As I was about to leave for my sunday advanced Wushu class, I realized I couldn’t find my little black satchel. I tore my office apart, I tore my room apart, and I ran through the rest of the house looking for it. I was panicked, because there was more than $3500 in cash and checks in that bag that I didn’t deposit yet. And...a few credit cards. I thought I left it at a restaurant last night, and if so, they either found it or someone stole it off the table.

My mind wrapped around thoughts of not being able to pay my mortgage payment, the studio rent, my bills....I had a coniption fit!! I though about the pain in the butt it was going to be, to tell everyone that paid their tuition to cancel their checks and re-write their payments. Then I thought about the possibility of all those people having to cancel their bank accounts if a thief had all their checks.

And..the cash. Lots of cash in the bag. I felt my adrenaline level and stress level shoot up.

I ran to the Pho restaurant, the last place I was before I came home last night. They said they didn’t find a bag. I called my friend Lyn, who was with me at the Pho restaurant, and asked if she remembered me walking out with my bag or not. Unfortunately, she didn’t remember.  More freaking out on my part.

So, I ran to the school, told the guys that I thought my bag was stolen, opened the place up for them and ran out.

I re-traced my steps, going to all the places I had been yesterday.....still nothing. I ran home, ready to call the credit card companies and the bank,....ready to sit there and stress out about how I was going to pay my bills...some of which are already late....

I stomped up to my home office, and stood there trying not to freak out. When.....what do I see in my office? Yup....my bag.  IT WASN’T THERE THIS MORNING! I tore apart that office and did NOT find it this morning. It was nowhere to be found. How in Friggin’ hell did it all of a sudden materialize in my office?  It was sitting on the floor, in what used to be an empty spot on the floor this morning.

I asked my mom if she found my bag and put it in my office. She said “No”.  I plunked myself in my office chair with a huge sigh of relief, wondering how the hell my bag showed up when it wasn’t there this morning. I was dumbfounded. I was absolutley sure it was NOT there when I tore apart the office.

I texted Lyn back, telling her that I found the bag sitting someplace where it wasn’t before. She replied in the best “Yoda” style ever...“Yes it was there. Your mind just didn’t see it”.

Way cool...how “Yoda” is that?  :-) LOL!

Its true though. Lyn mentioned the concept of “being present” in all that we do. When I practiced Zen Meditation in the past, my Iaido Sensei at the time taught us to “just sit, but with full intent on being present in the here and now”.

However, sometimes, its possible that we are present in other aspects and in non-attendance in others. Its possible that I was so “present” in the panic mode and thinking so much of the trouble I’m going to have paying bills and such, that my eyes simply did not see my bag sitting there, right in front of my eyes.

Its an ongoing struggle, to be present in all things. But, as my Sensei put it all those years ago...“Don’t think about the sitting....just sit. Don’t think about clearing your mind....just be there. Don’t think about timing your breath...just breathe....That’s all”.