Zen moment

Sonoma Mountain Zen Center has been on my list of places to visit for a long time – years – but somehow I’ve just never managed to get up early enough to make it up there in time for the 5:15 (that’s a.m.) meditation. Last Saturday I finally did it – not at 5 a.m., but at the completely reasonable, even civilized, hour of nine o’clock in the morning.

I had learned from a closer reading of the daily schedule that on Saturdays, you can join the group for a half-hour of sitting followed by a dharma talk and lunch. That sounded very doable, and I decided on Friday that I wanted to go, even called the center to make sure I was clear on how to get up there. Then Friday turned into Friday night, which then became Saturday ... and by the time I got to bed I was so tired I fell asleep thinking, “Well, there’s always next week ...”

But for some weird reason I was wide awake again by about 7:30 on Saturday morning. I considered going back to sleep again, but I was so awake that I decided, what the heck – I’ll get up and go after all.

The drive up was gorgeous. We finally got a little rain, so everything had been freshened up and re-greened. The sun was out but heavy clouds were still moving across the sky, and the narrow road up the mountain was walled with mossy tree trunks and little baby ferns, all sparkling with raindrops. At the place where the road washed out last year I parked the truck and walked the last half-mile or so up to the center. I passed some beautiful houses, including an old wooden farm house with a wrap-around verandah that made me want to cry, it was so exactly the image of the kind of place I’ve always imagined myself living in.

Cutting to the chase: I arrived at the center, which consists of another farm house, several residents’ huts, outbuildings, paths, gardens, trees, flowers, a big giant bell under a canopy, and the zendo where I met with one of the resident teachers for instructions before the 10:30 meditation. After that I wandered around the grounds a bit, drank a little cup of water, and went into the hall to sit.

It was hard. Even just a half-hour of sitting is hard if you’re not used to it. What I wanted to write about was just how amazing it felt to really watch my own mind, which I like to think of (despite all evidence to the contrary) as being so calm and serene, writhing and squirming and jumping and wandering like a caterpillar speared on a pin, or a horse being broken, or a mesmerized person reaching for a glowing ball of flames ... It was bizarre! I mean, I kind of sit on my own, at home, but I’m so undisciplined I really don’t get much out of it most of the time. This was different.

And it was exciting. I felt really aware of everything – the wet-hair shampoo smell of the person sitting one one side of me (who I could not see, since we were all facing the wall), the huffing and puffing of the person on my other side who came in late, the contented sigh he let out when he finally caught his breath and relaxed, birds, squirrels, raindrops, the wind, the wet cedar smell under the window I was facing, the patterns in the grain of the wooden wall – two knotholes that looked like flowers in a vase, a place where the wood had split and left a sharp blade-shaped piece sticking up, candles being lit behind me (seen reflected in the window) ...

The most alarming sensations were in my own body. This little itch that just wouldn’t go away ... first it was next to my nose, then on my lip, then my forehead, then my ankle started to hurt a little, then the itch was back on my face again. Excruciating! What I noticed even more than the discomfort was how utterly desperate I felt when I reminded myself that the whole point of sitting there was to pay attention to my mind as I experienced the discomfort without trying to change it.

And yet, sure enough, just when I thought I was going to have to scratch or die, I would suddenly find myself thinking about what I might like to have for lunch, or wondering if the person next to me thought I was a good meditator, or designing and redesigning a certain pattern I want to paint or embroider onto this beautiful brown linen fabric I’ve been saving ...

There were a few wonderful moments when I did have what I consider a “successful” or at least enjoyable experience of meditation – moments when I really was just in the moment, noticing myself being there and feeling very open. “Spaciousness” is one of the words people use to describe this feeling, and it does seem like the right word – I just felt myself being there, aware of myself in that space without really thinking or worrying or wanting to change anything. You don’t really have to sit facing a wall to have that feeling, but cutting out all the distractions for twenty minutes or an hour or whatever every day does help me to recognize it when it comes, and hopefully becoming more familiar with it will help me to find it more often in my walking-working-eating-creating-everyday-living life.

Something else I noticed when I was enjoying feeling so open and calm and clear was that even though I was finding it really pleasant to be in that mindspace, my mind still didn’t want to stay there. In the absence of an itch or an aching hamstring or the need to cough or sneeze, I would enjoy that quiet openness for only a few moments before I would notice my mind scanning for something to grab onto. Does my scalp still itch? No. My shoulderblade? No. Well, then, are my feet getting cold? Are my legs uncomfortable? Hmm, maybe a little. Once I had identified a new “problem,” I proceeded to hunker down with it and then gradually escalate the freakout about it – until the next thing caught my attention.

