50 Days 'Til 50 Day 10--Breaking Bad

50 Days ‘til 50Day 9Breaking Bad*note to self…when putting on headphones to listen to music while I write make sure they are plugged into the player before going all crazy that they don’t work…I don’t know why some random things, on any given day end up staying with me for a while. I usually will just acknowledge what I'm seeing or experiencing and just keep going. Most days I like to think of myself or try and act as a fairly conscious person. Even in the times that are the most traumatic and seemingly impossible to get through I have been taught first hand that this too shall pass. And it does. It may not pass into what I expect it will be or what I think it should be, but it does change and in hindsight gets better. Different, but better. The human experience has so many facets and detours and spins that I sometimes wish I could get up in the morning and see on my computer screen what will be happening in my life today and I can then choose whether to show up for it or just jump back in bed, covers over my head. Of course the latter option is not when I have my most enlightened days but it sure feels right sometimes.So I went to my little gas station down the street this morning to fill up my tank. It’s a small family run place, friendly, the coveted selection of candy bars and chips, and 4 blocks from my house. Since I'm a totally creature of habit, I frequent the same places most of the time. It’s a routine, it feels familiar, and I like to support the smaller businesses around town. While the tank was filling, I went in to get a pack of gum and noticed the front door covered in plywood and shards of glass lying around the entrance. It’s on a very busy street in town with lots of people around day and night. I tried to break the ice and asked something snarky like “were they remodeling?” One of the sons gave me a crooked smile as of course we both knew what had happened. Someone broke in. He shared with me a little of what had happened probably tired of people asking him what happened. They saw the guy on the video recorder, break the glass door open, and fumble to cover the camera with some fabric. He showed me the window next to the door that was cracked but not pushed in and then told me what was taken. A single pipe. That was all. No candy, no chips, no beer, but a pipe. The kind that all these one-stop gas shops sell that sits in a dusty acrylic display case next to register. Now in California pot is semi legal (crystal meth is still not) so in addition to candy they sell rolling papers, and other paraphernalia. I just stood there for a few seconds taking it all in. I’ve seen many more horrible things in my life and am not sure why this resonated so deeply with me but in that moment I felt such compassion for the owners and what they would now have to go through to fix this breaking crime scene. One of the guys even laughed (through his anger I'm sure) but just laughed at the absurdity of the situation. My thoughts left with me to the car outside and they quickly turned to the person who did the breaking bad. I kept thinking of the moments before they would smash through the door and wondered what would get someone to that point that their only option was to break down someone’s door, risk being caught and arrested, and for just a single pipe. Maybe it was a dare; maybe some young dare devil kids who all think as I did at that age. I'm invincible. I'm bulletproof. I'm the ruler of my world.When I was younger we lived next door to a man who had a chicken coop. It was a small town but not unusually rural. For as long as I can remember he had his handmade “eggs for sale” sign nailed to his front tree and with my dollar in hand I would grab my dozen eggs out of the refrigerator on his porch and leave my dollar in the cup. There were always many dollars in that cup and I barely ever saw the chicken man but the eggs and the dollars were always there like clockwork. It never occurred to me to take an extra dozen eggs, or to take a dollar for that matter. It just wasn’t the right thing to do and then Id have to explain to my mom and dad where the extra eggs or the dollar in my pocket came from. Our homes front door seemed to be always open. Of course we had the screen door, screened in the summer and glassed in the winter, but the main door was always open. People would come up the path and just enter the house when they came to visit. We would leave on an outing for the day and the door was wide open. We didn’t come back to broken glass and eggs smashed all over the house. I don’t remember in these instances ever feeling afraid and not secure. Except for the monster in the closet that waited for me at night but even that never came to pass and got old after a while.As I now secure myself many times throughout my day I wonder what it is I'm really trying to secure myself from?  I put on the house alarm, the car alarm, and the business alarm every day. I lock my doors and windows and computer each night. Surely this will keep them away. When did I learn to place all my supposed security in the hands of other people, places, and things? Tangible things that I can touch and feel that give me that false sense of security. The flight attendants arm I grab when the plane tips and dips on turbulent flights. The doorframe of the door I now stand in during an earthquake. My pillow and my blanket on my bed…thank you Linus. So although these make me feel secure in that instant, it’s not long lasting. Security is a bit of a delusion I’ve learned in this life. It has to come from a deeper place, a place where I can turn inward and realize that no matter what happens to me in this life I will be ok. When I have those fleeting moments of what that really feels like, it can be heaven on earth.One of my favorite quotes is from Helen Keller. That in itself always humbled me a bit and the quote is this:"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature; life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.”jf