Dade County Chronicles 12.25.15

Despite running around yesterday, working out at the gym for two hrs, and a lack of sleep, I was wide awake (as usual) on Christmas Eve. I laid in bed 100% alert, blinking in the dark, listening to every passing car. Some childhood habits are hard wired and anticipating presents is one of them, even when there are no presents to open. I slid off the bed and on to the floor in front of my altar. I started meditating on renunciation while lying there, bringing it all into this darkened room, those relatives from childhood fading away, seeing friends getting gray while chasing that desert mirage, strangers falling down in mid lunge for the latest appliance, anger and rage for things unfulfilled, and numbness/boredom/depression for the things that are attained. An image of Kurt Cobain flashed from a doc on HBO, then corpulent Brando, skeletal Michael Jackson, drowned Whitney, and then grandparents, friends, so-called enemies, strangers. I sat up on a cushion and meditated on bodhichitta. Don't let me waste this moment. Everything is so fragile, all those baby pics of me and that person is not here, that child is 100% gone without one cell left, it all leaves, stop expecting material fulfillment, its never happened for anyone. Let go. I started feeling lighter just giving it all away. And then it was Christmas, I slipped back down on to the carpet, faded into sleep. Then the sun started shining through the blinds. Christmas morning.