Love is many-splendored, but loss is singular and bleak.

Thus shall you think of this fleeting world:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.
-- excerpt from the Diamond Sutra

This fleeting world is mine, or feels close enough most days. A sudden absence, death, denial, changes that world and then I stumble. There's that bloody gap again amongst white teeth that tongue can't help but probe. It's too hard to hold on to, and to painful to let go. I find myself living a life that's suddenly unfamiliar, dangerous, alien.

The Buddhist retort to pain and loss is, "what now is lacking?", meant to drive your awareness to the present, to the moment, to your being here and now.

Loss is singular because it comes to all, eventually. It's the invariant mate of existence in this universe. So, I am not gone or destroyed by loss -- not yet. Loss is the relief that shows where presence still is. I live, though feel a stranger to my life today. I can keep moving until the moment that even breath is lacking. Things will be all right, even then; my flickering lamp continues, until then.

A series of mistakes led me to accidentally destroy the partitioning
of my hard drive.

*_*

So I've spent the day reinstalling apps and restoring data from backups.

Thankful for having backups. Aggravated I'm not going to accomplish
anything today.



I also managed to kill half the plants at my cubicle by forgetting to water them Friday.

OK, end of sad story.

^_^

Bring your ark.