I have learned to tolerate beginning again when it comes to running. I urge my old legs through the first mile and wish for a better feeling, like the feeling that I have ever run one mile before in my life (I have been a runner for over twenty-five years), but now as I get older, the first mile goes by, and I still must tolerate the beginner's mind, the frustration with how hard it is. After forty-five minutes in the rain in the 41-degree temperatures, I feel good. All over. Blood and lymph have rearranged. Lungs have cleared. I remember that I can do this, something not many people my age would choose to do. That feels good, too, beside my dog, trotting back across the footbridge. I must keep moving.
But the task of beginning something altogether new is humiliating. I could not for the life of me play ukulele in the key of B this week. I got no good sound out of those strings. I felt I could not play the ukulele at all, and that's because beginner's mind is so hard. Yes, my fingers do not work. Yes, I have not yet learned to coordinate my hands. It's not the physical that is holding me back, though -- it is the mental effort needed to have patience with myself. Beginner's mind seems harder than any single task. When I try to force my fingers into the shape of the B chord, my brain feels like it will fall out. I serve myself under intense fire and passion, trying to engage my fingers with my will and move into something beautiful. Like magic, I want it all at once. This is not the truth of the beginner. The truth is, it may be some months before I like my own sound.
We have rain. Almost enough rain to call it normal, almost enough rain to begin a spring season. We have spent days inside listening to the steady drive of it outside. It does not matter at all what I think. It either rains or it doesn't. The rain is good at raining, and it sounds beautiful. I turn to tune the instrument again today, after my run, after the internal lecture on patience. Steady, now. My friend and teacher, James Russell, reminded me, "What's hard is still hard."
"Even if you're good?" I asked him.
"Even if you're good."
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