Gifts 24/7

Every evening ends with, and begins with, a checklist of "gotta take care of this" items. Quite often "business-y" things... Order thing X, send e-mail regarding thing(s) Y, take care of technological thing Z. Which was one of this morning's "big things." My "piano" keyboard is not being recognized b, well, anything, as far as key-presses (e.g., press middle C, the middle C gets sent to the music software, and a middle C "comes out," playing sonically or getting entered into the music-notation software.

So, I guess I have to contact the manufacturer of The Thing that I think is the wooden shoe in the works. I could bore you with a list of what didn't work, so it looks like I'm going to have to speak to a human. Which I don't mind and would often prefer, but with These People, first you have to pay for the privilege of talking to a human. Well, paying is very very easy (of course) but their computer seems slow about returning to you the numbers that'll let you in the doorway. 

This has been a perennial challenge... I need someone, I often don't care who as long as it's "the competent one," but generally I need something that's basically very simple. On the level of "Can I please have some salt?" and then I get salt. That's all I want, that's all I need, and you, person I'm talking to, is asked to do very, very, little work. To do which, they are often very specifically, paid.

But beyond the "dude. that's your job" annoyance, generally I'm asking very little, which will return me very much. Such as "be able to write music" or "be able to print out music that I've already written." 

So, annoyance. Irritants. Obstructions. These are side effects of MS, but not its gifts. Or... are they?

Looking back to, oh why not, life, and specifically life unadorned by the MS journey, this is pretty much... Normal. Or as how I've put medical events like "vaso vagal," in very simple terms: Sometimes, that shit happens.

Ram Dass writes about these challenges quite often. This is the work that is set before you; "good" and "sucks" may be true in many respects, but at the bottom line, that's the way of it. Wondering what to do about it gets you nothing and nowhere.... especially, given the basic realities of illness and death, there isn't anything to do that'll do anything about them. But as my kyudo teacher says of the arrow shot, you the shooter doesn't "do" it, but you are called upon to be a fully aware participant in the shot. 

So MS is the gift of an arrow; or the gift of a breeze, or a flower. Pay attention to what is in front of you, and be fully aware of it. Accept... even love... the truth it shows you.

And that is one gift that MS gives 24/7...

Truth. 

The state I'm in is the state I'm in. Might as well speak truthfully of it... As my beloved timpani teacher (now of blessed memory) often said, "Always tell the truth... That way, you only have to remember one story." 

Or as Ram Dass often writes, if you're putting all you attention in to how you wish it were, you may never notice how it actually is.

Tell the truth... and pay attention.

Works out, MS or not.