The Tao of My Childhood Bedroom
On space and nostalgia and rockstars in their prime
Happy New Moon, Friends!
This week, I'm coming to you from my old bedroom in my grandparents' house. I write under the yellowed gaze of old friends on my poster-plastered walls: Nirvana, and Rage Against the Machine, and a baby-faced Jared Leto. This house used to be full (too full sometimes) of life and music and the bickering of family… Now, it’s museum still. My grandpa lives here all alone now. And this punkishly curated bedroom has succumbed to the creep of dusty boxes and other things that aren’t mine.
At first, after we moved my grandma into a nursing home, being here felt like too much quiet, too much space. Nostalgia grew in it like weeds. But now, the more I come back to sprawl my notebooks across this sagging bed, these shaggy rugs, the more I find something unexpected bubbling up here: a spring of creative energy.
This creative energy is coming from the sheer spaciousness of the place. It’s spaciousness that was here when I was a kid, too, of course, but I never noticed it. This room has always been a place where I could close the door and shut out the whole world: the chaos of family, the angst of puberty, the heartbreak and confusion of high school. I’d sit in here and write songs under blacklight, write bumbling poetry, daydream about the sparkly new life I would build somewhere else.
Now, back here 20 years later, I realize it’s exactly this accommodating quality that makes this room—any room—special. It’s not the poster-clad walls but the space between them. It's the sanctuariness of space itself and what it allows: total freedom to dream wildly, create clumsily, and come into being fresh with every new moment.
It reminds me of this poem from the Tao Te Ching:
Thirty spokes join to a hub
But emptiness at the center
Gives a wheel purposeShape clay to form a pot
But emptiness at the center
Gives a pot purposeCut out doors and windows to build a house
But emptiness at the center
Gives a house purposeHence things are useful
But emptiness makes them work.
Space is the sheer possibility for anything at all to emerge. As content-obsessed creatures, we rarely notice it, but space is our most generous friend.
The mind is spacious like this, too. Time changes every thing about us - the content of our thoughts, our memories, our opinions, and allegiances. No matter how much I cling to the constellation of traits that make me “Tasha”, that "Tasha-ness" doesn’t stand still for a second. It is constantly decaying and being replaced by new me's. The only thing that has ever remained is not a thing at all; it’s space - the space of mind, the space my changing body occupies. The cognizant mind is an empty, unbounded container where all of our experiences, thoughts, and whole lives unfold.
I peel at the corner of a crumbly Spacehog poster. The paint underneath is fresh lilac! It makes me smile—like throwing open the windows in a mausoleum and finding a little creeping spider. Space accommodates all life, and life finds its way.
Where is the Tasha who taped this poster up so long ago? Where is the Tasha who will peel them all down when we sell this house next year? Hovering in the space between those and other selves, nostalgia melts into wonder. Creativity blooms.
This month, bask with me in the who-knows-what-ness of space at the full moon sit :) Deets below.
“Space is the place in your face”
July’s Live Meditation Session
TIME: July 21 @ 8-9 PM EST
DEETS: This month, we'll turn our attention to the total glittering emptiness of being a person: The space that permeates the cells of the body, the space that permeates the thoughts of the mind. We'll hang out together in the universe's most abundant resource: Space!
COST: This session is open to errybody. Please consider paying what you can within your means.
That’s all for now!
You’ll hear from me again on the Full Moon.
❤️ Tasha
(PS. In the meantime, you can join me & Jeff Warren on our weekly practice excursions over at The Mind Bod Adventure Pod!)
I look forward to the next session, thank you! The last time I rode the Magic School Bus from tip to tail. Next time I look forward to focusing on something I probably don't give adequate attention to: the space between. 🕊️♥️🤲