Grave meditations

Neither dark nor light, blissful nor scary, embracing nor aloof. Here it just is.

Cold but not uncomfortable, I rest on the earth, not a cloud above. The smell is of soil, millions of years old. It’s easy to imagine my space shared by spiders, snakes and other things that slither in the dark, but I’m calm and don’t fear them. Inches above, a ceiling of old oak, itself serving an afterlife here. This capsule made by man is comforting, if claustrophobic. To consider spending an eternity here conjures a terror just beyond my consciousness; I keep it at bay and embrace the moment.

Alone in this place, there is only one voice to be heard, and that is mine. Introspection seems the only alternative to nothingness, and for me lengthy nothingness can be scarier than things that slither in the dark. As I have done all my life, I listen intently to what I have to say, or in this case, think.

I fully lived life. I loved my work. I hugged my children. I enjoyed meeting people. I welcomed the demands of my 100-year-old home. I looked forward to rough and tumble bonding with my friends. I basked in the challenges and blessings and the exhilaration of just being me.

I smile when I think of my job. I sold more cruises than anyone else in the office. There’s nothing better than selling a product that makes people happy. I always enjoyed helping others, sharing funny stories, fulfilling their fantasies. My wishes for their happiness sailed off to the tropics with them. Many of my clients became friends and repeat customers.

I think of my children, of birthdays and vacations, but also of simple moments when they sneaked into our bed to escape monsters in their closets, of Disney songs they sang incessantly, of scraped knees and broken teenage hearts. I think of how they will carry a bit of me to a new generation and generations beyond.

Only days ago, I embraced my wife, not the earth. Life sprung from the touch of fingertips on skin so very familiar, yet foreign. My lips brushed hers, teasing, then trailed across her cheek, rested a moment on her closed eyes, finally opening to nibble on her earlobe. As always, the sensation remained fresh and exciting.  Scents of her shampoo mixed with those of crisp clean sheets and the stir fry we had for dinner, all sensual and somehow perfect together. After all these years, we were still discovering each other, becoming one while remaining two.  “Till death do you part” means so much when the us is severed into you and me, or the memory of me.

Just a couple of days ago, I was racing downhill through the woods on my mountain bike, chased by friends trying, like me, to outdo our latest run. We taunted each other with macho challenges. “Is that all you’ve got? You’ll never get to the bottom if you ride your brakes all the time!” My tires shifted on damp roots, amplifying my heartbeat. Speed, danger and adrenaline shouted to me as my tires grabbed hold before they could hit a tree. “You’re alive,” my body screamed. “You’re more than alive!” I pedaled faster.

My blessings and joy were beyond what I deserved. My memory focuses on happy times, and only drifts to darker events in times of deeper reflection, like now. After all these years, a reckoning is due. It is too late for atonement.

Vignettes of regret cloud my happier memories. I never acknowledged how much I appreciated my parents, leaving a trail of angst and superiority I didn’t regret until they were gone. I had friends who needed me, but I was too busy to help and let them drift off to unhappy ends. There were times I made my wife, the mother of my children, cry because I had to be in charge, and I had an ego to feed. I should have walked away from petty disputes with bad bosses instead of leaving a trail of hard feelings, lost jobs and hardship for my family. The ass now resting on this cool earth needs serious kicking.

Besides the regrets of my making are those imposed by a fickle fate. Opportunities missed, human connections lost, the pain and loss of people I loved. “If only…” I wish, then realize randomness is the nature of the world and beyond my control. Even so, the losses leave a hole in my being.

But that is all behind me and seems to be past redemption. I shove my regrets to the periphery where claustrophobia and slithering bedmates reside.

I take stock now of how I feel in this grave, now that I’ve reviewed my past. No pain, no anxiety, no expectations. The experience is meditative, devoid of thoughts beyond the moment. Ironically, the favorite part of my daily yoga routine was the Corpse Pose, or Savasana. That is what I feel now.  At rest. At peace. At one with the earth.

“Hon, you have a phone call!”

My wife’s voice pierces the tranquility.

“Alan? The phone!”

I open my eyes and peer toward a square of light beyond my feet. Her silhouette squats in the glowing frame of a tiny doorway.

“Can you come out?” she yells. “It’s the life insurance guy.”

“Yeah. It will take a minute. Tell him I’ll call him back. I have to shimmy out of this hole.”

I turn on my flashlight, then wiggle my way, serpent-like, down a shallow dirt trench that snuggly holds my body, to one I can walk in bent over, then emerge from the crawl space through the hatch beneath my Victorian home.

“Did you get the pipe fixed?” she asks.

“Yeah. It didn’t take long.”

“You’ve been under the house for an hour. What were you up to?”

I shake the dirt out of my hair and brush off my clothes as I consider the simplest answer.

“Pondering life and death,” I say.