Hi Kate,
I thought about what you said about your experience of sometimes feeling like you are 'riddled with aversion', most days. You're not alone. I was thinking about how it's so easy to get tangled up in my aversions moment-to-moment. For example, taking a hike thinking it's going to be great and then in the middle of the hike, all I can think is "when is this going to end?", when will be over?"
Something I read recently in a story by an Irish writer named John McGahern adds to this reflection. There is a passage in his last novel titled "By the Lake". I actually went back and searched for this passage because it so clearly states how I often feel, and what I often notice.
The passage comes just after two characters have been talking to each other, exchanging Christmas greetings. The narration changes back to third person narrative and the narrator says this: the days were quiet. they did not feel particularly quiet or happy but through them ran the sense like an underground river that there will come a time when these days would be looked back on as happiness, all that life could give of contentment and peace. And after reading that I, too, noticed how frequently I have memories of past times and these times are always painted with rosy colors in my mind, in my memory, and then I wonder now how much aversion I was feeling during those times or during those events? Possibly, a lot of aversion.
