Tiny Buddha

Tag: impermanence

  • The Key to Acceptance: Understand That Everything Changes With Time

    The Key to Acceptance: Understand That Everything Changes With Time

    “If you argue with reality, you lose, but only 100% of the time.” ~Byron Katie

    I love this quote. Ironic, really, because when I first read it, I was furious—furious with my reality and anyone who encouraged me to accept it. In my mind, to accept chronic illness was to accept defeat.

    I had just been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, an incredibly painful condition that had me bedridden most days and unable to care for my then two-year-old daughter, never mind myself. My home became filled with carers and aides and adaptations.

    Rather than starting a new career as a newly qualified occupational therapist, I was struggling with the fear of lifelong pain, the shame of unemployment, and the guilt of not being the active mother I desperately wanted to be. I was in no mood to accept such circumstances in life.

    So how did I move from a position of resistance to one of restoration? How can we find some wiggle room in situations that may feel utterly immobilizing? Well, chocolate and cake help, but what really started creating space for growth was the Buddhist notion of impermanence and the insight, acceptance, and mindfulness that flowed from that.

    Impermanence is a universal law; every single thing is in flux. Take the British weather, for example. We know it’s unpredictable and always changing, so when we go on holiday here, we often take boots and raincoats as well as sunscreen and hats!

    We see this same principle mirrored in ourselves as we change with age. I remember a time when I was washing dishes and, in looking down at my hands, was taken aback at how much they resembled my mother’s. Soft lines and delicate wrinkles that had found a home on my skin stared back at me.

    The profound realization that not a single person or thing is fixed and all is ultimately impermanent can cause some sadness and anxiety, but within this there is a freedom and hope.

    The Glass Is Already Broken

    Someone once asked a well-known meditation master, Ajahn Chah, in a world where everything changes, how can there be happiness?

    The teacher held up a drinking glass and, with much compassion, explained, “You see this goblet? For me, this glass is already broken. I enjoy it. I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on a shelf and the wind knocks it over, or my elbow brushes it off the table and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, ‘Of course.’ When I understand that this glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.”

    When I read this and really let it sink into my bones, slowly, gently, something shifted. I realized then all human life is fragile—sickness doesn’t discriminate.

    Though my ill health had initially caused so much loss and sadness, I was able then to move from a place of “Why me?” to a “Why not me?” It cooled my rage, and the first shoots of acceptance began to show.

    We will all experience pain at some point in our lives. It is part of the package of being human. Accepting this can help ease the suffering enmeshed in pain and encourage us to truly embrace and appreciate life’s pain-free moments, the pockets of joy.

    Saying Hello to the Here of Our Circumstances

    There is a wonderful story in Pádraig Ó Tuama’s book, In the Shelter, about a photojournalist who was returning to a tribe in Papua New Guinea where she had lived as a child. Within this tribe, there was no word for hello. Instead, upon seeing someone, you simply said, “You are here,” and the response, being equally clear, was “Yes, I am.”

    Isn’t that wonderful? No judgment—just acknowledgement of what’s here. When we say hello to the here of our circumstances, no matter how dire or unfair they seem, we’re better able to accept them.

    Acceptance is not defeat. It is an acknowledgment of the truth. Once we accept where we are, we can move forward with greater clarity, courage, and strength. It’s an opportunity to become unstuck, to experience well-being in the midst of our symptoms and beyond our symptoms.

    The Power of Mindfulness

    One thing that helped me get unstuck was mindfulness, which means conscious awareness of our moment-to-moment experience, without judgment.

    When I began to tentatively practice mindfulness each day, I soon realized that my experience of pain was never static. It changed in its intensity and location, and ultimately had many flavors. Sometimes it was a stabbing or burning sensation, at other times a dull ache. I could observe how it felt in different parts of my body and how, like waves, it had a tendency to rise and fall. I was shown how my experience of chronic pain was, like the weather, ever-changing.

    This helped me shift my focus from one of resistance to flexibility. It removed the sting of emotional suffering from my pain, creating a much less devastating and more manageable illness experience.

    I was finally able to whisper a faint hello to the pain and the emotions around it, and the practice of listening became a sort of self-hospitality. I could welcome what is just as I would welcome a friend.

