Every Day is a Beautiful Day

I’ve been working on this koan for a long time. It’s always been about the weather. Can I say that a rainy day is a beautiful day? The question always brings me back to my mother. Mom didn’t like the rain. A few stories from my mother’s life have stayed with me through the years. Most were stories that she told me. There’s one though that I heard from Aunt Tess. When Tess was engaged to Uncle Nat, Mom’s adored elder brother, she realized how difficult this was my mother. Tess wanted Mom to feel that she was gaining a sister, not losing a brother. She tried to bond with Mom. Tess invited my mother for lunch. At Schrafft’s. In the city. An expensive restaurant to my mother. Mom cancelled. It was raining. The way Aunt Tess told the story it was very funny.

I internalized so much of my mother. I didn’t like the rain. It was my karma, the residue of a previous life, transmitted from my mother. I spent much of my life was settling my father’s jagged karma, but here was a piece of mom’s. I pushed myself out to walk in the rain. It’s not as hard now as it was a couple of years ago. It wasn’t raining hard this morning. I got myself out for 30 minutes, walking on the block, thinking of Mom. “Every day is a beautiful day.”

Last night, I was out walking with Dee. “Every day is a beautiful day.” I said it out loud. Same words; new meaning. Just being able to get out and walk – Dee slows a bit so that I can keep up – no cane, no walker. I am so grateful to be walking today. Who knows if I’ll be walking tomorrow? I won’t know until I get out of bed. It’s funny. I hadn’t noticed before, but “Every day is a beautiful day” is no longer about the weather. I wonder, how old was the Zen master when said these words? It’s taken me a long time to get it.