in abstract terms, in future possibilities or obligations, in patterns and hypotheticals and stereotypes. what a liquid diet of living! i feel much too alive to want to pare down my experiences to such fluid and ever decreasing tangibility. when i focus, truly focus, i see so many things. i feel so much of life passes by without being thoroughly examined. sure, one cannot devote 100% of one's attention to every detail in a life, however, i find it useful to return to the specific, to see, really see and feel and smell and taste what surrounds you. in these days of my uncertain future (and by "these days", i mean the rest of my days), i realize that it is important to become totally aware of something. pick something small, something you may not normally pay any mind to, and think about it, not only think about it, feel it. imagine that you are that thing and you are everything that relates to that thing. basically, take yourself out of yourself for a while.

i like to stare at things, stare at people, stare at posters, stare at the water marks left by a sweating glass. i like to feel the water, feel the table, know how the ridges on my finger tips manipulate the liquid, how the water moves, how much is taken up by my own skin and how much is taken by the table. once i've focused on something, i'm there and all the abstract issues of my life, where i'm going, what i'm doing, who i am, what my purpose is, they are all answered. it's simple. i'm here, i'm writing with the water on this table. i'm typing on this keyboard, i'm seeing through this screen and feel the warm but blustery wind of kawaihae on my face, i see the plastic cups holding ice water, i feel the wooden chair, i remember what i imagined while staring into the washed out posters of corona and tequila. because when i focus, i'm there, this is what i'm doing, this is who i am, and my purpose is simply...

so if i stare off, or i sniff the air or i grind my teeth or feel the surfaces of leaves, if i see whales in my writing and imagine a kind hand running it's fingers through my hair, i'm not dreaming, i'm remembering what it means to live. i'm not escaping, i'm going places, because there's so much more to life than all those abstracts, all those expectations, all that stress about things that are so far removed from what they are. i feel like sometimes i don't see clearly. i'm in a haze of what i'm supposed to do or where i'm supposed to be, or the money i'm not making, the choices i'm not taking, the relationships i'm not building or maintaining, the time i'm not using well, the not NOTS of everything. but the thing i realize is, it's not about the "not's", it's about the "is". how do you get to your is? i focus, i live in the specific, i live, i live.