Chapter Thirteen – Me, Mine…My Turn!
The Misery of Mrs. Geesky Number 13. The Red Reticule.
BEFORE CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The field of boundless emptiness is what exists from the very beginning.
We continue to study and examine emptiness in the light of this novel-in-process in such a way that we study ourselves in daily life. It is important to remember the Heart Sutra is a teaching, when practiced, it ends suffering.
BUT…do we take this teaching to heart? Do we practice emptiness in our daily life?
Are we more likely to live our life encumbered, worried, grasping, wanting, having and getting things - thinking and believing things relieve us of suffering.
When we claim things in terms of me, mine, my we enter the realm of suffering. Suffering leads us to be inconsiderate, wanting, fearful, stingy and selfish. It is not the things that cause suffering - it is our attitude about our self and things. We pick and choose, like and dislike, include and exclude over and over again.
The antidote to selfishness is to forget the self altogether. Emptiness is a method of letting go of selfishness, self-interest, self-aggrandizement. If you do not forget the self, you will continue to experience obtacles and suffering of all sorts.
We want MY TURN to speak, to do, to have , to get…to live according to MY DESIRES. We want control. We want to be ‘right.’ We want to be in charge. ON and on it goes.
As long as we seek our way in the world, we seek in vain. There is nothing to attain, as the Heart Sutra teaches…yet…most of us continue to think the material world will satisfy our desires.
Consider Jane, the character that claims, “It is my turn!” Are you one to claim your turn? Is this life all about quid pro quo? Do you give to get?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN - ME, MINE…MY TURN!
After finishing their sandwiches, Susan began to clean up and looked as if she were packing up the gifts from Jane and getting ready to lock up the shop. Jane waited to see and decided to interrupt Susan’s intention to go home.
“Susan.” Jane said with a bit of sharpness in her tone of voice. “It is my turn!” Susan stopped herself. Then, lowered herself back into her chair placing both hands full of the trash from the meal on her lap. There was a short pause between the two women as though neither of them knew how to proceed when Susan added. “Oh. Yes. It is your turn.”
Jane staring at the litter in Jane’s lap said in a steady, stable tone. “I could have gone first, you know. But I didn’t. I waited for you to go first. Before I take my turn, please throw that stuff away.
Susan closed her eyes as if to gather herself up out of the chair to dump the trash. Instead of engaging in the turn-taking, she was tempted to take a shot at throwing the trash into the waste can against the wall but thought better of it. When she returned to her seat, she smiled at her friend and said, “OK. Your turn, Jane.”
Jane laughs relieved that it is her turn to tell her story. “Well…my morning in brief. I was in a traffic jam getting over here today which was…let me tell you…a helluva surprise. It’s why I was late. Before that I received a phone call from a neighbor inviting me to some meeting. After that I opened some old, unopened mail and found a letter from an alderman.”
“Are these three things related?” asks Susan, curious to hear more of the details.
“I don’t think so.” Jane answers without thinking. “Well…” she corrects herself recognizing a small connection, “I suppose they are the goings-on in the neighborhood.”
“What do you mean?”
“I got stuck behind some woman who…I don’t know what was wrong with her. But boy she…I don’t even know how to explain it to you. Anyway, it worked out. I had to get out of my car and insist she move her car. It was blocking the street…anyway we got through. I hope she wasn’t Julie Berker.”
“Who’s Julie Berker?”
“She’s the neighbor that called me this morning.”
“You don’t know any of your neighbors, do you?”
“I do now. She said her name was Julie Berker. I’m surprised I can remember it.”
“I am, too.”
Jane looks at Susan as they both smile in recognition of the changes in their ability to remember things. Jane drinks the last sip of what was now a cold cup of black tea.
“I don’t know which was worse, the phone call or the traffic jam?”
“Traffic jams in this town are…rare. What about the letter from the alderman?” Susan inquires.
“Yes. Everything happens all at once. The letter from the alderman? Did you know that the City has laws about who can live together?”
“I do recall something about that. Is that what the letter was about?”
“Yes. The City is having a meeting. I am invited to that as well. A meeting about how many unrelated people can live in the same house. Did you ever hear of such a thing?”
“I must confess I have. But since it doesn’t say anything about dogs, I never paid much attention to it.”
“For the life of me I am surprised by it all.”
