Depression Hurts! Yeah. Its kind of like that.

He wore a knit cap which he removed in perfect unison with his slide into the booth opposite mine. His dark hair revealed the typical bed head of a hat that had been worn all day and I felt a laugh stumble through me. His hair rose to a point like that of the old SNL character Ed Grimley. I half expected him to get up from his seat and do the Martin Short dance. I didn't want it to look like I was staring at him, perhaps projecting some of my own pet peeve (What the fuck are you looking at?)  but I was. Kind of. Sip my beer. Glance. Bite of my burger. Stare. You know the drill.
And then he did the unexpected.
He reached slowly into the inside pocket of his coat and began to pull out something from deep within when the waitress came by to take his order. He waved her off saying that he was waiting for someone and that he would order when they arrived. Blah, blah, blah. His hand slid a little deeper and he pulled out..............a lemon. A bright yellow lemon. He placed it up to his mouth and bit the skin just enough to reveal the peeling point. Slowly, methodically, with a religious like stare of his own, he began to peel the lemon like a sculptor who is busy uncovering his art with chisel and stone. With the peel completely removed I could smell the pungent sour from where I sat. After the initial shock, it smelled like Lemon Pledge. Smelled like Saturday at Mom's house.
He pulled the fragrant flesh apart and slipped section by section into his unwavering mouth. The smell of the lemon, seeing him chew piece by piece just as a child eats an orange, made my face scrunch up and my mouth water. I had to look away.
Yeah. Its kind of like that!
My peripheral vision signaled that someone was walking by and through force of habit I looked up to see who it might be. The smell of Jasmine, like sweet tea struck my nostrils and here was this girl who had stopped to ask me for directions, or for advice, or for what time it was. It was all the same. I had no idea at first, what she was asking. All I knew was that she had stopped and that she smelled great. Her hair was the shade of red that either signaled shouts of horror to your brain or shouts of exhilaration like fireworks on the Fourth of July. All depending of course on the arrangement of all her celebratory bangs and booms. And this girl was packaged just fine. Like a professionally wrapped present on Christmas or like a new car. (or a new Ford Raptor) All her parts were in all the right places. Her eyes, her smile, the slight tilt of her head as she talked. She wore a tight white tee shirt tucked into hip revealing jeans. Her laugh was equal to fine spun silk. Her smell like the greatest introduction to the birds and the bees. My knees were weak. Perhaps so in preparation to sending all that much needed blood flow elsewhere.
Yeah. Its kind of like that!
Increased awareness through meditation practice can often lead to a slowing. To a way of slowing things down so that you can look, learn, and investigate the process of how your thoughts can effect the weather of your mind. And in much the same way that we may be aggravated by a rainy day on the day of the office picnic, we let it come, and be, and pass away. In other words, we don't lock horns with the universe over how our lives were ruined by the loss of free beer and BBQ chicken and watching the boss make a jerk of himself. Dude! Let it go!
Many of you are now aware that I am in the process of a painful separation and divorce. I can recall from my days of working within the Mental Health system, teaching discussions on the intricate web woven by those clients who had been diagnosed as suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder. The humor here, if there is any to be found, is that the spider, who creates the web rarely suffers; it is the spider's prey that is doing the suffering. And for many years the fly in the web was me.
Since fleeing the web, I experience less pain. I laugh more. I experience hope. I am healthier. There is color returning to my beard and to my life.
My wife has been in the process of moving out for several months. I refused to leave my home of thirty years which I have so dearly paid for and maintained. Last week she was arrested for the second time for domestic assault and the court placed a No Contact Order upon her. For over a week I have been living through the generosity of a dear friend away from my home while I have graciously allowed my wife to stay in the house until her new apartment is ready. I pay 100% of all the home's expenditures while she has continued in her quest to destroy my belongings, threaten and humiliate me, and enjoy the warmth and hospitality of free heat, lodging, and television. She has run the upstairs heat too high which has allowed the famous New England winter to create ice dams which have in turn created a water leak in my dining room ceiling. Today I received word that she has run out of oil ( I had 100 gallons delivered three weeks ago) She is planning to be out within the week and my daughter expressed concern that the pipes might freeze if she does not have oil delivered.
The sky looked expansive and deep blue. Looking upward you felt comforted like a chick in the brood or like an apple in a pie. Everything was right with the world. The observant eye witnessed the increase  of wind through the trees. In a short time the leaves began to show their silver underbellies in anticipation of the chance of rain. The birds seemed to go home early, dashing this way and that, echoing the buildup of the darkening clouds in the western sky. The blue turned to a deep purple and then to black. Lightening flashed and thunder boomed in deafening tones like God's mighty army descending upon the earth. The rains came in great volume. Roads and back yards flooded. Corn and tomato plants flattened in the field. And then the rain stopped. The damage was accessed. The sun came out. The sky looked expansive and blue.
Yeah. Its kind of like that!