Tricycle | Awake in the World

After a visit to the roman catacombs when she was ten, a childhood friend of mine became unable to cut her fingernails, to let even the smallest piece of something that once belonged to her go. Inadvertently dropping a Kleenex into a gutter in Florence, she wept when the rainwater bore it away.

Though I don’t weep for lost Kleenex or nail clippings, I feel very close in temperament to my almost pathologically retentive friend. Even after years of meditation practice, I still have a powerful resistance to letting go. Whether it’s people, animals, or things that I’ve loved, I want them to be with me always—as in an Egyptian pharaoh’s tomb, where the lover, the cat, the papyrus scrolls, and the household goods all come along for the ride.