Tonight, the spring wind shakes the trees outside my bedroom window. It is one of those blissfully temperate spring nights that makes me want to be full of hope. I feel summer approaching, unfurling warmth, fecundity. I long to hope, but I remember that hope can be a dangerous thing. I am learning to relax into the groundlessness. I have single mamahood to thank for that. This experience is a powerful dharma door.

I have to laugh at my ambitions. Today was a daycare day for Sami, theoretically a work day for me, and I had so many ideas about What I Was Going to Get Done. Even with child care, so little of it happened that I had to marvel at my own shocking lack of productivity. This morning I had a job interview for a mental health social services position and found out that it paid even less than my worst imaginings. So little that it took my breath away. People work so damn hard in that field - how on earth do they survive? I did a quick mental calculation of how much I would take home after child care, and it was six dollars an hour and I wanted to wail with disappointment.

While I was waiting, I watched the men and women at the facility where I interviewed — many of them homeless, many of them struggling with mental illness beyond anything I can imagine. One man kept asking for his meds. He seemed to have something complimentary to say to everyone in the place.

He asked the receptionist what her name was.

“Nikita,” she said.

“Nikita. That’s a beautiful name. Who gave you that name?” he asked.

“My mom.”

“Is she still living?”

“Yes.”

“Praise the Lord,” he exclaimed, with full sincerity.

We got into a short conversation and he talked to me about how he left his housing because it was a fire hazard, and also because people were buying and selling crack and he was trying to get clean. Now he is back out on the street.

My own kind of high-end poverty seems ridiculous in comparison. Yet on days like this I nurse a sense of impending doom. In my bleakest moments, homelessness seems like a possibility. People in better situations than I have had their safety nets crumble and have ended up on the street.

I will only allow myself to wallow in self-pity in small doses. Like hope, that stuff will kill you. So I wrangled my single mama friend into a free jazz concert this evening at UMD College Park. It was a ridiculous idea. Neither of our kids had slept at day care and both of them were in quite a fine state by 5:30 pm. We battled traffic and wailing toddlers to get to the concert. I ended up chasing the wired and tired kiddos all over the courtyard as jazz music played quite beautifully in the background.

There was also a grisly tinge to the evening. Sami killed a caterpillar by accidentally holding it too tightly and ended up with streaks of orange blood on his hands. I got a little frustrated and accused him of killing the caterpillar. He of course had no idea what I was talking about. Death is a totally foreign concept to him. We also encountered a dead bird on the grass, and Sami’s little friend proclaimed it “sleeping.”

A man who saw me carrying around my cranky and whining child and offered Sami a slice of pizza. I was so touched by his act of kindness. He was like an angel of mercy. I experienced about three restful minutes as he ate his pizza and we watched the band close up.

In my three minutes of peace I noticed that everywhere around me was youth — college students who must be chock-full of hope and ambition. I remember being their age and I was sure I could and would accomplish everything I dreamed of. I was going to be successful and doing something amazingly prestigious and ambitious. Here I am, ten years out of college and living a life I never could have imagined then. I am certainly not famous or accomplished in any conventional way. But in the eyes of my child, I’m a superstar. And that’s pretty awesome.

Tonight I sit with the kindness of pizza for a crying child and dead birds and bleeding caterpillars and jazz and and a smile from a man who may be living on the street tonight and yes, the possibility of my own homelessness. I am also mindful of my desire to know and expect certain things out of this existence. Life doesn’t owe me anything. It’s not personal. I remember what Suzuki Roshi said: “in the Beginner’s Mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s there are few.” I can be open to all the posibilities that life holds.

Anything is possible when you abandon hope.