Trampin'

Today I took a friend out for a birthday lunch at a local Thai restaurant, where I indulged in my perennial favorites; Pad Thai with tofu and Thai iced tea. After that we hit some thrift stores and a library, where I checked out a few cds, one of them being Patti Smith’s 2004 recording, Trampin’. I listened to it tonight while painting, my head embroiled with various thoughts, quandaries, queries. As the last song rolled on, Trampin’, I was attracted to its quiet simplicity – Patti’s soft but soulful delivery punctuated with piano. The main chorus goes “I’m trampin’… trampin’… tryin a make heaven my home…” The song is a “negro spiritual” from 1931 and carries the beauty and weight of its time. The song actually made me stop and think, a cliché occurrence on one level but nonetheless a much-needed reminder of what gives life meaning. As I’m sitting there, painting, absorbed in color and texture, being vigilant of the movement of my hand and the information transmitted to my eyes… where is my mind? Tonight it was running around in circles. And getting nowhere. And I was getting mentally exhausted just listening to my own mind-chatter. But I didn’t stop perpetuating those annoying thoughts until this song came on and gave me pause. What did it make me think of? Well, the obvious first things were heaven, and home. I was thinking about heaven not in a far-off Christian sense, but in a more universal and concrete “Bangles” sense (“They say in heaven, love comes first - we’ll make heaven a place on earth...”). I’d like to think of “heaven” and “home” as the same thing. That’s the ideal, isn’t it? But sometimes (often?) so hard to internalize, let alone materialize. Spending 3 months at the Dharmahouse this summer gave me a glimpse of what life could be like if people of varying nationalities, ages, and interests came together for a common purpose. Beautiful at times, stressful at times, wonderful at times, claustrophobic at times… but still a microcosm held together by the commonality of positive intention. It’s this concept of intention that I find to be so important. One recurring thought I’ve been having for the past few weeks has centered around the concept of intention and its relation to mindfulness. They seem so intertwined – to be mindful you must have the intention to be mindful, but where does the intention come from exactly…? Is it something that can be pin-pointed? I suppose the answer to that is different for each person, but I imagine that the intention to be mindful is related to the intention to manifest “heaven on earth”... in other words, to live in community, which all stems from a fundamental sense of goodwill and benevolence. I think that fundamental sense is what lies at the core of all of us, underneath all these whirlwind thoughts that so easily captivate our attention and carry us along from moment to moment. How easily we lose touch with that core! But when you wipe it all away, when you have a Patti Smith moment, when you peer through the dross, it’s still there – familiar and welcoming.

The next time I paint, I’m curious to see where my mind will be.