Accidental Mass

This piece has been mellowing for some time.

It was a bright morning in New York. The spring air filled the streets with pollen and the fragrance of new blossoms. After a 5K run with Allison, we met with Jen, her boyfriend and another one of her friends to have some coffee at the Hungarian pastry shop, a place I had intended to visit for a while. The days prior to that, I had felt as though I was being relieved from a choking sensation of fear for what was coming. I had spent long hours staring at my computer hyperventilating for not being able to produce coherent lines for my thesis. I read this and it helped. After many years, I had gone back to take refuge in literature but it started with music. Jim Morrison’s American prayer became my hymn for a couple of weeks. I had been feeling hopeless.

Yet, out of serendipitous events I was visiting some places that were becoming havens- may be as a result of what felt as my imminent departure from the life I had been building in New York. After coffee, we walked to one of those places, the cathedral of Saint John the Divine. I had been going there quite often to admire the majestic phoenixes that are hanging from the ceiling. Both of them, indiscernibly a female and a male, extend their wings high out of the scrap of their naissance, the financial center of Beijing. As I stood there in awe, a choir started walking down -or rather up- the aisle. They were singing a hymn of faith. I was swept by the devotion in their voices, I was gone with them; I believed. It is not that I believed in what they were singing, I could hardly understand what they were saying, but I believed in their belief. We were accidentally attending mass. And although it was concluding, it reminded me of my prerogative to pray. There is something innately powerful in being together with other souls in absolute meditation. There is something innately powerful even when you do this on your own. It is palpable in your words, in each action, in the ensuing thoughts.

This is the week Esben came to visit from Denmark. He invited me for a cupping at this up and coming coffeeshop in Greenpoint, Budin- he was just flying through, heading to Costa Rica in search for new coffees. He belongs in that world, the specialty coffee world. As I walked into the café, a feeling of intrusion arose before they had actually seen me. As inviting as they were, this was a ritual I was to be broken into. Hold your hands behind your back. Let your nostrils take it in, let your brain process. Now apply yourself. Slurp in, suck in, feel the coffee all around your mouth. Your taste buds must awaken. The liquid travels around your cheeks, your tongue, can you feel the acidity, the brightness, the sweetness?

I felt as though I was waking up from a long slumber. That’s when he made an espresso for me. And that’s when I got it.

There was something special even as he stretched his arm offering the drink: I knew this cup had taken years in the making just by that gesture.

I could taste devotion.

In my own search for this feeling, for getting it back into my own work, I remembered having a copy of The Prophet at Shashwat’s place. That’s when Justin reminded me of one of the best lines there is in that book: ‘Work is love made visible’.

And I can’t settle for any less. Both in the way I pick my next endeavors as well as the way in which I pursue and execute them. While I work on the skies to get clearer, I have been splurging in that potential and tying some loose ends. The only venture that currently feels right is writing what needs to be written, reading what has been long-waiting to be read. Dr. Fullilove advised that I embrace confusion like the Buddha. I am trying.

After all, it is in entropy that we exist, in the unlikeliness of order, we arise, thoughts arise, mass arises from energy. It almost feels accidental. I am letting my heart lead me nowadays, seems to be the wisest move.

Mel

Oh yea, and graduation happened since my last post.