Threshold - V

Two koans.

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For thirty years, I couldn’t bring home anything kindled by anticipation without a fleeting relief I didn’t drop it in the doorway. Dropping that first Buddha exacted its small punishment, turned into a touchstone of pain, and opened an access of grief. It became a superstition but more than a superstition. Superstitions are arbitrary. This one was grounded in an event. Call it a koan of loss.

For years, My koan threw off its sparks and smoke. It had clues and key features:

I’m certain the answer related to the doorway itself, the threshold into security. If I’d dropped my clay treasure in the kitchen by the kerosene heater, it would have been long forgotten, a minor item deposited in the trash before the return to America, an object spent, but set respectfully in a cardboard box with the Disney books. But I dropped my treasure at the perimeter of safety.

And both that first time and all the times that followed: I wasn’t carrying just anything of value over the…