Voice Mail Wipe Out – Panic – Equanimity – Impermanence

“Your phone is disconnected.”

Sometimes the storms of life take multiple forms as they crash our carefully constructed lives apart.

This past Monday as I was driving to the airport to return home after a week away, ready to return I kept hearing my phone buzz.  An email waited for me.  “Your flight has been cancelled.  Rebooking underway.”

Thus began the storm that started big and crashed again and again at my structured life

How is it that in this busy world there was not one seat to be had getting me home on Monday night?  Not on American Airlines, not on any other airline in the area.  “Not till tomorrow” was the refrain the three times I called.

With nothing to do but soften into the moment I started the process of cancelling and rescheduling a very full Tuesday.  I felt some stress but could mostly relax around not being able to do anything to change this.  My training in equanimity meditation came in handy.

There are times when one storm follows another in rapid progression

Such was the situation for me.

Tuesday came quiet.  It was still in the very, very early morning as I made my way to the airport.  I had made the adjustments, changed what I could, relaxed around what I couldn’t change and the flight home was smooth.

Landing in Boston I thought, “Blackberry’s are great” as I scrolled through my emails to see what carousel my baggage was being delivered to.  Unsuspecting I see first one email, then three emails letting me know my office phone was disconnected.

I thought the storm had retreated off shore, but alas, it crashed into my unsuspecting life again 

[A little background might be helpful here.  You see, after 12 years of being in the same office I am moving to a different office nearby.  That’s a good story in and of itself, not for this moment in time.] 

A month ago I carefully planned out with Verizon how the phone transfer would take place, on what days, in what order, etc., etc., etc.  I had clear notes that we had gone over a couple of times.  All seemed beautifully in order and I was proud of how I was managing the move.  Till Tuesday.

So there I am wheeling my many bags (yes, I travel light J) and my phone cradled in my neck (since I was so disorganized I couldn’t find my earphone) talking to Verizon.  A slip of the fingers, it must have been, said the trying-to-be-helpful Verizon rep. The service request was marked for March 1 not April 1.

I tried staying calm, “But the phone was never to be disconnected, it was to be forwarded to the new number…….”

Apologies, apologies.  I imagined the rep sitting at a computer screen reading the script of what to say to customers who were upset.

Despite my panic, through the many times I spoke to all the many different Verizon reps in the two days I was mostly able to stay calm, centered.  That equanimity practice works!

Verizon got the phone up and running before 5 pm that day.  Phew.

Except when a phone gets disconnected the voice mail gets wiped out.  Completely.  Forever.

Now the third wave of the storm comes barreling in.

“Completely?”  “Forever?”  You’ve got to be kidding.  No, the many reps at Verizon try to say consolingly.  No, we can’t get your voice mail messages back.

See the problem is that I am doing a number of Becoming Safely Attached Workshops one next weekend in Boston and one in Chicago in April.  People had been leaving their registration information on the voice mail.  I left it there while I was away, wanting to record the information in a safe place at the office.

I had even told some people that the Boston workshop was full because the registrations were there – in my voice mail – now apparently irretrievable.  In my mind, Verizon is a vault.  Steady. Secure.  I see the phalanx of people behind the nerd in the glasses.  They’re there for me, right?

Well, not in this case.

Nothing to be done, voice after voice read off the Verizon screen.

I wish I was a good enough writer to take you into the chaotic moment(s) of helplessness, confusion, disorientation, rage, betrayal.

I trusted you – you Verizon!  You were supposed to be there for me!

My overly responsible parts were worried about how to let people know.  How could I get in touch with people whose names were now scattered in the ethers.

That’s when the moment opened like a hand that had been clenched for hours.

The opening unfolded and I still drink from that gift, that moment indelibly altering me.

Even as I rattle through the repercussions, the emails, the phone calls, the helplessness, the fury, the upset, the out of control feelings, even amidst those painfully human moments a moment opened radiating clear, calm, luminous beyond and within, widening the horizon, creating space.

Empty.  In that split second there wasn’t a sense of me grabbing for control.  There wasn’t a sense of me letting go.

The moment closed and I am back in my contracted body astonished at what emerged.

So that’s what impermanence is?  That’s what it’s like to peacefully, joyously, lovingly be with nothing to hold on to, nothing to grab.  Nothing there.  But everything there in the same moment.

Precious. It’s another time when I long to be a better writer than I am.

I wake up at 3:30 Thursday knowing the storm has truly passed, drinking in that moment over and over again.  Recreating what spontaneously had emerged. Grateful to all my teachers, grateful for the years of practice, deeply moved by Grace in the time of Verizon (smile).

I knew as I lay there in the early morning that I would write this for this month’s ezine supplanting the article on shame I had already written and whose topic I feel is vitally important.

In this moment though it feels more important to honor what’s possible – what’s probable – for all of us as we practice, moment by moment through the storms of life.  How lucky we can be to see/feel/experience a much more “true” experience of life.

Freedom from the storms.