As a child my family, mother, brother and sister, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, pets, and occasional friends, would all meet at the little beach resort town of Capitola, CA. Once per year, we would stay in a series of little cabins along a river that ran through an area of town within walking distance to the beach. The name of these cabins were called Kum Taka Rest, and the little old woman who ran these tiny abodes grew dahlias with flowerheads big enough to wear as hats, which we did when she would deadhead the blossoms, oftentimes before they were due just so we could enjoy playing like we were fairies with flower blossom hats.
Each morning, after being startled awake by the train rumbling over the old wooden trestle that spanned the river next to our cabins, it was time to get out the door as quickly as possible while the adults were still eating pastries and drinking coffee, eagerly trekking barefoot down the path to the beach, hopefully avoiding being chased and nipped by the river ducks and geese; those feathered and squawking marauders pirating the bounty of dropped lunch bags by terrified children.
The beach was lined with arcades, bars, and restaurants, where we spent meager allowances on playing arcade games and succumbing to the scent of fries before being relegated to chasing the waves and building sandcastles once the funds were depleted. The evenings were filled with family potluck style dinners and what could be called “lively” political discussions among the adults after I was tucked into bed. This raucous banter concerned me as I didn’t understand what they were arguing about so vigorously, or why, but somehow they ended the verbal assaults congenially, having thoroughly enjoyed the debate, needling and cajoling each other while wandering off to their respective lodgings.
Of course, we all were waiting for the high point of our vacation for the one evening of pure joy, when we would drive over to the Boardwalk in nearby Santa Cruz and ride the Roller Coaster and the Merry-Go-Round, where we would reach for the rings as the painted horses swept by the almost out-of-reach (for me) ring dispenser. The whole experience was sensory based with everything whisking and whirling and frightening and illusionary, scented with the smell of popcorn, caramel, and salt water taffy against a background of billowing pipe music from ancient instruments. Amid the neon colors and flashing lights loud, persuasive carnies were adept at fostering hopes of winning large stuffed animal prizes hanging en masse at the rigged nickel booths. The odds were rarely in your favor, but even if you won just a Cupie doll, at least you had “trophies” to take home with you to brag about.
So what does this have to do with being centered or floored? Not much, but it was the setting for my analogy, which probably belongs only to me until now as I am sharing it with you. When I think of the terms of being “centered” or being “floored”, I can’t help but think of the crazy attractions in the Fun House at the Boardwalk. Most of their features were designed to keep us off balance, or created illusions and distortions. It was a safe way to be in a “twilight zone” setting in real life and provided an hours-long play date for parents for only 50 cents for a half hour, or all day long.
One ride they had was a spinning disk, or wheel, a large circular yet shallow cone with a raised center. The object was to stay as close to the center as possible without sliding to the floor. After the wheel was loaded with kids, the operator would start the spinning wheel and with increasing speed, one by one the riders would end up floored. The lucky ones would be situated safely in the center of the cone, where the movement was the slowest. There were no prizes for being the last ones left on the wheel. Being the best was good enough. Since I was a little girl, I was usually floored right away but I kept trying.
The analogy I share is simply about staying centered to keep from being floored. From the center of the spinning disk, we observe life changes and challenges from all directions, at a speed that makes observation reasonable. Riding the center not only reveals all visible circumstances from the highest point, but more, it has a lot to do with choosing how we respond to them, and while we can't always control things that happen to us, we can control how to respond about them by availing ourselves of all the information the center has to offer from that high point. When we are “off center”, we can’t see all our options, either through being too low on life’s wheel or it is spinning too fast (or both).
I looked up definitions of being “centered” and most included finding peace, however, peace isn’t found through attaining perfection, peace is found through accepting the best options available at the time, and also accepting that those options constantly change. There’s an old saying that used to be popular, “Just when I thought I knew all the answers, they changed all the questions!” How true!
Peace is knowing that we are guided around minefields through intelligence, divine or otherwise, based on clarity of vision. Peace is being able to understand that outcomes, whether nebulous or distinct, are not endings or ultimately the even best outcomes, but tend to create stepping stones to help us move forward through the ever evolving torrents of life that surround us. This is where being centered on the axis from which life spins off, the source of movement and support, so to speak, is the highest point of vision available to see at that moment.
How we choose to respond to circumstances is as important as the circumstances we are confronting. There are no simple answers other than there is an answer. It may not always be the best or immediate, but it stabilizes what we have available in order to maintain a necessary equilibrium at the moment. If you aren’t happy with your immediate solutions, new ones are always on the horizon because of the changing nature of life, and we can take the opportunity to re-examine the former solution for missed road signs or if it fits with finding the new solution. Sometimes we just have to accept the options available at that moment, and have faith that it would probably turn out to be a necessary step toward a better resolution. It is hard for me to believe that everything in life isn’t some piece of the puzzle, no matter how small. There really aren’t any accidents in my opinion, regardless of whose lives are affected in one way or another. Everything is a Lesson one way or another, regardless. Why fight it?
The only thing guaranteed in life is “change”. Becoming centered is a way of finding acceptance of and adaptation to the constant changes of life, lest we forget and lose our balance, ending up floored! Even being floored is not a fallible outcome, but a position from which we may have to work harder to reach center again just like running after an already moving train in order to board it. There is, however, a shorter bridge to becoming centered again which comes from those “Aha” moments when we realize “Ok, I got it now”, and we find ourselves already there, the truth being that we never left, only that we forgot and lost our balance. That’s all.
To see the spinning wheel in action, click the link below (not Santa Cruz):
https://youtu.be/1PeKDx_ihtI?si=zZI_fMEt5sfRkcKX spinning disk (1925 -1971)