Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Breaking up in the Temple of Doom


“But I love you,” I said again hoping that she would change her mind, knowing she wouldn't.

She told me she loved me too, but it wasn’t working out. It didn’t feel right or some bullshit like that. It doesn't matter anymore.

She put her hand on my chest and the pain I felt was unbearable. She kept talking. I don’t know what she said; all I heard was “Kali ma. Kali ma. Kali ma shakti de.” She leaned in to give me a parting kiss and when she turned to leave she held my heart in her hand.
 

Monday, September 22, 2014

Are you talking to me?

Lip biting
She didn’t have to speak. Her lascivious smile and the prurient way she moistened her lips with her almost-too-pink tongue said everything. I stood, poised to make my move, then quickly sat back down. She was looking at the guy behind me.


Monday, September 8, 2014

Blech, Eww, Yuck


20071031fearfactor.jpg
I couldn’t remember how I got here; my mind racing to recall the suppressed details. What was at stake? Did I have to go on or should I just give up now. My intestines knotted from the smell. Curse you Joe Rogen.
 

Friday, September 5, 2014

Campfire

Campfire
Friday Fictioneers prompt for September 5, 2014 ©Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

We sat by the campfire and we were all taken in by the cacophonous crackle of capricious combustion. John told inappropriate jokes that were utterly obfuscated by one too many horizontal meters of beer – which is to say one horizontal meter of beer. My knees burned because they were somehow, through the contorted way I sat on the camping chair, the closest part of my body to the flames. Tired of John’s incoherent babbling, I contemplated how a few inches can reduce the heat exponentially and how my own hands could be used as a heat shield; as if I just discovered that
q = ε σ (Th4 - Tc4) Ac.

Monday, September 1, 2014

Goodbye



The breeze carried something with it as it ruffled the bedroom curtains; unwanted, yet inevitable. The summer ended and with it the dream. It was time for autum reality and responsibility, time to leave behind carefree and wonderment. Maybe again next summer.




Monday, August 25, 2014

Secret Grammar Police



Nobody remembers how it all started, but it was about thirteen years ago. I can’t go on living in this constant fear. They lurk in the shadows waiting for the slightest mistake. We need to stop running. We need to fight back.

 

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Expectations


 
My experiences with Buddhism are very limited. I sat with a Zen group for a few years, decided to take the ten precepts, and became a Buddhist. Shortly after I became a Buddhist the group I sat with changed and there were expectations of the members. These expectations were not easily met. They expected time and service that, with family obligations, were unrealistic. I withdrew from the group and stopped meditating – the second of which I regret.

It is expectations that I have been struggling with of late – mine and others. I try not to have expectations. I am nowhere near perfect with this, but I try. I find that expectations lead to disappointment much more frequently than they lead to delight. As a brief example, my 4-year-old has an expectation about how his sandwich should be cut – on the diagonal or straight across. If I cut it the right way everything is fine. No delight; just fine. If I cut it the wrong way there is major disappointment. If he did not have an expectation as to how his sandwich was cut there would never be this disappointment.

Often times, when I am going to be involved in something of any importance, I run through the situation in my head. I script the event. I build the perfect situation leading to the most desirable outcome. Clearly, this will not lead to good things. I have set the bar at an unattainable height and anything short of that is going result in disappointment. I try not to do that. I am often unsuccessful.

In my experience, Zen teaches complete mindfulness about what you are doing. At this moment, I am writing this post. I have no image of the result; no expectation of its quality or its length. Because of that, I am not worrying about how this post is going to turn out; I am just writing it. That is not to say that I will not bother to edit it before I post it or that I do not care about its quality. Far from it, but the experience of writing this loses something if my mind is occupied with those things.

I am not am not an expert with this, but I find that when I try to be fully in the experience of what I’m doing and I have no expectation for the result that I am happier for it. When you have expectations about something, you prevent yourself from fully experiencing your life at that moment. This happens because you are now comparing what is happening to what you what wanted to happen. By making this comparison you are now split. Part of you is experiencing and part of you is analyzing.  At the very best the reality and your expectation coincide perfectly, but you are only half experiencing it. More likely, however, you realize that the reality does not coincide with your expectations and you are disappointed.

What happens if you remove the expectation and live fully in the moment? Now you can fully enjoy the experience for what it is—ideal or not. But also, you remove (or at least significantly reduce) the possibility of a bad experience by never setting the bar at all.