the sound of a screen door slamming lightly into its frame takes me to a different place - far away from today. my life now is absent of screen doors that break solid barriers and let in the sounds of living and fresh air and allow connection to all that is outside myself. screen doors say i am glad to be part of this world - the ladybugs are my friends - the bumblebees are welcome to coexist alongside me and stray cats are my guests for supper.

but i have no screen door.

polite affluent suburban society does not say - we are connected so come on over and never mind knocking. it does not acknowledge the sunlight and birdsong and wind whispering through the trees who are my companions on the journey, more so than the civilized society of business suits and bmw's. some might say i am blessed - lucky - to live in a center hall colonial with blue shutters and a pool, with money left over to buy useless trinkets if i desire - which i don't. i have the american dream but not my dream. it is too enclosing - too separate - and i feel powerless to break the stone walls and replace them with fresh air and screen doors. in my dream there is no glass in the windows - no solid steel door keeping me safe and locked away in isolation - no computers to give me the false sense of community with other human beings - no television shouting at me to be what i am not - no cars going nowhere special - no appointments at the hair salon to cover the gray roots and nondescript brown of who i really am.

screen doors say i am as real as ants on the kitchen floor and weeds growing among the roses and dirty sneakers tossed by the front door while i make cornbread in the iron skillet with crisco sizzling at the edges and meatloaf cooling on the stove. screen doors say we are not meant to be alone - we are part of everything and everything is welcome - come on in. they say mema is always home with windows open and dogs napping on the front porch and let's play outside where we only have one step back over the threshold to the inside where mama's baking oatmeal cookies and daddy's shelling peas. screen doors say life is simple and everything you need is right here in the sounds of children outside and the smells of pork roast in the crock pot and apples baking in the oven - without all the useless meaningless cushions surrounding us and molding us and making us what we do not want to be.

screen doors say i have a life filled with abundance of nature and green grass and chipmunks by the dozen making family compounds underneath my rock garden. they say serenity is mine for the taking as i am embraced by the swaying trees and cooing doves nesting in the backyard.

but i don't have screen doors.

i have a double steel door painted colonial blue to feign friendliness and sliding glass doors that are never clean because of dirty dog feet protesting the need for enclosure at all. when i gather enough courage to step outside away from the mind-haunting busyness i gasp with pleasure at the beauty and bounty all around me - beyond locked doors. for a little while i join what is real and true - the walls open and gardenia perfumed air rushes in - air conditioned fog and electronic blindness peel away layer by layer until i can see brilliant emerald and amethyst and bright golden yellow. a woodpecker tapping with passion wakes my ears to the symphony that is always bursting forth among the trees and crickets and blue jays. i am awake - vibrating with energy - trembling with pleasure that i am still alive and this is when i want to throw the laptops and cell phones and ipods and all artificial life into the pool and walk away - follow the brown and white spotted fawn into the forest - shed my clothes and let the brown and gray replace blond in magnificent honesty -

and never ever go back.

some days peace isn't in me.

i feel the time coming to morph into fragments of my old self - the independent gypsy who loves home, traveler, explorer, lover of adventure and change and challenging the mind and heart. if i were twenty two again i would travel - without money - because that gets everything more real - gets you closer to the earth and the natives and takes the cushion from under you so your feet are grounded in the beautiful earthy grit of the real world - real people - eye-opening ground-shaking differences that show who we really are - who is out there - how truly immense, immeasurable, vital, alive and electric the world is. sometimes i don't know how to get there - how to step over or through the decades of protective walls i have built - layers of meaningless shit that wraps me like a mummy and leaves me paralyzed and motionless. i want it stripped away - to be new and raw - to be like a newborn baby who winces from the light and shivers from the slightest breeze, who loses herself in laughter or tears or delight as the emotion flows like water. painful - yes! - breath-taking - yes! - vulnerable - yes! - but most definitely alive - alive - alive!

and even as i write this i realize i was not all those things in my youth. many parts of myself i don't wish to ever see again - the fearful girl and young woman with a chip on her shoulder the size of montana who ran from difficulties and saw responsibility as a mountain best not climbed. i want the spirit of living pure and simple - the connection with nature - the wanderer searching for all that life and the heart and the mind contain - the courage to stretch all of me to the limits. i want fearless joy like i never had until cuts and bruises and heart-breaking depression and tiny bits of wisdom opened me up to receive it. i am called to a new way of living that does no harm - a life built only on kindness - a gentler way that reveres all that has been created here in my world at this moment - but also in the larger world where there is no break in the connections between us all - where i can see all of life reflected in a single tear or in the unwavering gaze of a small child or in anything seen and understood against the purity of nature and innocence.

learning about buddhism is opening me to greater understanding of myself and my existence in this world. i do not wish to become a buddhist. i have a god, a faith, a belief system that is firmly in place in my soul - but i don't always know how to live my life in a way that is equal to what i believe. love is the key to my faith - the key to every faith - but it has been surrounded by dogma and doctrine that seeks to separate human beings from humanity - divides us with rules and rituals with very little meaning against the greatness of love. dictums taken as words straight from god's mouth, yet they are not from god - they are from people who struggle with the same human flaws i have - people who sometimes get caught up in power and wealth and having the last word at all costs - people who swirl in a cycle of behavior that excludes and judges, separates, belittles, cuts, destroys, angers, confuses. i want to cut through to the heart of pure light and burn away the rest - leave only the purity and the warm truth - whatever that may be. i am not afraid of seeking the truth of this mystery - i am more afraid of falling into the rigid ugliness of judgement and unchallenged dogma that has tortured and murdered in the name of god. we catholics, protestants, evangelizing do-gooders have done unspeakable harm in the name of faith. how can we reconcile that kind of destruction with the love called for by jesus and all the other truly holy beings who have touched this earth? i want to live my life in the image of christ's pure acceptance and tolerance and unconditional love - things i have not found in religion.