It might not be all that interesting for other people to read about, but to me it’s fascinating to see my own mind at work, and to see how really restless and impatient it is while at the same time frequently wanting to seize upon some feeling or idea and hold onto it forever ... You can’t do both – hold onto something and also move on to the next thing – it creates a lot of tension, and I think practicing mindfulness is helping me learn how to recognize when I’m doing that, which helps me to calm down and come back to the present, at least for awhile.

New topic: Mr. A is away again for a few days, and I am taking advantage of the time alone to organize my room and work on some design projects.

Hmm. Don’t really want to write about that. Right now I’m listening to some music that I first got when I was in college, and it’s reminding me of a way I used to feel, that I miss feeling. I don’t listen to music very much these days, or the radio, either, and when I do I notice it has a really profound effect on my mood and memory. Mr. A likes to have the tv on almost all the time – he says he feels lonely in the house without some noise in the background – so for me it’s always a relief, in a way, even though I miss him, to be alone again and be able to relax into some silence. Gray and white quiet, with bare brown trees and winter birds and coyotes across the road at night, howling into the fog. And sometimes, a little music.

I am enjoying this winter.

Listening to:
Alex de Grassi – Turning, Turning Back

I love these women!

Have you seen this? I just found out about this woman, Sally Pugh, who’s teaching a yoga classes in the Bay Area called Yoga for Large Women (and here’s an article about the class – go read it!). I hope she won’t mind my swiping this photo from her website ... I just found it so incredibly beautiful and inspiring, I had to share! It makes me feel happy all over to see “non-traditional” yoginis moving and stretching and feeling good in their bodies without having to worry about what other people might be thinking about them.

Someday I hope to be comfortable enough with my own body image to be able to post a photo like the one above without adding the disclaimer that I am not nearly as large as the women in the picture. I mean, so what if I was, right? Would that make me a bad person? Would you stop loving me then? What if I was even LARGER than those women?

Well, I’m not. But I do have issues about being in, and being seen in, this body. Issues that I am learning to enjoy working with, and even having a sense of humor about.

The other day in the Shambhala Sun I read this story (urgh – there’s only an excerpt, not the whole article) about the Dalai Llama’s recent work in education – he is helping to create programs for “education of the heart,” teaching school children about emotional values like caring, compassion, peacefulness and tolerance. Somehow this yoga class seems to me to be about a similar kind of education – helping women learn how to extend themselves the same compassion, tolerance and loving care they already know how to give to the people they love.

I was hoping to be able to go to that yoga class on MLKJr. Day, but she wasn’t teaching that day because of the holiday. Then it occurred to me, maybe I’m not fat enough to go to that class – maybe my presence there would make the other women feel self-conscious. Then having that thought made me feel self-conscious, like maybe I would feel out of place in that class too, just like I now feel out of place in my local classes full of skinny rubber-band-bendy kinds of people (even though many of them are my friends, including a couple of teachers, even).

It keeps bringing me back to the idea of generosity, though I’m not sure I understand exactly what it is that’s causing my mind to link the two ideas. Maybe I’m just not being very generous with myself – or with my friends. A more generous person would extend those people the benefit of the doubt that they really aren’t secretly looking at me and thinking, “What a pig!”

It also has to do with ego. Isn’t clinging to a certain image of myself (which I know is not accurate, anyway) kind of non-generous? Wouldn’t it be more natural and relaxed and generous (I can feel myself becoming obsessed with this concept) to stop thinking so much about what I think other people might be thinking of me, and just live my life? Do yoga, if I want to – wear a unitard – eat a whole serving of pasta at the employee appreciation luncheon, because I didn’t have breakfast and I’m really, really hungry and going to be working late too, rather than just have a couple of bites in hopes nobody will think Aha, so that’s why she never wears her shirts tucked in!

In other news, I realized on my way to work this morning that this weekend marks the 10-year anniversary of my leaving my ex-husband. A friend of mine wrote yesterday about some milestones in her life and it got me thinking ...Ten years ago I packed up my cat, clothes, books, CDs, some kitchen stuff, a red lamp, one table, one chair, and one oak armoire – all I could fit in one trip in my old Accord hatchback – and took back my own life. It was so important to me to get out that I left everything else behind; I didn’t even take anything to sleep on – I bought a crib-sized mattress at the thrift store and slept curled up on it on the floor for five months before I finally bought a real bed again.

Maybe I’ll write some more about this milestone. Or maybe not. One thing I can say is that I’m grateful to my 31-year-old self for having the guts to do that, even though I had no idea at the time how I was going to pull it off. It was the beginning of the stripping away of who I thought I was, and the discovery of who I really am – which is to say, nobody. Meaning, everybody – everything! When everything you thought you knew about yourself falls out from under you, not just once but time after time after time, and every time you keep on finding yourself still standing ... It’s pretty powerful just to realize: I’m still here!