    Within this I also saw the flip side of impermanence, the gift that nothing is set in stone. I was told I would always be in constant pain, but I knew my pain experience was fluid. I had occasional respite from it, even if it was just one hour a day, and with new pain knowledge and Buddhist principles, I was learning to emotionally disengage from it.

    Seven years after my devastating diagnosis, I actually recovered from the pain of fibromyalgia. That was over three years ago, and I have never had to take pain medication for it since, but that’s another story.

    As it stands I’m currently learning to navigate life with another painful chronic illness—hello, broken glass—but I’m much better able to manage it now that I understand the universal truth of impermanence and have nurtured the willingness to say hello to the here (albeit at times begrudgingly).

    If a black mood does settle on me, I try to take myself out for a mindful meander in nature.

    When I can be still and behold a whirling turn of birds, twisting and twirling like leaves caught in a breeze, it cuts through the chatter and noise, my frets and fears. It’s a sweet balm for life’s concerns.

    Mindful moments like these, when there is peace in every breath and joy in every view, are sacred to me. They remind me that there is so much beauty in the world to balance the pain. In nature I feel truly hushed, seen, found, and grounded, enabling me to appreciate the present moment and helping to create the chance of a promising future.

    Happiness is, after all, an inside job. It’s not about having perfect circumstances; it’s about making peace with what is and making the best of the hand we were dealt.

    Practicing mindfulness, appreciating nature, and understanding impermanence are some of the things that have helped me—and could help you too. When we embrace what is, enjoy what we can, and accept that all things inevitably change, peace becomes possible.

  • Embracing Impermanence: Lessons from Living with a Chronic Illness

    Embracing Impermanence: Lessons from Living with a Chronic Illness

    “Nothing is permanent in this world, not even our troubles.” ~Charlie Chaplin

    At thirteen, I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. At first, I patiently waited for my doctor to give me medicine. When he didn’t, I patiently waited (for several years) for someone to find the cure.

    As the years went on I wasn’t getting any better. Though I went to more doctors than I could count, none had any new advice for me, and the medical community wasn’t any closer to figuring out how to heal this illness.

    Life was unpredictable. I didn’t know what I’d be able to do each day, let alone in the future. Some days I could lead a relatively normal life, going to class and hanging out with friends—as long as we didn’t do anything too active. Some days I could barely get out of bed to go to the bathroom.

    I had always been ambitious growing up. I loved playing sports, I wanted to be a writer, I wanted to travel the world. As I got into my early twenties, I started questioning if I’d be able to achieve any of these goals when my health was so unpredictable.

    I had managed to finish high school and attend university. But attending classes and trying to write essays with brain fog was a challenge for which my grades would suffer. When I was twenty-one I had a big crash. I couldn’t attend any classes or do any work. I couldn’t do my laundry or cook dinner. All I could do was survive.

    I hadn’t sought help from a doctor in many years; they had been so disappointing when I was younger. But now I knew I needed help. I found a holistic health center where I saw an occupational therapist, a nutritionist, a counselor, and a doctor. It’s also where I got my first taste of yoga and meditation.

    Yoga and meditation helped me embrace the unpredictableness of my health.

    Before beginning my yoga practice, I was searching for assurance. I wanted a doctor to know what to do. I wanted a medication that would make my symptoms go away. I wanted to know that I could get well and stay well. I wanted an assurance that didn’t exist in reality. Waiting for this assurance had held me back from seeking a partial recovery or recovery on my own.

    As my yoga and meditation practice advanced I became better tuned to my body and learned what energized me and what made me feel worse. But the most important concept I learned from my studies was impermanence. Sure, my energetic days didn’t last as long as I hoped. But my fatigued days didn’t last as long as I had feared.

    I began to ride this impermanence like the waves I ride when floating in the sea (which was all I could manage to do when I was very ill, despite swimming competitively when growing up).

    When I first became ill, most of the advice I was given was to “try to push through.”

    Doctors told me to “drink a coca cola at lunch” if I felt tired. They told me that I needed to do everything I could to finish my school assignments and get to classes so I didn’t get left behind. But all of this pushing was exhausting. Like trying to swim against the current, it didn’t serve me to try to do what my body would not allow at the times when I was feeling very ill.

    As anyone with a chronic illness can tell you, good days come with fear. I used to try to do everything I possibly could on the days I was feeling well because I didn’t know when I’d get a chance to catch up on everything I needed to do (including laundry and school papers but also fun things like getting coffee with a friend).

