Chance = Change

...and as corny as that may sound, it's a conclusion reached this morning, thinking about all the comments I got to my last blog entry...both online and on the phone..thanks for them all..Aleta, how good of you to be supportive and kind with the wonderful things you say....Chase, your enthusiasm for life and NYC will pay off in a big way as you move on to the things you are meant to do both in this City and elsewhere...stay open, stay excited, and creativity will guide you everywhere you want ...Richard...okay, okay, so "sensorilly"is not a word...but it should be one, right? Like i said: creative word-smithing.....and finally, dearest Drew: i stay strong and forge ahead...and as I do, I will have to experience the world around me as i experience it. I am not a New Yorker..and I am not a Virginian either...i am, we are...the world, and we are, we have to be, there for each other wherever we are. (whatever that means) So what am I to do when I see the 4th or the 10th (!) homeless person begging for money and food on the subway? What I am to feel when the woman, so obviously deranged, comes barefoot (it's 23 degrees outside the subway station, and barely warmer inside ) to the subway car and dances in front of me? I used to struggle with these questions before I went to Virginia....and the powerlessness I felt enraged me..and now, though my Buddhist practise helps me see it all in a different light, assists me in many ways, I have not yet been able to stop the feelings of sadness and horror that come up in me as a result of what I see. And it does feel like an assault on me...i do take it personally. It hurts to see it, hurts to feel it. And yes, my first desire at the moment is to go hide under covers. To retreat. The other end of the action spectrum is to give every one of the struggling people all the available cash I have at the moment....this is not a feeling unique to me...I am reasonably sure most New Yorkers feel such things every single day..it's part of what makes city travel so energy- draining.. it seems, I have not yet been able to go to that place I mostly lived in before Virginia: the place of simply ignoring what was going on around me. Putting up that "glass bubble" (first described to me years ago by dear old pal Tovah Feldshuh as her defense against the city) ...i hear a noise, I turn my head toward it...involuntarily...too much (some would call) wasted action...in that way, I am "victimized" by the City, dear Drew..at it's affect...i remember when the noise was hardly in my consciousness...even going Upstate last week, I heard the Taconic Parkway near the house more than i ever had before....and so, i wonder: is the point to become de-sensitized to it? TO IGNORE? Because after all, what can we do? Or is there something else to do? Is closing off the point? Or is reaching center the best way to go and then act from that center? And then the action will be true? Believe me, I do not know the answer here...and, whether it is comfortable or not, i am conscious and therefore forced to look at the question....