Listening to: Gladys Knight & the Pips: You're the Best Thing That's Ever Happened To Me

I bought a unitard!

Don't be frightened. I promise not to wear it in public. (And no, that's not me in the picture.)

I've been really, really, really feeling the need to move my poor little agued body lately, which has caused me to start thinking about (only barely actually doing) yoga again. Remembering the days when I used to go to an occasional yoga class, it occurred to me that one of the reasons I stopped going was because I was never really comfortable in my yoga outfit. I've always been more of a leggings-and-a-tshirt kind of gal than a unitard gal, mostly in a vain attempt to camouflage my fat gut, but tshirts aren't the greatest for yoga – they fly up over your head in inverted poses and get twisted around under your armpits and bunched up under your back a lot, too. Not comfortable.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about the Five Wonderful Precepts, and especially the second precept, generosity. It's slowly been dawning on me that while I've always felt like I was being kind to myself and protecting myself by indulging my at times extreme (especially in the winter) hermit-like tendencies – doing something positive, in other words – another way of looking at it is that I've been withholding my gifts from the world, refusing to share, and depriving others of whatever good I might have to offer, all because I'm over-identified with my own ideas about "who I am" (e.g., a sensitive person who is easily overwhelmed).

I think my life will feel fuller, funner and more real if I can learn how to gently let go of that idea and let myself respond more freely to situations as they arise. Singing (loudly!) and dancing at Glide last week is a great example of what I mean – if I had been clinging to my shrinking violet personna that morning, I wouldn't have had that experience, and I'm so glad I did have it. I don't remember if I wrote about it, but I spent some time chatting with the man who happened to sit next to me, and I know my presence there and my willingness to share myself lifted him up a little bit that day. I realized I want to keep opening myself up like this; it feels good to me, and I think it feels good to other people, too.

I've been so delighted lately with so many simple gifts from other people – my dad singing a duet with himself on his music-mixing software at Christmas, a little drawing my niece gave me, someone at work bringing in homemade cookies to share. None of these are "professional" quality offerings, but to me that only makes them all the more precious. A few months ago my favorite horoscope advised me to "do more things badly" (I think he was quoting SARK). I've tried to take that advice to heart and give myself permission to go ahead and DO things, even if I don't do them perfectly. Last week, the same horoscope had this to say:

Let me clarify your situation for you, Cancerian. Up until a short time ago, you'd been wandering through halls of mirrors, metaphorically speaking. Then you spied a hammer on the floor, got seized by a rash impulse, and proceeded to smash a lot of glass – again, metaphorically speaking. That was the first step to finding your way out of the labyrinth. Now you're ready for the next step: actually escaping. As you head out, I advise you to be careful that you don't cut yourself on all the shards. Liberation is near enough; there's no need to rush. Walk calmly and carefully towards the sound of the heartbeat you hear in the distance, metaphorically speaking.

So, what does all this have to do with wearing a unitard? Actually, it has a lot to do with it. Becoming more willing to be seen has been a theme of this blog for as long as I've been writing it. I've gone up and down in terms of how much I've revealed here over the years, but in general I'm pretty comfortable being "seen" in this format. That has been very liberating. But I'm kind of tired of living so much in my head all the time. So now I'm tackling the physical – my actual body, and being more willing to get in there and connect with actual people in the actual world – and I am tackling it in a unitard.

Because if I really am going to get out of my head and into my body – into the world where other people live and are available to be met and known – I definitely want to be comfortable doing it. In a way, hibernating alone in my house all winter is not so different from wearing a baggy tshirt to yoga class – I might feel like I'm protecting myself, but the reality is, I'm only preventing myself from being able to fully enter my own life. And preventing others from entering it, too. That's not generous. That's the opposite of generosity.

Fear is the opposite of generosity. And I guess I'm feeling less fearful these days than I have sometimes in the past. I like it.

I have a friend who's fond of quoting a statement from his recovery group: If you think you're going to wait until you feel better before you change your actions, you'll be waiting forever. It's acting different that allows you to start feeling different (also known as "fake it 'til you make it"). It seems like this works with generosity/fear as well – the more generous I act, the more generous I feel, and the more my fears recede. I like that, too.

Mashed potatoes for breakfast

This morning I had an early appointment, and on the way in to work, since I was already running late, I decided to stop at the market and get some breakfast. It was 11 o'clock by then and the only breakfast stuff left looked overheated and uninspiring, so I started checking out the hot lunch options and realized that they were setting out an entire Thanksgiving-style dinner! I got chicken instead of turkey (so as not to fall asleep at my desk), which I ate before I even arrived at my office. Right now I'm eating the most delicious mashed potatoes and turkey gravy, with a little side of cornbread-and-cranberry stuffing. SO yum!