    Every time I got better, I waited to get worse again. Yet I came to realize that I didn’t apply this logic when I was feeling my worst. When I was feeling terrible I wasn’t waiting for it to get better; I was in bed feeling sorry for myself and fearing it would get worse.

    When I began to see the fallacy in this way of thinking, things started changing for me. When I had a bad day, I allowed myself to rest without wallowing. It was frustrating if I had a looming deadline or social event I wanted to go to that I couldn’t meet. But setting those boundaries for myself was invaluable.

    I didn’t need to ‘push through it’ because I’d get another chance. I could take that course again, or reschedule with my friend. This state of being bedridden was not forever. But it was a time for me to rest, to practice meditation or a gentle yoga session. A time for me to read books that brought me joy, a time to search inward for peace, acceptance, and joy.

    Understanding that the only thing that’s permanent is change helped me to accept my illness. It helped me end fatalistic thoughts like “I’ll never be able to achieve my dreams,” which seemed reasonable at the time but weren’t helpful to my recovery, or to achieving those dreams.

    Learning how to ride this impermanence has helped me achieve more than I thought was possible. I was able to graduate university, work full time, travel around the world, and even take part in triathlons!

    When going through a hard time, it’s easy to feel defeated. It’s easy to feel like there’s no hope, and that our lives are irrevocably changed. But by embracing that change, by knowing that our lives will always change and that nothing will last forever, we can better overcome adversity.

    If you’re going through a hard time right now, I encourage you to use this time to listen to your body and what it needs. As you start to do this, you’ll start to notice that things change from day to day. One day you might have a searing pain in your head. The next it may be a dull throb. The next, only a faint whisper of the pain before coming back to a searing pain again.

    Instead of feeling downtrodden that pain has returned, embrace that it has changed. That this state of pain—whether it is emotional or physical—is not a permanent state.

    Embracing impermanence has shifted every area of my life. I’m a freelance writer, which means I don’t have a set salary. Some months can go well and others…not so much. But I don’t get stuck in the bad months because I know it will change again. I still have bad health days, but I know the healthy energetic days far outweigh the bad, and I’m able to take the bad days as they come.

    For those of us who are chronically ill, it’s easy to feel like healthy people feel great every day. They don’t. They have bad days as well. But dwelling on the number of bad days or bad feelings won’t make them go away any faster, just as trying to cram everything you can into a good day won’t make the good day last any longer.

    As you become in tune with the rhythms of your body and better attuned to the way your body changes, you’ll learn how to better nourish yourself. Watch as you move between pain and no pain, fatigue and energy and enjoy the time of much-needed rest as much as those of activity.

    If you’ve also struggled with a chronic illness, it might help to:

    Keep a journal and record how you feel each day. Review this journal at the end of each week so you can see how much change you face even in just a week.

    Start a daily mindfulness practice. This can be yoga and meditation, but it can also be another mindful activity such as walking or taking a hot bath. Anything that helps you tune into your body and mind and assess the rhythms of your thoughts, pain, and energy levels. This will help you keep an accurate journal, and see how things can change even from breath to breath.

    Commit to eliminating fatalistic thinking—thoughts that contain information you could not possibly know. Thoughts like “I’ll always be in pain” or “I’ll never get better” when you have no idea what the future holds are examples of fatalistic thinking.

    Write down those thoughts in a diary and then write the truth next to them. For example, “I’m in pain right now,” or “I don’t feel well today.” None of us can tell the future; don’t let your mind trick you into thinking that it can.

    And lastly, take rest when you need rest, and find a moment of joy in every day.

  • How Non-Attachment Can Benefit Your Relationship

    How Non-Attachment Can Benefit Your Relationship

    “You only lose what you cling to.” ~Buddha

    I remember one of my first mindfulness classes that pertained to impermanence. I went home in a bit of a slump.

    Nothing is permanent; everything ends; “This too shall pass.” It was quite a shock to the system.

    After getting over what, on a surface level, seemed to be incredibly dire, I realized that this could be incredibly liberating.

    Enter the principle of non-attachment, a notion that has the potential to aid in the evolving nature of day-to-day life.

