Instructions for Being Here

You have been selected 
for temporary assignment 
to a rotating rock. 

First, forget everything. 

Because remembering 
would ruin the surprise. 

You will receive a body 
made of water, 
salt, 
and old stars. 

It will be impressive at first. 

Hands. 
Eyelashes. 

Later you will discover 
the lower back. 

We apologise in advance. 

You will also be given 
a brain. 

The brain is useful 
for solving problems 
and creating additional problems 
when none are available. 

It may wake you at 3:17 a.m. 
to remind you of something embarrassing 
you said in 2009. 

Do not engage. 

This is spam. 

Upon arrival 
you will experience 
a sensation called being someone. 

This is temporary. 

You will also be assigned a name. 

Answer to it. 

But wear it loosely. 

People will use it 
to call you across rooms, 
to blame you, 
to love you, 
to write it on envelopes 
containing both good news 
and invoices. 

But remember: 

you were alive 
before anyone called you 
anything. 

None of this is your true name. 

Your true name cannot be carried 
by words. 

There will be moments 
when the world feels 
too solid. 

When stone is only stone. 

When the sky is only weather. 

When another person 
seems impossibly far away. 

This is part of the forgetting. 

Be patient. 

The veil is thinner 
than it appears. 

Nothing is still. 

The mountains are moving. 

The oceans are moving. 

The cells in your body 
are replacing themselves 
while you insist 
you are the same person 
you were yesterday. 

You might fall in love. 

This is when one human 
becomes unusually interested 
in another human’s 
sleeping noises, 
minor opinions, 
and preferred method 
of loading a dishwasher. 

It is considered sacred. 

Do not mock it. 

Actually, mock it a little. 

Sacred things survive jokes. 

Say I love you 
before the moment becomes cinematic. 

Most important moments 
are poorly lit. 

Do not wait. 

You will sometimes feel 
an ache 
with no object. 

Do not hurry 
to cure it. 

It is the memory 
of belonging 
to something 
without edges. 

You will search for this belonging 
in lovers, 
in houses, 
in cities, 
in gods, 
in the face 
you see in the mirror. 

Search. 

The searching is sacred too. 

You may spend years 
trying to find yourself. 

This is considered 
an honourable activity. 

Eventually you will discover 
that the searcher 
was the thing being searched for. 

Do not announce this over dinner. 

People are trying 
to eat. 

But know this: 

what you seek 
is not elsewhere. 

It is the quiet 
beneath your seeking. 

There will be ordinary days. 

Many of them. 

Do not underestimate these. 

A cup on a table. 

Sunlight on the floor. 

Someone calling your name 
from another room. 

Fresh bread 
while it is still warm. 

Strawberries. 

An afternoon 
with nowhere important to be. 

These are not interruptions 
to the sacred. 

They are the sacred 
wearing work clothes. 

Pay attention. 

You will be tempted 
to seek revelation 
only in mountains, 
temples, 
visions, 
and stars. 

But the infinite 
has hidden itself everywhere. 

In dishwater. 

In breath. 

In tired hands. 

In laughter 
arriving at exactly 
the wrong moment. 

In the sound 
someone makes 
when they are trying 
not to cry. 

When possible, 
sit beside someone 
who is sad 
without trying to improve them. 

Bring snacks. 

Snacks are one of the few technologies 
Earth has nearly perfected. 

You will be expected 
to know what you are doing. 

This is perhaps 
Earth’s greatest misunderstanding. 

Nobody knows. 

You will make mistakes. 

Some will wound others. 

Some will wound you. 

Repair what you can. 

Ask forgiveness. 

Begin again. 

The divine has never required 
your perfection. 

Only your presence. 

You will lose people. 

Nothing we say here 
will make that easy. 

When someone you love 
leaves their body, 
you may feel 
the whole world 
has made a terrible mistake. 

Let yourself feel this. 

Grief is love 
learning a new shape. 

Speak to the dead 
if you need to. 

Love does not become foolish 
because a body is absent. 

There will be moments 
when you remember who you are. 

Perhaps while holding 
a sleeping child. 

Perhaps while swimming 
alone at dusk. 

Perhaps when music 
enters you so completely 
there is no one left 
to listen. 

Perhaps standing alone 
in a kitchen 
while rain moves 
against the dark glass. 

For one impossible second 
you may forget 
to be separate 
from anything. 

In those moments 
do not reach for explanation. 

Explanation is smaller 
than experience. 

Just stay. 

Try strawberries. 

Swim naked at least once 
if local laws 
and water temperature permit. 

Waste afternoons. 

Stand in the rain. 

Taste peaches. 

Laugh until 
you briefly forget 
the shape of your own life. 

You came here 
to become intimate 
with the temporary. 

To love what disappears. 

To touch what cannot stay. 

To say yes 
to a world 
already leaving. 

For several decades 
you will carry a universe 
inside a skeleton 
and complain about parking. 

It will be magnificent. 

And when your time comes 
to return, 
the body may resist 
the door it was born 
to pass through. 

Be tender with it. 

It carried you 
all this way. 

Before departure 
you will be asked 
to return all borrowed materials: 

your bones, 
your language, 
the face you believed was yours, 
the body 
you called your own. 

Do not worry. 

Nothing truly belonging to you 
can be confiscated. 

You may keep 
the astonishment. 

Before you leave, 
look once more 
at the world. 

At the astonishing arrangement 
of light and matter. 

At the hands 
you called yours. 

At the faces 
that taught you 
how to break 
and how to open. 

At the ordinary room 
where something extraordinary 
once happened 
and nobody noticed. 

At the sky 
you stopped looking at 
because it was always there. 

At the people 
you loved badly, 
beautifully, 
briefly, 
for as long as you knew how. 

Before you leave, 
a figure with no face 
may ask: 

Did you understand 
what any of it meant? 

The recommended answer is: 

Not remotely. 

But I laughed. 

I was embarrassed. 

I stood in the rain. 

I tasted peaches. 

I ate bread 
while it was still warm. 

I wasted afternoons. 

I loved. 

I lost. 

I began again. 

For a little while 
I was a window 
the universe looked through. 

Then the figure may ask: 

Did you remember 
why you came? 

Tell the truth. 

Say: 

No. 

But once, 
standing alone in a kitchen 
while rain moved 
against the dark glass, 

I forgot to be separate 
from anything. 

That seemed important. 

At the final gate 
you may be asked 
what you brought back. 

Do not say trophies. 

Say: 

I was here. 

I paid attention 
sometimes. 

I loved 
as much as I knew how. 

There is no correct answer. 

There was only ever 
the experience 
of answering. 

Then step forward. 

The figure will stamp 
your papers. 

The door will open. 

And perhaps, finally, 
you will remember: 

you were never sent away. 

You were never outside. 

You were never separate 
from the thing 
you spent your whole life 
trying to return to. 

You only entered time 
for a little while 

so eternity 
could know 
what it felt like 
to be here.