Mu

Fuck, I just need a moment to breathe.

Ugh, these clothing are so oppressive. My body is so oppressive.
Just a moment to breathe. In and out.
I cannot control who reads here anymore than anyone else can control what I write here. Should I use that as a mantra? Maybe that is irrelevant. Maybe it is the wrong statement. Maybe it doesn't fucking matter in the end.

I sit, legs crossed, hands in my lap, feeling the earth beneath me. There is a root growing out from the base of my spine. It winds into the earth, through dirt and clay and rocks, twisting into darkness. The smell of earth and rot and death and life seeps into me, pulses into the furthest regions of me. As I sit, the top of me opens, and parts of me reach high into the sky, arms branching and splitting by twos, twos, twos until it is twenties, all reaching, still reaching for something warm, and reaching for the water too, something bright and comforting and hopeful.

I am a solitary beast. Of both light and darkness.
I growl. I snort. I moo.
Mooo. Mu. Mu.

Mu is a Japanese thing. Or a Buddhist thing. It means no thing. It has an intangible quality in which even saying it is nothing means it is something, but it is the absence of nothing and anything. There is a zen koan in which a monk asks his teacher, Does a dog have Buddha-nature? And the teacher grunts, Mu. And through the years Mu has meant different things in this koan. For a long time it was explained that the answer means that, no, dogs do not have a Buddha nature. But later it has come to mean that you are asking the wrong fucking question.

Do I have a Buddha-nature? Do you write to be read or write to be right? No, I write because I must. It is a compulsion, a disease and a blessing and a friend. If I don't write about my life, I don't write. And if I don't write, I wither. I have no nature, no mu. Or perhaps too much mu.

I am easily wounded. That is something you may not know about me. I am easily wounded. If you use my children against me, I will crumble. If you use my love as a weapon, you will win. Anyone can cut me open, remove my heart, replace it with doubt, but the heart will grow back. It will. The savvy person can hide anger and fear in my own weaknesses and my sins. I am an open fucking book. Here I am, this is me. I am on built on floodlands, stilts are made of guilt and anger, self-loathing and compassion. You can read here and never tell me. You can read here and write a book about it. You can read here and think it is a letter to you. The writer and the reader are only the same once. The reader continues on and on and on until I no longer exist. Until you only read you in these words. But I am an open book. I pretend nothing. I am a drunk. I am La Llorona. I am a mother. A wife. A person on a perpetual diet. I am a sister. I am moody and dark, and also wise and light. I am impatient.

So fucking impatient.

I never sit with the important things. I want to be there, right there, to reassure someone I am not aloof. I don't think I have ever been aloof in my life. I am the opposite of aloof. I am loof. I act on it. It makes me a fool. No matter how damned smart I am, it makes me a fool.

:::

The stillness feels palpable, you know, when I sit. 

It is only a few days. Take the break. Be present with yourself.

But I process everything through writing.

Yes, but maybe that is the problem. It was a problem for someone.

Maybe I can fix it by writing.

You can fix it by not writing. You will have to reconcile the turmoil in your heart. You were a problem long before you wrote a word. You were a problem and the writing was an easy target. You will have to forgive yourself, because acceptance is the answer to all your problems today. 

My fingers are poised over the keyboard. I. Must. Write. Something. What if it hurts to write?

It always hurts to write. That never stopped you before. If you are going to write despite my wisdom, why not pray before you start?

God, help me write something from a place of love. Just one thing. 

Thank you.

I typed thank you. Not fuck you, not something less palatable than even that. Just thank you.  

Thank you is a good start. But who are you thanking?

I don't know. Mu?

I think you need to sit longer.

I think you are right.

But really, thank you. You. You who told me that I can forgive myself, but will still get angry from time to time. You who loved me until I could love myself. You who took a moment to write to me personally, when I was scared and vulnerable.

You wrote, "I don't know what happened, but please remember that this is your community. The power of writing," you explained, "is raw and vulnerable and painful and hard and dark and sometimes unpalatable. We get it. We get you. We have to write in spite of the other people. We have to write because of them. You helped me, Angie," you wrote. "You help me."

And I believe you.

Thank you for reminding me why I write here. Thank you for refocusing me on the reasons I still have this space.