When I wake up, I like to make coffee. When it is ready, I carry the pot to the bedroom and pour a mugful for Lynn and me. I turn on our computers and see what is going on in the world. I can have a good day if I have to do without coffee for a doctor’s appointment where I am not supposed to have had anything to eat or drink. I can have a good day if the power is off and I can’t start our computers or the morning paper has not been delivered.
But it is sweeter and easier to go through the routine, the ceremonial steps. It is sweet to visit the same town I was in before, to see the same movie over.
I like to meditate each day. B. Alan Wallace says that centuries ago, Indian and Chinese meditators decided independently of each other that 24 minutes was the optimum length of a meditation. But that seems too long for me. I like to meditate for 10 minutes measured by a timer. I like to use the same chair and the same timer. I like to sit in the same upright but not tense position and look at the same view. I can use other chairs, other time periods, and no timer but it is sweeter and satisfying to go through the same routine.
It is a pleasure to go to the same bookstore, eat a meal in the same restaurant, fix the same recipe. I know I am older than the last time I did those things. I know that old Greek guy said I can’t step into the same river twice since both the river and I have changed since I last waded. But attending the same church service, the same graduation ceremony, the same birthday party procedure feels like a re-visit. The similarity shows continuity. The repeat times show that the last time was like this time and that there is a steadiness and a rhythm to my life.
In high school, I was in the drum corps of my high school. I love good drumming. The steady beat, the repetition, is beautiful and satisfying. Our lives, too, have a rhythm. Our pulses, the alternation of day and night, the waves of the ocean, we swing through life to the boogie beat of many drums.
