Check Lights and Begging Bowls

"I set out one night when the tide was low.

There were signs in the sky, but I did not know

I'd be caught in the grip of the undertow."

from Undertow by Leonard Cohen

It can't be called a journey unless you have a way of knowing that you've moved off of the previous spot.  It's been just over two weeks since my car was impounded due to late registration.  Through a stroke of good fortune I was able to finance the car's release, but not without learning a few things along the way.

To think that I could have averted my problems by simply coughing up the $60 to renew my auto registration was somewhat simplistic.  As part of the registration, I had to get to the car smog checked.  Driving away from the towing yard, I noticed the engine check light.  It had been on for many months and I now realized that this had to be rectified to pass the smog certification.

That I had to spend $800 for those repairs alone means that I would have spent that same money 6 months ago...money I most certainly didn't have at the time.  It seems I was headed down this path in any case.

Bay Area woman trapped in airport for eight days–all for lack of a $60 baggage fee

Perversely, I wouldn't have discovered the source of a financial windfall were it not for all of this.  That money was just enough to cover all the costs accumulated with little left over.  For all that was spent, I could have gotten a new car.


"Ditched on a beach where the sea hates to go
with a child in my arms and a chill in my soul
and my heart the shape of a begging bowl."

"Beg" is to receiving as "alms" is to giving.

Asking for financial help is the most difficult thing.  Receiving charity only feels awkward and uncomfortable because I don't feel deserving.  But if the heart can transform into the shape of an alms bowl, I can be nourished by the good intentions of others rather than be starved by my own self-criticism.

Throughout this experience I have received the understanding and support of friends, acquaintances and strangers.  It was heartening to see how people were willing to give of themselves rather than to judge me as some sort of failure.  They see others in my shoes everyday.  It's the symptom of the new economic reality.  Perhaps in other ways they wear ill-fitting shoes too and need understanding themselves.

I remember a moment when it required all the courage I had just to give a dollar to a newly homeless man.  He looked scared and embarrassed to have to ask.  Me, looking quite the same because I did not know how to really care.  Now I understand that a gift from the heart can be freely offered and graciously accepted, that we all grow from these exchanges.

It is good to be traveling under my own power once again.