Accepting What Is

Cyndi and I were fortunate to have tickets to a Christmas tour at the White House late this afternoon. We decided to make a real outing of it, and we made reservations for dinner at a nice restaurant after the tour. Our instructions warned us that there tends to be a line—that we might end up waiting for 20 – 25 minutes to get in. We dressed warmly because it was cold out. We were ready, we thought, though I don’t think we realized how damp the air was until we started to stand in the line. We were soon mindful of the damp and the cold as we waited our requisite 20 – 25 minutes. We were also mindful of the fact that we had only moved about 20 feet forward in that time, and the line still stretched a good 100 feet before us. Then we were mindful that the line didn’t move at all for the next 15 minutes. We started wondering when we’d get in, if we could make our reservations, or if we wanted to wait much longer in the cold. I think I’ve already mentioned that it was a damp cold. That made an impression on me.

Eventually the line started moving, and as we approached the entrance, we decided to stick it out. After a wait of only an hour and 10 minutes, we were in---or at least we were in the outside gate, and it only took us 5 more minutes to actually get in a building with some heat and some Christmas decorations.

So we began to move through the rooms. I got a picture of Cyndi with Hilary Clinton. (OK, with a portrait of Hilary.) We saw everything, but we lingered over nothing. It was all quite attractive, and at the same time all quite old. In case you wondered, the White House does not have an open floor plan. It needs remodeling, but I don’t know that a president can choose to take out a wall. There’s a limit to all power. Soon we were done and off to our restaurant. We managed the tour without throwing off our schedule, so I considered it a triumph. Yet, as I’ve thought about it this evening, I’m not so sure.

I was ambivalent about seeing the White House in the first place. I’m dubious of the power that it represents, in part, I’m sure, because I don’t have much of that kind of power. I didn’t want to fawn over my experience. When an hour in the cold was added to that, and then the possibility of a thwarted expectation—the possibility of missing the dinner that for me would be the high point of the evening—well, I can say that I saw the White House, but I didn’t really see the White House. I noticed it, but I didn’t see it. I didn’t spend much time or energy with the artistry of the decorations. I didn’t let the history of the place, the rooms penetrate my consciousness. I was on a mission. Veni, Vici, Ivi. (I came, I saw, I went.)

Thich Nhat Hahn talks about the art of accepting what is. He doesn’t mean that we’re to ignore injustice or suffering in our world. He means that we need to live our lives in the midst of the present circumstances, not fighting the circumstances, but being present to them. We need to see what of life is available within them. I struggled with that this evening.

The time in line was long, but I notice that I was able to be present in the midst of the cold wait. I didn’t have much choice. My greatest memory of the evening was the one-year old girl in front of us in line—just watching her be there smiling, looking at birds, feeling cold, and being hugged by her mother. But once in the White House, I was on a mission---to get out the other side. Circumstance had thrown me a curve ball. It had placed me in an ambivalent setting and threatened my dinner. I responded by running through the present to a future that, in the end, was a bit disappointing. (The restaurant served small portions!) I didn’t accept what was—that we were running late. I fought it and ended up missing much of a wonderful experience. Life’s too short to throw away the present, whatever it is. I want to work on accepting it.