The mansion faces a side street that is closed to vehicular
traffic. On three sides it is surrounded by a high white wall, and on the third
side an iron fence. The gate is closed and locked, there is a cop car at one
end of the street, and security cameras hang off the lamp posts. Apparently a
few years ago, someone did firebomb the building, so I guess a little security
is understandable. But we’re not here to bomb anything. Rather I kicked off my
shoes, sat in partial lotus in the grass across the street, and focused my
meditations on the front door of the mansion, which is wreathed in greens and
ribbons for the season.
I have to admit, although I have been a yogi for years, I
struggle with meditation. Perhaps it’s the constant presence of kids and pets
in every space in my life. Perhaps it’s just my normally energetic, go-and-do
personality. There have been few times when meditation was anything more than
just a few minutes of quiet at the end of a yoga session. I’ve learned not to
anticipate or judge the experience though, so I didn’t really have any
expectations.
For sure I can’t sit for two hours, so I sat some, stood
some, and sat some more. Took a quick run for the port-a-potty on the corner.
Wriggled my right foot, which kept falling asleep. Sat some more. Eyes closed,
eyes open, hearing the downtown noises, buses and bikes and acorns falling off
the trees and sirens and somewhere a jack hammer. I thought about Texas. I am a
Texan, but it’s been a love/hate relationship these past 20 years. I looked at
the white columns of the mansion, so unlike my own modest little house in south
Austin. I looked at the massive branches of the old oak trees in front of the
mansion, and imagined children swinging from them. For my thoughts to be positive,
I had to extend the passion of my heart to every Texan, including Rick Perry. I
closed my eyes again.
I am Texas, I thought. My great-great-grandfather’s bones
are buried here. My ancestors are part of Texas, and the atoms and molecules of
Texas build the bones and muscles of my body. Texas is me. Every dry, dusty,
poverty-struck corner of it. The dying trees and the stinking highways, the
rolling hills and the slow rivers. I imagined rain falling on the hard earth
beneath me, imagined the water swelling in a sheet of silver, bringing the life
of love to everything it touched, spreading around the massive dark oak trees,
splashing over the steps into the mansion, flooding every room and everything.
Another acorn fell. I opened my eyes and was surprised to see blue sky above
me. The acorn teetered back and forth on the bricks of the road and finally rocked
to a halt. I noticed that my foot had gone to sleep again.
I don’t know if five people sitting in the grass in downtown
Austin will really change the world. I don’t know if next week we will be three
or thirty. I don’t know if Rick Perry will ever look out of his window with his
morning cup of coffee in hand and wonder what the hell. I don’t know if the
power of our prayers will somehow touch his atrophied heart. But I do know that
to sit with friends and strangers and pray with all your heart for a common
purpose will change us, will change me. I think that is the buried treasure in
activism. It awakens our strength and sisterhood and focus, raises us from
despair and apathy, sets our feet on a path to somewhere. And who knows? Maybe
in time I’ll be able to sit in lotus without going numb.
