Spaciousness

(Photo from Castro in San Francisco)



There is a characteristic of the Midwest, which before dealing with recent difficulties, had always disturbed me. The fields. The open-ness. The lack of mountains or even high hills. Sometimes I felt comforted that I could see so many miles ahead and back, sometimes that felt like the wrong kind of distraction. Yet it is true. Mountains intimidate me.

But today, I appreciate the spaciousness in the Midwest. The lack of head clogging, visually. The ability for hard things to face to float for a bit before me, not be crammed in by strangers or even by skyscrapers. When I was in the Bay Area recently, I took a lot of photos of space (not surprisingly, a major element in Miksang conceptual work), and really appreciated what space I could find there. Here, it is everywhere. And for now, it is a strange comfort - being that space, with all of it's motility, is not comfortable at all in some ways, it is a sailboat on the sea, always in motion. Yet, once one rests into movement, there is a comfort. Not comfort in the sense of lulling. Just, spaciousness.