The Audiobook I Didn’t Want to Hear

The Audiobook I Didn’t Want to Hear

How Awareness and Equanimity Caught Up with Each Othe

Awareness and equanimity seem to run in tandem, but not always at the same speed.

They remind me of two binary stars orbiting one another. Sometimes they appear side by side. Sometimes one seems to pull ahead while the other trails behind. Yet they remain connected, each influencing the movement of the other.

As I sat in the back seat during a drive to the beach at Kitty Hawk, I was trying to write while my daughter drove and listened to an audiobook version of Wuthering Heights.

The words from the audiobook drifted through the car.

My own words were trying to form on the page.

The two streams competed for the same space.

Awareness noticed the irritation immediately.

It noticed the distraction.

It noticed the pull away from what I wanted to be doing.

Then awareness noticed something else.

Old memories began to appear—times of being interrupted, times of being pulled away from concentration, times when circumstances did not match my preferences.

The mind was doing what minds do.

Making associations.

Building connections.

Following old pathways.

Awareness saw all of it.

But awareness alone did not bring balance.

For a while, it simply illuminated the turbulence.

Then another voice arrived.

Not a voice exactly, but a perspective.

Equanimity.

It had been orbiting the experience all along, but at a slower speed.

Eventually it caught up.

And when it did, the irritation no longer seemed important.

The audiobook was simply sound.

The writing was simply writing.

The car was simply moving toward the beach.

Nothing needed to be different from how it was.

The moment did not change.

What changed was the relationship to the moment.

Awareness had seen what was happening.

Equanimity had allowed what was happening.

The two stars came back into alignment.

And when they did, balance returned.

The thoughts flowed again.

Not because the distractions disappeared.

But because there was no longer a struggle against them.

Awareness noticed.

Equanimity allowed.

And the road continued toward the ocean.