Wherever I Go, Am I There?

I was going to title this "Wherever I Go, There I Am," but that’s already been copyrighted. My generation has been repeating it ever since Werner Erhard thought up EST. Mindfulness. Everybody’s talking about mindfulness nowadays. Actually, they’ve been talking about it at least since Siddhartha Gautama attained an empty mind while sitting under a tree. Funny what can happen when you sit under a tree. You can gain enlightenment; discover the law of gravity; get struck by lightening; or as in my case, be attacked by ticks. Never mind, I got distracted by the idea of Buddha and his tree. The kind of mindfulness that has the most significance to me personally, right now, is the kind of mindset that reminds me to remember that I’m walking down the three steps outside my back door and I should look where I’m putting my feet. It’s the sort of mindfulness that lets me remember that the keys I’m searching all over the house for are still in my pants pockets, where I put them when I unlocked the back door so I could mind my steps and not break my nose on the Hummingbird feeder. I read a study that compared the speed of mental responses to questions posed to Group A - young adults under the age of twenty-five and Group B - older adults over the age of fifty-five. Naturally, it was scientifically proven that younger people think faster. Then the researchers decided to dig a little more deeply. Much to their surprise, their findings wrought havoc with their previous conclusions. What they discovered was that when queried, Group A subjects went straight from question to answer. For example, “What did you have for breakfast this morning?” Instantaneous answer: “Cinnamon Cloud Macchiato Latte Venti.” There was next to no measurable time lapsed between question “Breakfast?” and reply “Expensive Coffee.” On the other hand, when Group B subjects were asked the same question, they did indeed take longer to blurt out “Coffee” but that was because their brains were more fully engaged in side trips. Their internal dialogues went something like this: “Breakfast? Did I take out the trash cans before breakfast this morning? Yes, now I remember because I saw Louise walking her dog across the street and we waved. Then I had to clean the toaster because it smelled from burnt crumbs. That’s it! Toast!” The delayed answer: “I had toast and coffee for breakfast.” The older folks weren’t necessarily slowing down; they simply had more things to think about. Therefore, this particular research project concluded that Group A responded faster only because they tended to go directly from points A to Z, not because they were more mentally acute. (My apologies to any Group A readers. I’m just quoting statistics here.) For a small number of people, multi-distractional thinking may be innate. For the rest of us it evolves slowly over time. This impacts the exchange of information. Imagine a twelve-year old girl and me sitting at the dining room table after dinner. “Mary.” “Huh?” Whatcha thinking about?” “Nothing.” “You thinking about Anthony?” “Yeah.” This is followed by a sheepish grin and an end to the conversation. Sometimes it varies. “Mary.” “Huh?” “Whatcha thinking about?” “Can I go play on my computer?” “You done eating?” “Yeah.” “You have any homework?” “No.” “Okay. Go play.” Now if it should happen that any one asks me the same question, not that anyone ever does because by now they’ve learned better, but if they did it would go something like this: “Ma.” “Huh?” Whatcha thinking about?” “I’m thinking that we should throw out last week’s leftovers in the refrigerator to make room for all the food I cooked from tonight. Also, where is the lid to the sour cream? Does anyone want dessert? I have pudding and cookies. The fountain needs cleaning. You want to watch Chak de India with me later? It’s so good.” So here’s what we’ve established thus far. 1) Being mindful and in the moment is critical to avoiding falls and wasting time looking for the keys in my pocket. 2) Just because I may take longer to get to the answer, it’s not necessarily because my thinking engines are slowing down. It’s due to creative distractions. 3) When I’m distracted, that’s when it’s particularly important to be in the moment so I can watch where I put my feet. The above is the ultimate Closed Loop System, people, a thing of sublime beauty to accountants everywhere. Truthfully, my love affair with mindfulness started long ago, on a day when I was sitting at the table, listening to the conversation of cherished guests, and realized the paramount thing on my mind was a picture of me washing the dishes as soon as they left. (Yes, the implication of ranking high on the OCD spectrum is not lost on me.) What differed this time was the brand new notion that I should immediately delete all mentally distracting images, relax, and focus on my company while they were in my house. There would be plenty of time to think about cleaning later. Now if that isn’t an EST moment, I don’t know what is. This novel idea intrigued me so much, I journaled about it. You know, so I wouldn’t forget. It’s not enough to think about a new idea, then share it with the first five people who walk through the door. I have to write it down. Even then the odds of remembering are sketchy. My breakthrough in mindfulness came with its own new Mantra. “Plan and then be Spontaneous.” The planning part was easy. While it looks like I’m carrying out one activity, in my head I’m already three miles down the road. But the “spontaneous” part, that proved to be a challenge. However, as with everything else, practice makes almost perfect. Now it’s not so hard to sit back, enjoy turning left with the gang, even though I planned on turning right. Being spontaneous can lead to wonderfully grand adventures. Of course, I still have to be mindful. Otherwise, I forget where I put my purse. So here I am. Where? Not so sure. It depends. Yet wherever, whatever or whenever, I try to carry with me the words that aid my life as I live it now: Be mindful. Be in the moment. Pay attention to what’s in front of you. Try to remember why you walked into the kitchen. If you can’t remember, make a list and then remember to look at the list. Best of all, plan and then be spontaneous. And if all else fails, there’s always Xanax.