Realness

Back at home I heave a great sigh of relief. It’s really nice right now to just close my door and be in my own space. I lie down on my bed, sinking into the softness of the mattress. That is, until someone knocks on my door. “Leia? Are you coming for our hike?” It’s Nate. We had planned to go for a hike. I groan. I’ve been mostly avoiding seeing my housemates all week.

Somehow I make it out the door and into the car. Nate is driving, thankfully. I try not to look at him. My week has been full of looking at clients’ minds, sensing their state, their stuckness, their suffering in great colorful detail. I feel overwhelmed and I want a break. A week ago I would have said that being able to read minds would be awesome. Now it feels more like a curse. 

Nate is quiet as he drives. That’s Nate, he doesn’t always say much. It’s comfortable somehow, to just be quiet with him. The quiet itself has a substance to it. It’s clear, and spacious, pervading the car. Relaxing. The dissolving has quieted too. It has a quality like dark velvet now, soft, gentle and luxurious. I let my mind touch the velvet, let it soothe my fraying nerves. I idly wonder how it is that minds can touch things. It feels like the touching is happening with my hands, to my hands. But my hands are still in my lap and it is my attention that is touching the velvet. I’m pretty worried about what is happening. My mind feels a bit broken, with normal functioning out of reach. How long can I persist like this, before someone notices? I feel like I should worry more than I do. But the velvet is soothing, making it hard to worry. I close my eyes for a moment, letting the black wash over me.

When I open my eyes we’re turning around into the Chabot parking lot. Not many cars are here on a Friday afternoon. We’ll have the park mostly to ourselves. “Are you okay?” Nate asks as he parks the car. I nod slowly. “Yeah”, I say “I think so.” I’m still not looking at him. But even without looking I can feel him nearby. Like a gentle presence, soft and light. Uplifting. The trees around us are uplifting too. I can feel their presence too. I can feel the trees breathing, giving extra life and oxygen to the space around them. The air feels different around here. Like a gentle rain is coming down that washes everything clean. I stretch out my hand, almost expecting to feel the raindrops. The line between what is real and what must be in my mind feels blurry. It’s beautiful. At least going crazy feels beautiful. That’s something.

Nate watches me. I must look weird, with my arms outstretched, feeling around for the mind rain. Nate, too, is beautiful as he smiles at me. Then he stretches out his own arms and spins once around is own axis. “I love this forest!” he says. I, too, love this forest. The redwood forest is one of my favorite places on earth. The redwoods have always been majestic, but today they feel like they’re beings in their own right. Somehow my heart expands just being around them. I feel bigger, and more at ease. Could it be true that trees have minds? I guess there are cultures in the world that believe such things. 

“What are you thinking about?” Nate asks me. We’ve been walking quietly for a while, soaking in the forest. I like that I can be quiet like this with Nate. There is a gentle sweetness to our quiet togetherness. “I’m thinking about how to tell whether something is real.” I say. Nate nods. His curiosity feels gentle, like a soft pink mist is surrounding him. I watch the mist subtly change color in the direction of yellow. It makes me happy somehow. A subtle happiness, that is compatible with being freaked out and confused. “When you’re having an experience, how do you know that it’s real?” I ask him. He thinks. “I don’t know”, he says. “A little bit I would say I just know. Like maybe I know that something is real the same way I know that something is the color red.” I think about this for a while. We’ve followed the trail to a spot where it overlooks the bay. For a little while we simply stand there, looking down at the ocean and the city. Oakland looks beautiful from up here.

“How do you know that something is real, rather than just in your mind?” I ask. Nate thinks. “Again, it seems kind of like a quality things have. Like colors and texttures. There’s also an expectation that I can be surprised, that things that are real are outside of me and can surprise me. I’m expecting that I can learn new things about them by interacting with them. Things that are in my mind feel more like they’re under my control and therefore can’t surprise me.” I think about this for a while. I like the way Nate thinks about things. What he’s saying is somehow straightforward. And useful. If the mind sense is real then I should be able to interact with it in a way that’s surprising. I look around and touch the pink-yellow mist surrounding Nate’s torso with my mind hands. Nate looks at me, surprised. He laughs nervously. I laugh nervously too. My hands feel a bit tingly where I touched the mist. As if I’d received a very gentle electric shock. It feels nice. Nate and I walk in silence the rest of the way while I ponder what this means.