Memento Mori
It was a brilliant few weeks in Israel with Sage and the beloved extended family. We celebrated the wedding of my most funky and beautiful niece Leor and her equally hippy-acious and delightful amor, Barak. But I am not getting into that now. Suffice to say, it was all I could have wished for. For Sage and for myself.
Now I am sitting quietly, choosing to procrastinate, not re-engaging with my routine, here within these four mortgaged walls. ‘Mortgaged’ meaning, I need to get back to work. Riding lessons pick up at 4.30. PTO meeting at 7pm.
Is it always like this? The post-party blues?
What would I offer my clients arriving home after a love fest? Sit with the hangover. Make space for it. Stay snug, have another cup of tea, do nothing, try doing that even mindfully?
After the tea, perhaps write something around this malaise. A journal or a blog. That will flick you out of the vacation hangover.
I am trying. This is it. Up until now, I have slipped away a dozen times to scan my news feed and email. What is with this AI that knows me better than I know myself. It is an unfair fight to stay focused when AI reads my mind.
It knows that focus is a discomfort. That I will be complicit in my distraction. I am a sitting duck!
We just had our Passover Seder which syncs up nicely with other Abrahamic faith celebrations this year. All of us Muslims, Christians and Jews share some avoidant values. Don’t be selfish, shun violent competition, steer away from the deadly sins of greed and avarice. We also generally like the idea of separating church and state (since the Reformation at least), of having access to our scriptures in a language we understand, of having direct relations with the Creator however imagined.
So then, how is it that I am plugged into Amazon Prime Delivery, I live in the most acquisitive, consumptive society in the history of the world. Our naked market economy is founded on amoral, ruthless competition, self interest, bloated appetites.
Can you see where my mind is going? Dark and dank. Perfect word DANK. Good for musty, humid shadowy caves, walls lined with cockroaches.
All I really need right now is a little reassurance from my future.
Not my present. The tea is cold but on by my laptop.
Not my past. The photos of floating in the Dead Sea create my memory.
I need a whisper from my future that all is well over there. Health, family, friends, clean air, blessed earth, soft rain, shared love and spring dance.
Tell me that they are going to be OK.
I was reading recently of the Roman Generals returning after successful conquests, being celebrated grandly in the streets of Rome, employing by their side a warrior to keep repeating “Mememto Mori” (Remember, you are mortal). That way the general would stay grounded and connected. The hubris of victory would not delude him into believing he is somehow immune to decay and finitude.
My very own Memento Mori steward has at me too. He stirs up an answer from my future... Plain and simple he tells me, “Your demand for reassurance will never be satisfied, so get used to it. And get going.”