    Rather than clinging to things—relationships, jobs, material goods—hoping that they will last forever, or being fearful that the uncomfortable parts of our lives will never change, we learn to deal with the moments as they arise.

    There is power in knowing that our moments can, and will, inevitably shift.

    Knowing the good won’t last forever gives us permission to embrace the moment fully without clinging or depending on it.

    Acknowledging that the bad won’t last forever gives us strength to move forward instead of being caught up in helplessness and insight to make shifts and changes if need be.

    Impermanence is a blessing in disguise. And non-attachment is the only way to truly forgive and love another person.

    Sounds counterintuitive, doesn’t it? How can non-attachment possibly lead to a happy, fulfilled relationship?

    Here’s how.

    In my last relationship, I prided myself on being honest and open. I didn’t want to play games, because that’s not the sort of person I am, nor the sort of man I wanted to attract into my life.

    I wanted a guarantee that he would stick around and that our relationship was progressing. I wanted to know that he wasn’t going to just disappear from my life, a dialogue from my past that prickled at my defense mechanisms and inevitably pushed him away, too.

    This made me fearful and scared, and I shut down intermittently. This invisible pressure burdened both of us.

    The hard truth is that there are no guarantees.

    Of course, there were other factors in our relationship. The point here is that there was also an unhealthy attachment present; I became dependent on him, and I clung.

    I was like a child who was holding onto a baby animal, who was so scared of it running away that I held it tightly, suffocating it.

    Non-attachment means that you are able to live your life outside of the other person; it ultimately takes pressure off and allows you to be without depending on anything or anyone to feed your soul.

    Clinging onto things—relationships, jobs, materials goods—simply does not make sense considering their evolving nature.

    These things add to your life, but they are not your life. You’re all that’s guaranteed, and even you grow and change, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

    This doesn’t mean that past lessons or past behaviors can’t or won’t guide your present actions or that future goals aren’t important. Instead, it means that you can live out your moments naturally and organically, with appreciation and/or awareness, because you aren’t leaning on something that might change or shift.

    Non-attachment in relationships is not indifference or apathy to another person. It’s an absence of fear. Fear and clinginess come from a sense of impending loss.

    However, if we go into a relationship or exist in a relationship already knowing that things may change or shift (for better or worse), we rid ourselves of pressure and burdening expectations. We can approach the relationship and issues with an open heart and simply see what unfolds naturally.

    Relinquishing (some) control is scary, but not impossible.

    This is not to be confused with blind acceptance of things that aren’t satisfying.

    Existing in the unattached present moment acknowledges what is actually happening now and gives us the power and capacity to shift or change a situation, which is also applicable to a relationship that isn’t what you want, need, or deserve.

    I know many couples who are staying together, even if it hasn’t been working for years and years, because it was “so good long ago.”

    I’m an advocate for working through things, but ultimately, the present is all that is relevant.

    As far as relationships go, I was once told that some people you simply get for a season, some people appear in your life intermittently, and some people stay around for longer and forever, if you’re lucky.

    The catch is that you ultimately don’t know which category the person you’re dating or in a relationship with is or will be in, and red flags aside, there is no way to know.

    However, being unattached, open, and aware is a key ingredient to experiencing a relationship organically and observing what may unfold.

  • How Death Teaches Us to Live Fully: 7 Enlightening Lessons

    How Death Teaches Us to Live Fully: 7 Enlightening Lessons

    “We meet but briefly in life, if we touch each other with stardust, that is everything.”  ~Unknown

    We had baked chicken and mashed potatoes with gravy that evening. It was the kind of hearty meal that warms you up on a damp March night.

    As I said goodnight, I couldn’t have imagined that in just a few hours I would return to my parents’ house and everything would be changed forever.

    But so it goes. Nothing in life is permanent.

    I’ll never forget that phone call. I felt everything drain out of me and then it seemed as though everything stopped. My mind couldn’t seem to absorb that my father had died.

    I kept saying, “But we just had dinner.” “He was getting better.” And,  “Everything was okay”

    When I arrived back at my parents’ house, it was surreal.

    The quiet conversation and enjoyable meal we’d enjoyed only a few hours ago had been replaced by a chaotic, confusing scene.

    I remember flashing lights, lots of people running around, the sad scared faces of those I loved, and tears, lots of tears.

