I promised Carol at ZenDotStudio that I would draw lines this weekend.  So I did.

It was surprising how difficult drawing a line can be.  I mean, it’s not just about getting up the energy to do something that may have gone by the wayside over weeks or months or years.  It’s not just about facing the what if’s and the if only’s that tend to haunt things-let-go-for-long.  It’s not just about the anger, resentment, sadness, depletion, oh-I-should-have-done-this-sooner.  It’s not just about anything real except maybe that heart-pounding moment before the brush kisses the paper and the mind shuts off and the hand becomes an alien.

It’s just about drawing the line.

Drawing it as “Yes.”

Drawing it as “No.”

Drawing it as “Oh, how I want this to be different but it isn’t going to be.”

Drawing it as “I thought I knew how to do this but not any more so start again.”

Drawing and seeing I’m outside the lines.

Drawing and knowing I’m out of line, at the end of the line.

Drawing down the page, the moon.

Ink

as teacher, dharma, and old friend,

showing me how to let go.

A poem:

The End of the Line

Carefully try to remember what
it is that you are doing.  “How
do you do?  How do you like
what you do?”  are you going
to continue in the same wasteful
and thoughtless fashion?

Philip Whalen in What Book!?  Buddha Poems from Beat to Hiphop, edited by Gary Gach