We're
walking
through the
cattle
pasture. Underfoot, emerald green grass glistens from the recent
rains.
Totally relaxed in each other's company, we're not saying much,
watching a cloud formation above, and a herd of deer foraging on the
ground ahead of us, when suddenly -
out of the blue
- she asks me
"How
did you
get
what you
got?".
I turn to
face
her. "What do you mean?" I ask. "I
love
what you do with your
life.
I
lovethe way
you live. I
lovethe way
you are.
How
did you
get
to be this
way?".
I grin and say, savoring each
word:
"I guess it must be because I eat oats every day, and I drink lots of
water
too - that must be it" (of course I'm kidding her). "No,
really
Laurence:
how
did you
get
what you
got?",
she persists.
"Walk
a mile in my boots, and you'll know" I say (now I'm not kidding any
more).
"It has to be someone you
trust"
I say. "You mean someone who's earned your
trust,
don't you?" she asks. "No I don't mean that. If I
trust
someone, which is to say if I give them my
trust,
then I'm
coachable.
Then they can
coach
me. But if they have to earn my
trust
first, then that all
gets
in my
way
of being
coachable."."
Now I know the idea that for someone to have our
trust,
they have to first earn it, is rampant. I can tell she has it that
way
too. She doesn't
speak
as she mulls over what I've just said. Then she asks "What do they
coach
you in?". I pause. It's a
straightquestion
which deserves a simple
answer.
But any
answer
won't be easy. So I venture "In the such-ness of it, in the
thus-ness of it all.". Will she
get
my
Zenanswer?
I'm not sure. I don't know if
transformation
can be imparted in a sound bite.
She asks me when my
birthday
is. So I tell her the day and the month. "Oh, you're a
Gemini!" she says. Then she asks me what year I was born
in. I tell her that too. "Oh my
God!" she
says (she seems to be both surprised and delighted upon hearing it),
"you're a Tiger Gemini!". "Oh please no! Don't do that.
Don't even go there" I say.
"Why
not?" she asks, "isn't that
who you are?".
"That's exactly my point: it's notwho I am.
That's a well thought out
belief system,
and a widely accepted and intelligent, revered
belief system
at that which has great value for many people, I might add. But for me
it shuts down almost all my possibility of new, spontaneous,
discontiguouscreatings.
For me, being
coachable
doesn't require explaining or understanding
why
I'm
the way
I am because of when I was born. Look: it's the
future
I invent, not my
past
which determines my
life.
And I
got
that, by
the way
(in
answer
to your
question)
from
friends
I
trust
who
coach
me. That'swho I am.".
She looks at me for a moment in
the way
people look at you when their
point of view
is being attacked ... until it becomes eminently
clear
that I'm not attacking her, and that I'm just
answering
her
question
as to
how
it is with me (I don't explain that to her - in my experience, it will
work
better if she
gets
it for herself). Something suddenly lifts off her concern
- I sense it. "It figures" she says, now demurely,
"life
is in front of us, not behind us.". "Exactly" I say, "and even if it's
true
I was born in the year of the tiger, I say
so what?!
More to the point, even if it's
true
I was born in the year of the tiger, now what?! That was
then. This is now.
What's next?".
"Hmmm! Very cool" she says after a moment or two. The
cloud formation has changed ... somewhat. The deer are still foraging.
We
walk
on, still not saying much.
