When There's No Plan B

For the last four months I’ve had visions of Buddhist monks in Himalayan mountains—Bhutan. We were ninety-nine percent sure I’d be there come January. Don’t daydream son. Stay in reality son. Ninety-nine isn’t a hundred.

Idle time at the junior high school, of which there is too much, had me squinting at a laptop screen patched with red robes, and bald heads, and elaborate masks, and mountain homes with wood smoke rising from the roof. The screen flashed and clicked and holograms played in my head and stayed with me long after the Shutdown wheel had disappeared to black.

You should’ve kept your mouth shut. You’ve been working on that—don’t get too excited too fast. Anything can fall through. You know that as well as anyone. Nothing holds. Especially when you cling to it. Why’d you hold so hard? You know better.

That weekend, at home, my phone screen held a blinding white message from would be future employers, with words like regrettably and unfortunate, and like that I had to let go. And when you cling hard, release is painful. You know that well too.

I sat gazing out from my window and sipped tea. Eriko was asleep in the loft above my kitchen. What to do? What to do?

Don’t be sad in front of Eriko. It’s not what the man does. Shrug it off. She was in the tsunami for Christ’s sake. You’ve got nothing to complain about. Dreams aren’t what you thought they were anyway. There is never just one. The next will be along soon. Let the cold ball swell inside of you, but only just enough, not enough to let it hurt badly, just enough to remind you that it’s there, that you cared about something. Then temper it. Make it small, infinitesimal. Keep it that way.

What’s next?

At night now other visions are playing. Visions of Rocky Mountains and arid winds blowing on canyon rock faces, and visions of brown and black and tan and white faces, and plaid shirts and bicycles. Visions of warm sun on humid grass in Wash Park, of university girls sunbathing in bikinis, of needy Adonises shouting loudly to their friends. Visions of what hoppy beer tastes like and dull hangovers and the dread of a lonely apartment. Of conversations jibing friends, of great distances, impossible distances, and of muscles taught while pulling onto boulders. They are visions that I try to make sense of.

 

You were supposed to be gone longer. The adventure isn’t over. You still need to move. It’s making it harder, sure, because It always makes it harder. You never let It win.

Reassess. And act mindfully. You have to become one of the good ones.

Is it time yet? By March it’ll almost be two years. It wasn’t supposed to be time, but what else have you got? What’s Plan B?