“Welcome to the neighborhood, Jane. Are you going?”
“To the City meeting? Gawd, no.” Jane snorts. “I have no plans to go to either of them.”
“There’s two meetings?”
Twisted around by the question, Jane frowns at Susan searching for what she means. “Yes. Didn’t I mention the Julie Berker phone call?”
“Yes.”
“Well…she asked me to come to a neighborhood meeting. When I asked her what it was about, she didn’t want to say. Acted a little coy. I wanted to ask her why I am being included. But I didn’t. I did get the feeling she wants me to come as though it’s important that I show up.”
“It sounds like something might be going on in your neighborhood, Jane.”
“Honestly? Susan, I think they are inviting me because I have someone living in my backyard. Maybe that’s against the law?”
Susan couldn’t help but laugh.
“I know, it sounds paranoid. But I’m not kidding.”
“Did the woman say anything to suggest that?”
“Not in any specifics. I feel it in my gut. And the letter? Why else would they all of sudden invite an old, eighty- something woman to the neighborhood meeting?”
“Jane. Are you serious? You’re…” Again, Susan stops from saying the word still before the word beautiful. “beautiful…and I must say you’re a prominent fashion model. You’re well known.’
“Those days are done, Susan.”
Susan stares at Jane’s face as she grew pale from the sound of her own words, those days are done. “It’s not as bad as all that.”
“I don’t mean it to sound bad…I am a realist.”
“You are?” asks Susan, surprised Jane would say such a thing about herself.
“Well…it’s better than a nihilist?”
“A nihilist?” repeats Susan with the same curious surprise in her voice.
“Well, that’s what my doctor told me.”
“Your doctor told you…you were a nihilist.”
“Well…yes. He called me a nihilist after I refused to do some test he recommended. I told him I knew my body better than anyone. That’s when he told me I was a nihilist.” Jane looks at Susan with a sense of certainty, while Susan looks perplexed.
“But you think you are a realist?”
“It’s not something I think, Susan. Why are you so surprised? I call a spade a spade.”
Susan with relief smiles at Jane. “Yes, you do. Yes, you do.” Humoring her.
“And I think the neighbors want Dee Dee to go.”
“They may just want to get to know you. After all you’ve lived in the neighborhood for years…they want to get to know you. People are curious. Maybe they want beauty tips.”
“That’s my point. I’ve lived there for years and all of a sudden…”
Susan interrupts. “Yes, what you say is true. But you’ve not been home for much of the time. You’re work schedule and must I say…”
“No. You don’t need to say.”
“Ok. So... I think they are including you because they’ve noticed you are home more.” Susan emphasizes the word more as a gracious gesture to Jane’s struggle with not being on the road.
“Maybe. Maybe, but they might want to tell me I have to evict my hermit, Dee Dee. She lived in the backyard as a caretaker of the property when I was on the road, but now…well…now they want to boot her out.”
“Your hermit? I think you are the only one who sees Dee Dee as…” Susan hesitates before she agrees with Jane’s description of Dee Dee as her hermit. “I’d suggest you wait and see. Don’t jump the gun. Don’t start to think the sky is falling because you got an invitation or two.”
Susan pauses and then asks, “Does Dee Dee see herself as a hermit?” Before Jane responds, Susan waves her hand in the air as if to erase her musing about Dee Dee being a hermit.
Jane, however, does not let it pass. “There are many versions of Chicken Little. Susan, it is possible the neighborhood sees me as an alien – you know, a johnny-come-lately or well, an alien of some sort or another who has fallen out of the sky after all these years. And…that Dee Dee is an illegal alien living in my backyard.”
“Anything is possible, Jane. But I think it is prudent for you to wait and see how this…well, this version of the sky is falling plays out.”
Jane teases Susan with her usual suspicion about Susan’s latest venture of talking to strangers off the street. “I am not like you, Susan. I know what’s what with people – you, well, you are too trusting to say the least.”
With a wave of her hand Jane encompasses the shop and concludes, “This is one of the worst neighborhoods in this city. Now, you must agree with me on that!”
Susan smiles knowing Jane’s declaration is her way of wanting to protect her.
Susan lowers her head and shrugs, before she responds, she remembers the woman demanding a good note then concludes, “Maybe. Maybe not. All people are the same.”
Jane remains silent as she adamantly does not agree.
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