Breathing....

I find it impossible to meditate. I really want to, I really need to, but I find it utterly impossible.

It's bad enough that I can't quiet my own mind - two seconds of "Breathing in, I know I am breathing in" and my mind is thinking about what color to paint the meditation room (we turned Tony's old office into a meditation room) or what I'm going to eat for dinner or why my customer just emailed me at 10:30 at night. I've never been good at quieting my mind. In yoga class, it is much the same. Sometimes I hit that sweet spot of not wondering what my butt looks like in these pants or if I'm showing too much cleavage because I swore this tank covered more when I left the house and did I leave the iron on but I couldn't because I haven't ironed anything in over a year and surely the house would have burned down by now and how much insurance do we have and could we just take the money and forget about rebuilding the house that is slowly bankrupting us and oh, god what if we do go bankrupt, where will Mom and Jack live and so on. That's your little peek into my mind. Never quits.

But sometimes, every once in a great while, I'll be breathing and softly gazing at my candle and my mind will go white and it is a beautiful thing.

And that's usually when Sarge barks or someone calls my name. See, I tell everyone in the house when I'm headed to meditate. I want them to know that for the next half hour or so I will be unavailable to answer phones or questions or watch American Idol or whatever else is going on at the time. I'm conscious of the fact that I'm needed a lot in my house and that everyone needs to know when I'm going off the grid.

Doesn't matter. I swear that somewhere in the house there is a light that goes on about five to seven minutes into my meditation that alerts Sarge or Tony or Mom that I need to be interrupted IMMEDIATELY! The first time, Mom needed me to clean up a Sarge accident. The second, Tony forgot I was meditating and needed me to fix the remote control in the basement. The third, Sarge needed my attention because I hadn't given him any in five to seven minutes. It has become a big joke in the house that as soon as I go in that room, I become the most popular person in the house. Tony could go the entire day without talking to me but the minute my butt hits that cushion and I light that candle, we have ISSUES to discuss.

Tonight, I had a combination of distractions. Before going in the meditation room, I announced that unless the house was burning down or someone was headed to the hospital, I was not to be disturbed. Or I would make sure that the house did burn down and one of them went to the hospital. But, Sarge was barking, the neighbors were having a party and Mom and Jack were two rooms over in the library watching some movie that involved police sirens, chainsaws, screaming and loud rock music. I think it's the latest Miley Cyrus vehicle. Plus, Tony was watching something in the basement that had so much bass in the soundtrack that the floor was vibrating. It was the perfect storm of meditation killers.

So, I did what any good student of meditation does. I fumed. But I was breathing deeply the whole time, so I think that counts.