My Watch

I sit in the diner waiting for my good friend, Dan.  I look down at my wrist and see the watch.  It’s a vintage Omega, from the 1960’s.  Susan, my treasured friend, gave it to me.  It was her father’s watch.

I look at the watch and think of Susan, and her father.  I think of my children, imagining that someday one of them will wear the watch.  I recall my father who, like the man who wore this watch before me, was a fisherman.  I imagine the early mornings on the water with my father, picturing the way his wrist snapped as he cast his line.  And my imagining just spins out from there.

In Buddhism we say that we die, and we don’t die.  That which exists cannot become non-existent, we are taught.

Like all great wisdom, it’s simple, enduring, and true.  In the things that we do, in the way that we exist in the world, we set in motion ripples of feeling and thought that collide and connect with other ripples and become part of the same cosmic field that Buddha walked.

We change the world, each of us, by our presence.  And when we die, when our bodies return to dust, even that dust may enrich the soil, feed a living thing.

On and on.

We cannot possibly trace all the interconnected ripples that bring us to where we are.  But we surely feel the presence of those who are with us now- and those who came before.

A half century ago a man walked into a store and bought himself a brand new Omega.   And here I am, in this diner, waiting for my friend.

The magic of life.