There are so many worlds demanding my attention. Not just attention, inhabiting. Not just inhabiting, but fully inhabiting, as consciously as I can.

First, the world of Kayak and Skyscanner, Kiwi, Italian Airlines, Aegean Airlines, El Al and Emirates, lots of others besides, all in my effort to get into Israel to be with my brother after his severe stroke.  Very few flights going there due to the war, and therefore very expensive tickets. I’ve inhabited that world since Sunday, and that came with the world of disappointment when there was no success, though I tried not to reside there too long.

Each time I go downstairs I inhabit the world of my ailing housemate, Lori, who received more bad news concerning her very slow healing process. I also inhabit it at night when I can’t sleep; thoughts and concerns are worlds, never think it’s just mental. From there, I inhabit the world of Aussie and her vet, but that world, at least doesn’t visit me at night.

On the way to the vet, I inhabited the world of slow driving behind a black pull-up truck, including the fantasy of stopping at the next light, hopping over to the driver’s window and saying: “You’re going 15 miles under the speed limit on a road with a double yellow line so no one can pass you, especially the convoy behind you.”

By phone, I inhabit the world of a friend with Alzheimer’s (“When did we talk last?” “Earlier this morning.” “Oh.”) I even inhabit the half-smile that accompanies this exchange.

And then there’s the world I wish to inhabit, the world of an 85-year-old woman who’s driving cross-country to meet the love of her life whom she hasn’t seen in almost 70 years. The fact that it’s a fictional world I’m describing makes no difference, no different from the fleeting thoughts and feelings—alI are entire worlds. I’d like to live in the world of that 85-year-old woman for a number of hours every day, but all these other worlds are calling me at the same time: brother, airlines, Aussie, driving, Uncle Al (as my friend refers to her Alzheimer’s).

Is it selfish to want to leave those worlds and stay only in the world of the novel, a made-up world? I can almost hear a Zen master say: All worlds are made up, Eve. And I’d like to respond, “Yeah, but some more than others.”

There are writers who wouldn’t let any other world intrude on their fiction. They go into seclusion and leave their spouses (usually wives) to guard the gates. Or else they just don’t give a damn. Writer Iris Murdoch was known to live happily with several inches of dust on her furniture and windowsills.

I’ve always envied that clarity and ruthlessness about leaving everything else out. It took me many years and lots of Jewish guilt to finally admit that that’s just not me.

While driving to the vet, I have one hand on the wheel, the driving world. The right hand is petting Aussie, who came over to the front seat (she learned that from the Illegal Chihuahua, who, she says, has shown her that there’s something to say for crossing borders) and brushed her front paw against my right arm, as if to say: “I’m going to the House of Horrors again, so how about petting me?”

OMG, two worlds to inhabit at once! No wonder I’m crazy.

It reminds me of a former student with two young children, whose main koan was: My husband comes home and wants to talk, my youngest is crying for orange milk, the other’s toy broke, dinner is in the oven and will burn if I don’t get it out, and the phone is ringing. What do I do?

Whatever she chooses, she wants to inhabit it fully, not looking away when she hands over the orange juice but fully connecting, if only for a moment, because that moment is its own world and she wants to be a fully subscribed citizen, not a fly-over plane passenger.

Many worlds keep on knocking, unless I shut the door to my office and enter the world of my elderly continental traveler and her adventures, ignoring Henry’s scraping and whining at the door, the telephone ring, the beautiful waning afternoon, the laundry that needs to be taken off the lines, and whatever it is that’s crawling up the corner where the closet meets the window.

I asked Bernie what he would say to that student’s koan. He thought a bit, and replied, almost apologetically: “You can still only do one thing at a time.” But what happens when so many worlds are pressing on you? Okay, you choose and you act, but that doesn’t mean that some level of tension doesn’t arise in that world-choosing process: Which one now? And now?

Bernie used to change worlds so fast. He’d go from the world of Zen koan master to businessman to budgets to computers to husband to father to designing social programs —boom! boom! boom!—and joke around in between. His world of clowning was his favorite, for sure.

I can’t move that fast between worlds, it takes effort and sometimes strain. Does that make me a Zen failure? Oh good, another world to inhabit, the one of shame, guilt, not-good-enough, etc., though I tend to leave that world pretty quickly; I got to know it so well I don’t find it interesting anymore.

The Diamond Sutra famously says:

“So I say to you –
This is how to contemplate our conditioned existence in this fleeting world:

Like a tiny drop of dew, or a bubble floating in a stream;
Like a flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
Or a flickering lamp, an illusion, a phantom, or a dream.”

Yes, but don’t forget, each and every one is an entire world!