I’ve come to Hawarden, where the Gladstone’s Library is. It’s a place where I’ve always been able to concentrate well. The plan is to begin work on a book on Right Speech.
The first few days are fine, working on Pāli translation. But when I start on the book, my mind keeps getting pulled into ‘figure out what you’re doing’. I finally give up on the book project, not able to settle into it.
Everything was so rushed with the house sale, and the figurative dust is still settling. I’d been told I had weeks before the sale would finalize, then all of a sudden the buyers were keen to move in right away. So I negotiated — no deep cleaning, ok to leave some things behind, and fine to skip repairing the leaky outdoor tap. But that also meant the time to plan next steps was lost.
I haven’t had a chance to look down this path to see where it is leading. But I remember a conversation last month with my friend Taruṇ, a serious Hindu practitioner who is a year ahead of me on the homeless journey. I shared with him the internal struggle about not being able to see what is ahead on the path, and my hypothesis that it might be because the path only reveals itself as one moves forward — that you can’t see what’s around the corner until you get to the corner.
‘Is it like that?” I asked him.
He replied with quiet delight, as if sharing a secret understanding only fully understood by those on this path. His reply was affirming, encouraging, and unnerving all at once:
‘It’s exactly like that.’
So it’s clear that this is not about getting things nailed down weeks or months ahead of time. If I fill up the space with plans, then there’s no room for things to unfold spontaneously. That much is becoming clear.
But it’s also clear that for now, I’m definitely still in a state of mind where I want to know where I’m sleeping the next few nights.
There’s a balance to be struck here, and I’m feeling my way into it, day by day.
6 July 2024 — Hawarden, Wales
Stops since the last entry: Newport → Pengam, Wales → Hawarden