infiltration

in the water cycle (per 3rd grade science curriculum), there are six stages: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, surface runoff, infiltration, and transpiration... infiltration involves water seeping into the ground.

***

the other day (was it yesterday?) after i parked my car over at my parents' to pick up my children, i noticed the sound of rainwater flowing into the gutters. i could hear the sound of the water right at my feet falling underground, certainly, but within the hollows of the gutter, i could also hear "other waters" flowing in dark places deep underground, the sounds reverberating. the sound made me think of those occasions when my friends and i explored pieces of the rain drainage system under mililani, wandering in those pitch black tunnels...

***

i think of self esteem quite often, in regards to the children and patients and students i deal with on a daily basis, but also, and most particularly, in regards to myself. i've heard a variety of metaphors of what self esteem is that serve to explain how it influences behavior; for example, richard lavoire's gambling chips. but a lot of those metaphors have failed to express what i have experienced, the persistent, haunting, hollow nature of low self-esteem...

i think, for some people, there is an acute awareness that the world is hollow. perhaps, as a child, they must have fallen into that other, dark world, covered over by the world where everyone else walks and trusts the ground they walk on. perhaps they even wandered for a time in the darkness, unable to find their way back. maybe they even saw something there that changed their life forever. in any case, when they returned to the surface world, they brought with them an indelible awareness that the world above was indeed just the surface, that, every footstep they made caused echoes in unseen places...

***

you can build and build and build and build, but when the rain comes, you will hear the truth of everything, that it all falls down again, pulled relentlessly into the darkness...

***

the one redeeming factor of carrying a personal "hollow" within is that it makes one aware of the hollowness of others. paradoxically, ironically, the compassionate thing to do is to always keep others from becoming similarly aware of their secret hollows. it is a relentless cover-up of their faults, their imperfections, even or especially when they are aware of them. it is to encourage them, despite a burgeoning awareness of the emptiness, that they are something else besides, that edifices and foundations exist that will allow them to build and become something great, or at least, something greater.

at least, this is the "superficially compassionate" thing to do. it is to be a figurative manhole cover.

for those who are strong enough, perhaps it would be best to point out the hollowness, and set another's soul to wrestle with it and develop their own personal "re-solutions" anew...

***

i remember asking shodo-san how i could stop hating myself. i think i phrased the question (with my clumsy japanese) in terms of good and bad, or right and wrong. i think i said that, no matter what i did or where i went or who i was with or whatever, it was never good enough. there was always my shadow following alongside, waiting for me to catch a glimpse of it, so it could laugh and remind me who i always, always, always would be: a little child lost in the darkness.

i told shodo-san that i just wanted it to stop, that part of my reason for seeking enlightenment (or even a watered down version of it) was that i wanted things to just be what they were, without all the endless self-incriminations and irrationality dragging me down and away.

i wanted, in short, to be happy.

shodo, in his characteristically matter-of-fact way, attempted to dissolve my problems via a koan of sorts, by telling me that "good" and "bad" were not places, so how was it ever possible that i would arrive?

and when i am strong, i think this way. i "non-identify" or "non-attach." the so-called shadow, the so-called hollow world, the so-called surface world, all of these conceptualizations and distinctions do not ultimately exist. the only thing i need pay attention to is the matter-at-hand, and how i may best "do" or "express" this moment: paying bills, writing, sleeping, laughing... in other words, when i am strong, i have nothing to say. i just live. (kind of nietzchean)

when i am weak, as happens frequently lately, then i ruminate, i search for relief and distraction. i think. i write. as i am doing now.

***

soon, it will be a year since my grandmother passed. on occasion, i look at her picture and wonder how strange it is that someone so vital could disappear. and i get to hating myself that i don't feel the loss more. that i don't feel much of anything...

i also wonder (superficially) about my sister. about those who really suffer. about suffering all around. and how i'm doing so very little about it. and how i am so weak and ineffectual at handling those who are already in my charge.

the spin cycle goes around and around.

there is the sleep of the just.

there must be.

***

i hear my daughter sniffling, my son snoring, my wife's even breathing. i will protect their sleep, as i wander these halls in the darkness.