For weeks I had planned a trip to drive down to visit my uncle at his cabin near Lake George. With Covid, I had locked down so tightly, refused to travel, I had missed seeing so many family and friends. This was my favorite uncle, and I delighted in the idea that, after so many years, we could reconnect. Then, the fires in Quebec broke-out, air quality all the way from upstate NY to Manhattan was in the red, with my asthma, and now long covid, I feared the car, and then an old cabin in the woods, would not give me enough protection from the smoke. In the end, super disappointed, I canceled my trip.

Stuck at the Montreal home, in a small windowless room, with an air purifier going full blast, I started thinking – just like with retreat, I had made plans, fixed them in my head and my heart, gotten excited and then, bust. Something as small as airborne particles, as viruses and ash, could dictate my life.

Weeks ago, when I made these plans, the idea of a wildfire on the East Coast of Canada, effecting air quality down into the US didn’t even cross my mind –in fact, this is not something that had ever happened before. But here I was, facing conditions not just outside of my control, but outside of my wildest imagination, that had ruined something I had so deeply wanted to do.

I have reflected before that the past is gone, I never really ‘live in the moment’, for me my whole life comes down to living for my future. That isn’t just what I want, what I look forward to, it is a critical part of the story I curate about WHO I AM. Alana atta is deeply bound-up with the story I tell myself about my past and the fantasies I have for my future. The future that I will plan and then manifest, through the force of my will, my effort, my preparation. I will forge my destiny, achieve my goals, fulfill my desires…except when I can’t. Except when the unimaginable, when the microscopic, when the seemingly trivial conditions force a totally different outcome…

The fires continued several days and we get a call from 2 very dear friends: Greg and Ellen’s flight back from their honeymoon in Japan was scheduled for a short layover in Montreal, but with the fires, their connection back to Virginia had been delayed for 3 days. I was delighted when, out of the blue, t they show up at our door to stay with us. Finally, the fires had given me something instead of just taking away…

It was Sunday night, when they showed-up and Greg, a chef, and Eric were already planning-out all our meals we were going to have, all the markets they would go to. And then, Monday morning their flight was rescheduled again for later in the afternoon. Again, I found myself disappointed.

Even through their visit had been a complete and total surprise, even through I hadn’t planned it at all, my mind quickly fixated on them being there for 2 days. Then, when things shifted and changed, it made me sad to loose the imagined future I had made solid and real in my mind. But the irony is, it is the very flux, changeability, that landed them on my front steps in the first place. To then be surprised, upset, that they were ‘taken from me early’, is crazy.

I pretend to be the architect of my life, but in fact, I am just responding, yielding, caving, replanning and rehashing in response to a reality I can’t change. Reality doesn’t adjust to me, I must adjust to reality. Sometimes, that adjustment is a happy one, like when friends turn up at my door, and in those cases, I am quick to claim victory, to unthinkingly add this latest twist to my narrative about my life and who I am. But frequently, I face disappointment, and in those moments, I react, try to recover, try to make the best out of the cards I am delt. I wiggle within the confines reality has dictated. But never do I stop and reflect on what these unexpected deviations from my plan are actually telling me about the nature of the world and who I am.

If I live my life reacting to the world, subject to circumstances, battered about by conditions, then I am not the master of my destiny. And this brings me to a question that really gives me pause: Is there self without self-determination? Or maybe more practically, is it worth being born if I don’t have self-determination? Without self determination, how can I use my experiences, or objects, or skills, or story to prove who I am? How can I expect that I can navigate a world filled with perils in order to find pleasure? Should this not be grounds for disillusionment?