Okayness

My friend can shift her emotions. She does this by going to a core place of okayness.

I think of what [my friend] said about okayness. How do I find that place of okayness within me? It can’t be based on something that can be lost. It can’t be based on achievement or ability. It can’t be based on friends who could disappear. It can’t be a place of being all alone, because I might need to find that place of okayness when I am lonely.
I imagine that going to that place of okayness is like going on a sunset walk on the beach, except in my head without a sunset and without a beach. It’s a place of beauty where there might not be any other people, only me, yet it has to be filled with other voices. It’s a place of imagination, so bring your favorite things in your picnic basket, music and memories and stories you tell yourself. But you do have to bring everything yourself. The people I love – if I really love them – I will take in their voices. They might be echoes, but they are leading somewhere, and for okayness they might be enough. Think of them as chibi Platonic friends, the hybrid forms of Best Of friends, or oppositely, the messy collections of details they are composed of. These voicey dolls will accompany me in my okayness, if I am alone in trying to find that, and if my friends are actually there, still in communication with me and online and trusty, then they can be a part of that okayness.
Yesterday, I asked [her] to teach me to find that okayness, and she said I had everything I needed. Everyone can do it. Just reach in and find it.
(What’s the soundtrack? What’s the landscape? What’s the smell and feel and taste? What’s the feeling? What are the voices that answer when you call out?)

I shared this with her, and she wrote back.

not the soundtrack/landscape/smell/feel/taste/voices but whatever it is that perceives them
not content but container