Meditation Practice

My father urged me to stare at a clock with hands on it, imagine another hand that swept counter clockwise—fifty-nine, fifty-eight, fifty-seven—and I my brain started spinning somewhere, anywhere but in the body I was born to. Nothing wrong with my body when I was born, but I was mishandled, and a kind of terror took over, that made the house of me not a safe place to be. (I know I’ve told you this story before, forgive me.) I lived, instead, hopping from cloud to cloud, searching for angels, hoping to see God, like a girl wandering the North Pole looking for Santa Clause. But while I leapt and sought, that backwards clock hand started careening, sweeping faster and faster. I’d blink to try to bring myself back to body, but the hand moved so swiftly, I thought the clock would spin. And my father sat there, grinning, dumb to my flights, patting my head, Good girl.