    I was a wreck at the funeral and not sure if I could speak, but as I stood at the podium, a strange peaceful feeling come over me. A sort of clarity and profound realization. A deep connection to life that I’d never felt before.

    Nothing helps you understand the fleeting beauty of life more than death. Nothing helps you understand what is important in life more than death.

    And most important are the people in our lives. The connection, the bond, the love, the nurturing, the stories, and the memories that we share.

    These are the great gifts of life, and death teaches us to grab hold of them, because we know they won’t last forever.

    I thought I knew life but I didn’t, until that day.

    Enlightening lessons death can teach you about life:

    1. The power of love

    A few months after my father died, I found myself stuck. I was angry that he died and angry that I couldn’t do more to help him. With the loving support of the people in my life, I was able to move past the anger and start to focus on the time we had together.

    The power of love saw me through those dark days.

    If you’re struggling after the death of a loved one, reach out for support and pay homage to your loss by letting your love shine. Although they are no longer with us, our loved ones live on in our hearts, our minds, and our dreams.

    Love is universal and transcendent; it knows no boundaries and reaches far beyond the physicality of this world.

    2. The power of impermanence

    Have you ever experienced a loss and felt like you were losing control? You desperately try to pull in the reigns, but you can’t.

    We all like to have a sense of control, and a certain degree is important in terms of our survival. If we don’t organize our lives, follow rules, and work within the structure of society, we’ll find ourselves in a state of chaos.

    When someone dies, you realize that life is not permanent and that nothing will last forever no matter how much control you try to exert. This is actually what makes it so profound.

    Life is like a rainbow. The light and rain form its beauty, and then it fades. The gold is the shared journey and the profound expression of our lives.

    3. The power of acceptance 

    The grieving process is difficult.

    I remember being in denial and saying things like, “I can’t believe it’s true.” I spent a lot of time being mad at the world and myself.

    I bargained by thinking, “If only I’d done this” and “I should have done that.” The void of depression took the form of, “I am so sad; I’ll never get past this.”

    And finally, I accepted that he was gone and I needed to move forward.

    During this process I resisted the reality of my loss. The stages of grief gave me time to come to grips and handle what had happened.

    Ultimately, the resistance melted and I was able to lean into life again. You can’t move forward without acceptance. 

    4. The power of transformation 

    Loss and struggle hold the seeds of transformation. I don’t think anybody wants to experience pain. I know I sure don’t.

    But as I have experienced loss and struggle in my life, I have noticed a pattern: I get stronger, and the seeds of that struggle result in growth.

    Life is a continual process of struggle, transformation, and growth. Although it may not always seem obvious, if you look at growth you can always trace it back to the struggle that preceded it.

    You may be hurting now but something good is on the horizon.

    5. The power of awareness

    It is possible to go through long periods of life without ever expanding our consciousness.

    Prior to my father’s death, my conscious awareness was limited. I was in a safe, secure bubble, casually going about my life.

    I didn’t question life and I didn’t question the choices I made. I was not fully aware; I was not on purpose. I did not have a sense that my time was limited, nor did I get that life was a gift.

    Death can initiate the process of expanding your awareness, because it challenges you to question your view of life itself and what you do with yours.

    6. The power of presence

    So much of life is consumed by the struggle to survive and compete.

    I spend most of my time trying to cover my family’s basic needs, striving to succeed, and wading through the bombardment of materialism.

    When I find myself getting distracted by the “stuff” in my life, I try to take a step back and focus on the warmer, more soulful parts of me that make me feel alive and present. I take time to get away from the noise and distractions, and focus on spending time with the people in my life.

    The paradox of death is that it points to what it means to be alive. Aliveness has to do with experience, connection, and full expression. What makes your feel alive and present? 

    7. The power of connection

    Have you ever stepped outside your ego and connected to something bigger than you?

    When you’re on purpose or following your calling, you are guided internally, and yet you are also connecting to something beyond you.

    This is the experience I think most of us would like to have, but we get stuck in our ego-based thinking.

    Life events like death humble us and open us up to the possibility of waking up and stepping outside our ego. This gives us a chance to connect to something bigger than ourselves and do what is truly important.

    —

    Death is powerfully enlightening, but you don’t have to wait for someone to die to change the way you live.

    Each day you have an opportunity to create a life with purpose and meaning. Commit to being fully alive and expressing your highest self.

