Collecting Waves

On this fine day I am collecting shells to send to that man. I sent one from another part of the world a while back and come to find out he went to that beach, or somewhere close to it.

Now, I can't honestly say that he got the first shell, I should really check under my desk or in a drawer. So I can't say his trip to the beach is related, but I'm refining my strategy and I will send him oyster shells from the beach under my window. I could use the blessing of Yemaya, the African delta goddess, and Yemaya loves oysters.

My neighbor David is sitting in our yard next to the water. He's watching sailors in thick weather gear race their bathtub boats. It's a warm day but I'll guess the splash of that water is not warm at all.

David says it's his wife who collects shells around the world. He tells me he collects waves and when I realize he is being poetic, I also realize he is talking about surfing.

My sister was the surfer in our family until she read somewhere that every single surfer has had at least one brush with a shark. She is vain and would not consider a sport that could leave her armless or legless. Now she keeps a picture of a shark in a huge wave as her screensaver and as a reminder to her sons that neither of them is allowed to surf, either.

David tells me he won a surfing contest 20 years ago in Nantucket for riding a few long curls in a headstand. He was in his 60's at the time. He'd consider surfing again, he goes on, but probably give up the headstand trick.

The thing in surfing, and in sailing, he tells me, is to listen to the nuances that carry your craft. So much like life, I think, heading as I am into a long week of interviews.

I could sit with him all day, but in flipflops, my enthusiasm for this early spring afternoon is giving way to a chill. I leave David and climb the steps remembering I must dry the shells before I mail them.

Travelers

I would not have seen him last night had Suvisa not gotten on the elevator next to me after work. I would not have gotten to zazen before the zendo doors shut. And I would not have found myself walking down Park Avenue afterwards.

She left the elevator galloping. But instead of running all the way to the train, which I would have missed, I was lifted by this tiny Thai zephyr to a shuttle bus that set us neatly under the arriving platform. Suvisa informed me, in very short order, that we have probably been friends for a very long time: many lives and more. Maybe Thais talk like that.

A little bit about Suvisa: she's in her 20's, has finished her PhD in Tokyo on foreign exchange valuations, has visited 44 countries, 35 of the United States, is on national teams in a couple of competitive realms. And, she plays those really big Japanese drums. As she herself is not so big I think this must be quite a sight.

I learned much more though because she's a talker, and she talked all the way to Grand Central. And, to be fair, I asked her lots about herself and her dreams and her Buddhism.

And, as my friend for many lifetimes, who realized that maybe she had only 45 minutes to reconnect, to share some goodness until our next visit in some upcoming lifetime, she also gave me some things to think about. About change and love and parents and success and sadness, and her trip to Japan in April for the cherry blossoms.

And she gave me a Buddhist image that is very important to her.

She held her hand out as we sat on the rocking Express, and said "Imagine I am holding a very sharp rock in my hand. If I squeeze the rock very hard, what will happen to my hand? And if I let the rock go what happens? I am the only one who can control whether I squeeze or let go. You have to let things go. There's no point in squeezing the rock."

There was more, but not mine to say.

Taking up with someone, a stranger, sharing a conversation, a train ride, is not something commuters often do. When we travel, though, we're much better at gathering experiences, connections, thoughts - taking pictures for the family websites, and noticing the moments we'll talk about at the water cooler.

But Stamford is my Paris this year. I get strange looks when I say that, but I'm quite serious. Absent any real means to travel, I have decided to enjoy the explorer's mindset in my own neck of the woods, and in the people immediately around me.

The dharma talk after zazen was about how physics can map stuff that is of neither space nor time and while we sit zazen and focus on each immediate moment we paradoxically tap into the placeless and timeless that we are so essentially of. And how love does the same thing. I was not taking notes, but I think that's what he said.

With Suvisa's words ringing my head and zazen embracing my shoulders, I walked back to Grand Central. And I thought I saw him on Park Avenue. And somehow, without letting go of my love, which I could no more do than I could release myself from my soul, I released the strain associated with that love.

And that actually lasted deep into the next morning near my third cup of coffee. But it's not lost on me that I have no business being in love with this man. That's the crazy part. We've shared no more than an hour-and-a-half on some bar stools a couple of years ago in a foreign city. Strike that. He was 20 minutes late. We shared an hour and 10 minutes sum total.

I think we both would like to have shared more. And so this path of mine keeps curling over his. Maybe he is someone else I have known over many lifetimes. And maybe I recognize him in this lifetime by that look on his face.