Yes, I’m calling this my home. The same way I call my body mine, even knowing that it’s not, really. It’s just a gift I’m borrowing from the earth. I’ll have to say goodbye.

Tears squeeze my throat because I see: everything I dreamed that I could have “someday, after I sell my book, after I’m finally a real person” is already here. And she knew it all along.

This is all I ever wanted. Why would I push away seeing it, taking it in, until I’m an old woman? Now that I have cancer, becoming an old woman is not a certainty by any means.

Yeah, all of this is temporary. But if I let myself see it, if I let myself take care of it, if I let myself get a fresh bright blanket with butterflies all over it and a little cot and clean the floor and get the junk off the shelves and throw out all the old skanky rugs and buy a super pretty round mandala blue yoga mat for the perfect little space in the middle . . .

For sure, it breaks my heart, because it’s so precious and everything could be broken in an instant. Death, fire, catastrophe. But sometimes things are not destroyed right away. Sometimes you have a chance to live.

My room is not mine. It’ll never be mine, same as my body isn’t mine. But while I’m here in this body, I’m going to love it, love it, love it. And while I’m here in this little 9 x 9 foot rent-stabilized SRO magic camp, I’m going to love it, love it, love it.

Funny how it took me 19 years of me living here before I could finally say, well, looks like I might be here a while, let’s take care of it, make it nice.

I’ll never complain again about how small it is, how there’s no running water, kitchen or bathroom. What am I even talking about? There’s a communal hall bathroom and running water just a hop skip and a jump away from my front door. There’s no reason to get dramatic about this, other than to exult over how intensely wonderful and blessed it is. I’ll never forget again that this is what I prayed for with all the urgency and longing in my heart, for lifetimes.

Here’s a piece of writing from a Dharma book that has come to me twice in my life, as if by accident, but with such a strange echoey mystic sense behind it that I could feel my lifetimes speaking to each other.

The first time I saw it was at the Dharma center, many years ago. I ended up with the advanced students in a different class than usual. The instruction was to pick a book and read from it. So I went to the bookcase and grabbed a book, didn’t know which one. Opened it randomly, and saw this:

When will I dwell in a cave where there is no foundation for cleaning to arise? In empty shrines or at the foot of trees, unattached to family and not looking back—when will I come to dwell like that?

When will I dwell in that place not owned by others, which causes no arguments and allows me to meditate for as long as I like: a clean open place where I can dwell without attachment to my body and possessions? When will I be able to live without fear, with nothing but a begging bowl, a cooking pot and some poor clothes of no use to others, and not desiring anything? If I abide in this way, I will not even have to protect or hide my body. There is no danger from thieves or robber since I will possess nothing that anyone else would ever want.

If we generate the aspiration and pray to be able to dwell in this way it is certain that one day we will be able to do so. If the circumstances do not come about in this life, they definitely will in a future life.

My eyes filled with tears as I sat there huddled over the book. If the circumstances do not come about in this life, they definitely will in a future life. My heart pounded with the mysticism of the moment. I suddenly saw everything clearly. I knew beyond doubt that I had created my little SRO from prayers in a previous life.

I was so bewildered that when I put the book back, I forgot to look at which one it was. Where that passage was. Couldn’t find it again.

Then, probably about 10 years later than that moment, in the retreat at the beginning of this year, the instruction from the teacher was to read a part of the text between sessions. I never follow that instruction. I usually run around really fast outside. I like to breathe and feel the sun.

But I had a commitment to stay at the front desk to help out, so I thought, what the hell, I’ll do the reading. And I did.

The reading was that passage again.

Sometimes, if you just follow the instructions, you get deeply blessed.

At that point, I wrote it down so I would never lose it again!

I could live here until I die. The real metamorphosis is never anything external. It’s in getting blessed with the ability to see clearly.

What’s already here. What’s always been here.

Who you already are. What you already have.

What you yourself created. What you so urgently and passionately wanted.

Here.

This beautiful little home is my dream come true. I can see it now.