    Life is brief. Use it to spread a little stardust.

  • 6 Lessons Life Has Taught Me on Embracing Change and Impermanence

    6 Lessons Life Has Taught Me on Embracing Change and Impermanence

    “Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely.” ~Karen Kaiser Clark

    Life can be a persistent teacher.

    When we fail to learn life’s lessons the first time around, life has a way of repeating them to foster understanding.

    Over the last few years, my life was shaken up by dramatic circumstances. I resisted the impermanence of these events in my life and struggled with embracing change. When I resisted the lessons that change brought, a roller coaster of changes continued to materialize.

    When I was seventeen years old, my immigrant parents’ small import-export business failed.  From a comfortable life in Northern California, they uprooted themselves and my two younger brothers and moved back to Asia.

    The move was sudden and unexpected, catching us all by surprise. I was in my last months of high school, so I remained in California with a family friend to finish my degree.

    I spent the summer abroad with my family and then relocated to Southern California to start college upon my return. Alone in a new environment, I found myself without many friends or family members close by.

    Life was moving much faster than I was able to handle, and I was shell-shocked by my family’s sudden move, my new surroundings, and college. Their relocation and college brought dramatic changes, along with fear, loneliness, and anxiety.

    I felt overwhelmed by my new university campus and its vastness; alone, even though I sat in classes of 300 students; and challenged by the responsibilities of independence and adulthood.

    Everything I had known had changed in a very short period of time. I tried to cope the best I could, but I resisted the changes by isolating myself even more from my new university and surroundings. It was the first and only time in my life I had contemplated suicide.

    Several years after college, having achieved my career goals in the legal field, I started a legal services business. I helped immigrants, refugees, and people escaping persecution who’d come to the U.S. to navigate the hurdles to residency and citizenship.

    I invested money, time, and my being into my law office. Not only was I preoccupied with the dire legal situations of my clients, but I also confronted the ups and downs of running a business.

    Starting and running a new company is not easy, and mine was losing more money every month. While I found the nearly three-year venture immensely gratifying because of the lives I was able to help, it was time for me to move on.

    It was a difficult decision, because I thought I’d found my career path. My life became engulfed with changes once again as I tried to close the doors to my office, close my clients’ cases, pay off my debt, and seek employment.

    In between university and my business venture, I married a beautiful, gifted girl in India after an international romance. We were married for ten years and endured many of life’s personal and professional ups and downs together. Despite our problems, we both struggled to keep our marriage together. (more…)

  • The Beauty of Nothing: Reflections on Impermanence

    The Beauty of Nothing: Reflections on Impermanence

    “Everything flows and nothing abides, everything gives way and nothing stays fixed.” ~Heraclitus 

    I’m reclining on a pebble beach, my bag tucked under my head, a can of Fanta to the right of me, above me, the sky and before me, the sea. It’s a few miles out.

    I came here alone. Friends had no time for me today. I’ve been reading instead, the cast of Anna Karenina filling the places where friends should be, and eating rich Italian ice cream, fudge flavored, even though it’ll give me an upset stomach later.

    The sun is scorching everything today, partner-in-crime with the wind. I arch back to look at a heap of discarded oyster shells. A sign reads: DO NOT REMOVE. The shells are recycled back into the oyster beds, keeping the nursery alive and sustainable.

    I roll my spine into the pebbles and wonder what oysters taste like; I don’t eat animals, fish, crustaceans, or insects.

    A couple strolls down the concrete slipway on my left, stopping before the slippery green of the sea’s memory becomes a hazard. The guy is distracted; the woman looks bored and isolated.

    You see, her partner has a video camera, one of those expensive HD ones. He’s looking at the world through it—the waning of the afternoon and the hot sun coming to settle atop the horizon.

    The people, the beaches, the bustle, the oyster shells; all are turned into a copy and later that copy will become a copy too. In the meantime, this moment will, and already has, passed.

    I look at the woman through the secrecy of my sunglasses. Her hands open and close around a bottle of water, and she lets her shoulders roll forward, creating cupped shelves from her collar bones. The sun sits in them. She’s very beautiful, very bored. She’s in the moment, but so alone.

    Her partner continues to look at the world on the screen until her hints of moving on filter through the peripherals of the camera. They leave as they came. (more…)