the dalai lama says buddhist teachings are a science of the mind - not a religion. but i can see why some might want to make it their religion because it is about unity and kindness - calling for tolerance and openness and taking action only when it is without harm to anyone or anything. this is doctrine i can live with - but i will not make it a religion. i don't want a religion - i only want a way of knowing my god and living a life that would please him - doing no harm - loving in an open-handed way so the people in my path can live by their own hearts. maybe in that inclusive accepting nonjudgment i can find a way to live holy -

in reverence to god and people and all of creation.

a journey to peace.

dalai lama enters the stage with slow careful steps - his back curved forward - surrounded by attendants who would gladly carry him if needed - draped in burgundy and gold robes - feet bare. his movement suggests more than his seventy five years, but when he settles and looks at his audience, age is erased. his face is serene and only slightly lined with an indelible smile i would guess he wears even in sleep, and his gesturing hands are smooth and almost young. most of his work has been heart and mind work, so his physical appearance has not taken the wear of someone who has labored with his hands. his sense of humor and playfulness are evident in twinkling eyes and frequent laughter at his own words - almost childlike - and in congruent with the silk lined gold throne where he sits with his legs folded and indiana university visor perching lightly on his head to block the lights. the openness and peace in his presence cannot be denied and flow out into the enamored crowd of buddhists, christians, jews, muslims, and representatives of all faiths and walks of life. he is evidence of a life lived in love - tolerance - compassion - kindness. he does not call for any one of us to renounce our beliefs to follow his. he only offers a science of mind - a way of letting go in release and acceptance.

i am humbled in his presence.

in my own small world of family and pets, home-keeping and tending my garden, i am the master of my universe. i am the answers - not the questions. in this group of seekers, i am a nonentity - a sheltered and inexperienced woman who has lived more than half a life with only the wisdom of a moment. the dalai lama speaks of seeking an existence devoid of self - of exchanging "i" and all that such singularity implies for an existence only relevant in relation to all else. a single person is no more than a tiny dot in the web of all of life fluttering and flowing so each breath is insignificant except for the way it ripples through the entire web. this hints at our smallness on the planet, but it also suggests we are part of something infinite. i am nothing except in my relationship to all else. I have no control - no power - no meaning at all until i become the perception of another human being. then i become mother because my children have perceived me as nurturer and giver and provider, i am daughter because that is what i am to my parents, i am wife to my husband, i am sister to my siblings. without the other beings in my life, i am empty of meaning. my children are a creation of all that has been assigned them. their lives have been molded, their roles created by many moments, hearts, words, encounters. each of us has an identity in relation to all else but it is only a phantom identity created and perceived by the one who is looking. it is not etched in stone - not permanent.

maybe this means i can step away from the roles i fulfill and once again become an empty vessel - rejecting subjective titles and gaining freedom from the attached expectations. maybe i can become nameless, faceless, shifting shapes and forms as the web of life finds my cause and effect at each moment leaving me free to accept the flow without desire for anything more than what is - at this time - in this place. how beautiful to be so impermanent - to have the freedom to transform and change and blow free like a feather - hollow and weightless - strong and purposeful - attached to nothing but essence and pure light.

the first noble truth of buddhism is this - all of life is suffering -- suffering that comes from impermanence. everything changes - marriages end - children die - parents die - illness blindsides us and leaves us humbled - fires burn worlds we have created to feel safe - floods wash away fortunes built over decades like twigs disappearing in the current. beauty fades and families grow up and we cannot hold on. we suffer when we try to walk through this world unscathed by loss that will always find us.

yet joy exists. does it come from some innate knowledge of security and abiding constancy we believe endures on some other plane? have we created the illusion that our perfect little circle of life is immune to gut-wrenching change and uncertainty and death? buddhists say the only way to escape suffering is by letting go of all expectation and entitlement - of all attachment to a particular way we want things to be. does that leave us powerless or does it offer a way of seeing that will lead us to freedom?

as my children have suffered their own heartaches, i have asked them - are you ok right now - in this moment? - and the answer has always been yes. so i tell them everything is ok because this moment is all there is - the rest will unfold as it should. i have been asked what my five year plan is - what i want to do with the rest of my life - what is my goal? i don't know i don't know i don't know. knowing is not real - is not possible - only gives the illusion of control or power or wisdom. if we embrace the not knowing - allow humility to finally reveal our ignorance and our impotence, we become vulnerable - open - innocent. and then we are at the edge of an ocean of possibilities - where life reveals itself with sweet serendipity. we accept all of life with gratitude - seeing with virgin eyes - careful not to miss one fleeting instant of wonder. if we are lucky we realize this life we live is not demanded or deserved but offered generously if we are awake and unafraid. we are here now and all is well - fear is gone - dissipated like fog on a sunny morning and life is pure gratitude -

the soul unencumbered

finally.