I'm dog-eared.

Learning to stop here in the Now.

I just finished meditating in the garden. It’s something I started doing a few weeks ago under the advice of my new therapist, Jane.

I plug in my AirPods and listen to a guide who tells me to pay attention to my breathing. To pay attention to my body parts from scalp to hoof. And when I am settled, the disembodied voice in my ears paints pictures of how I can see my reality in brighter terms.

The monkey in my head encroaches. Thoughts of chores and wars interrupt my revery, but I am learning to gently push them aside and settle back on my breathing.

I have tried doing this whole thing before, but with little success.

I end up telling myself it’s having no effect, or it’s woo-woo, or that I’m just not a meditation person. But I understand now that it’s hard to form a habit unless I have a meaningful goal to aim for. Now I have one — to manage my anxiety — and meditation helps me first quiet my body’s reaction to my agitation and only then to quiet my mind. I am working to turn off a reflexive response that I have cultivated most of my life. I have finally come to accept that I can’t abide it for my remaining days. At long last, I deserve peace.

Drawing can be meditative. I can focus on my subject and slowly move around its contours, calmly looking and seeing landmarks which I record with my pen. With each mark, I can sink deeper into a flow state.

But it doesn’t always work that way. There are interruptions. There are ideas. And there are judgments.

When I was born, I was a sheet of crisp white paper. Pristine. But soon marks were made on me. Some were light pencil, others ballpoint, and some permanent marker. I was creased and crumpled. Careless, dirty fingers smudged me.

Over the years, I’ve tried to smooth my page. I took an eraser and managed to rub away some of the words and images. I turned over the page and took a warm iron to the folds.

Some lines bled through from the past, seemingly permanent. Many faded.

But I can never remove all my dog ears and rumples. Even if they are smoothed over and again, they still leave evidence of the ancient damage, faint irregularities and creases, bumps and lumps.

No matter how often I reexamine the source of those early marks, they never vanish completely. They still shape me. Seemingly inescapable. My reactions are deeply grooved into me, my knees yet jerk.

At this stage of my life, I recognize how much my past has made me. But I also see how I can take this wrinkled sheet of paper and write afresh upon it. I can focus on this breath of right now. I can draw this line slowly and confidently. I can still feel the fears for the future and the regrets of the past, but then turn away to listen to the quail on the wall, watch the cloud above, smell the gardenia blossoming, and breathe in, hold it, then slowly let it out.

Your pal,

Danny

PS I made this yesterday: