As I was meditating yesterday, instead of focusing on my breath, I was feeling grateful.
For the chimney sweep who swept my chimney; for the decorator who painted the house; for Guy who redid my kitchen and bathroom; for Mick who did the windows; for Dean who did the windows that Mick replaced; and Ray who did the painting that Kevin repainted; for the idiot who didn't do the damp course; for my cousin Clark who did the garden - and the previous gardeners including the ones I didn't like; for all the friends who'd ever visited and the people who'd helped after my accident; for all the lovers who'd sat on the sofa and the ex boyfriend who chose it with me in Ikea; for my Dad and his partner helping me move in and the previous owner who sold it; for the post and delivery people; for the people who mined and cut the stones of the floor and the tiles for the roof; for the builders who built it and the feet that have walked in it....
And you realise this vast net. How embedded one is with lovers and family and friends and strangers and the long-dead and the never-known.
And then I thought that when we touch, even in these tangential ways, the lives of others we are not like two abstract or self contained objects - we are permeable. There's a transfer of... something... a two-way osmosis. We give and receive with every transaction, even those with those we never meet. We are part of each other... energetically? Emotionally? But it's more than that: without all those people I never met and never could have met, my home would not be there. My clothes. My cats. My car. All, everything comes from a community.
I have long felt that I carry with me part of all those with whom I have shared love or even friendship. But it's more far-reaching. We all carry with us the world. And we leave our tracks absolutely everywhere.
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