Speaking of fabulous food, I did go back to the city last week to have dinner with Mr. A. We had two dinners, actually – on Thursday and again on Friday, when I went back again to pick him up and bring him home. The Thursday dinner was sort of a surprise, for me at least. I had been looking forward to going to a certain place, only to find out that it no longer exists, after which I spent most of that day psyching myself up to explore a little and try something new. When I got to the hotel, though, Mr. A informed me that an old colleague of his was taking us out. We were going to a tourist place on Fisherman's Wharf (deflated sigh, but whatever – I like sandwiches fine), and the purpose of the meeting was that this person wanted to offer Mr. A a job, and wanted me to be there when the offer was made.

It was nice to meet this person, whom I'd been hearing about for years. And while I have always been impressed by Mr. A's professional life, this meeting reminded me that ... well, that he really is very, very amazing in many ways, and that I'm not the only person who recognizes this. How would it be to have people basically begging me to come work for them, telling me they'd meet whatever terms I require, that they will hold the job for me indefinitely so I can start whenever I want to, etc. etc.? Sitting in that meeting made me feel proud of him, and kind of embarrassed for myself. What am I doing that's that important?

Well, I have my own strong points, just like everyone. Not everybody needs to be good at the same things.

Anyway. I don't know if or when he's going to take this job. I will admit I had some fun fantasies about getting a place in the city, a little pied à terre to stay in between weekends at our country place (the house we live in now) lah di dah etc. ... I could go back to school maybe, or at least find a better job in San Francisco – it would be fun to work for a real company again, and have a chance to actually make some decent money.

[Deleted: Long rambling section about how and why I left my own "career," such as it was, how commuter culture creates fractured communities, how it's starting to wear down Mr. A as well, etc.]

But back to the food! On Friday I went back to pick him up and on the way to the bridge I realized that if we went home right away we would end up sitting in traffic for hours, so we swung back around and went to North Beach to scout out a new restaurant. Our first stop was Washington Square Park, which was swarming with dogs of all shapes, sizes and dispositions. We spent almost an hour just hanging out with them and their people (I especially enjoyed meeting two rough-coated Jack Russell terriers who sprawled on the grass next to each other and alternated barking back and forth for several minutes without ceasing, like a crazy little doggie duet), one of whom (the person, not the dog) recommended a restaurant I had not been to before – da Flora Restaurant, on Columbus.

We walked the few blocks to get there and as soon as I saw the place I realized we were probably not going to be able to just stroll in and get a table with no reservation. Still, I figured, we were there – why not ask? We were greeted by Flora herself, who agreed to fit us in provided we thought we could be finished by 7:25, at which time the table she had in mind for us was reserved. That gave us an hour and a half to eat, which seemed like plenty of time (arriving early in the evening is always a good idea in North Beach if you haven't planned ahead – for parking and eating, both).

We sat down and looked at the menus, which were brief and hand written (not photocopied) and presented in these beautifully bound handmade portfolios. The words "sweet potato gnocchi" caught my eye, and being a sweet potato/yam/any kind of orange vegetable except cooked carrots Freak, I decided immediately that we had to order that. A subsequent Google search revealed that this is something of a signature dish at da Flora, and for good reason – it was fabulous. Bathed in a silky sherry cream sauce and decorated with little curls of pancetta, oooh, if I had been small enough I would've crawled into the plate and snuggled in for a delicious little nap. The gnocchi itself was the pinnacle of all gnocchi – all pasta – I have ever had anywhere. It was so good we had to close our eyes to eat it.

We also ordered a butter lettuce salad, a pasta and crab dish, and a filet of sole on a bed of roasted winter vegetables including artichokes and parsnips that was to die for. And while I was at first a little overwhelmed by the wine list, which included not a single California (read: familiar) wine, Flora graciously helped us choose a wonderful Foja Tonda from Albino Armani that I will definitely be looking for again. When I told her we were from Sonoma and not sure what would work with the meal we'd ordered, she nodded understandingly and said something about California wines being mostly too big for subtle food – something I have often said myself, though quietly, so as not to offend my friends who make those wines ...

Anyway, the wine was yummy, the food was out of this world, and the service, I thought, was charming. Flora kind of reminds me in a way of the late Bruno of the Persian on Haight – it was his place, and if he didn't like you, or what you ordered, or what your friend ordered, he would not hesitate to show you the door. I once got kicked out because the person I was with – not even my friend, just a friend of a friend – having just returned from several years in Spain, tried to order an absinthe. "Oh really," he said. "And how would you like that?" "Um, I don't know, just ... you know, in a glass?" she squeaked, confused. After that he refused even to acknowledge her; looking at me he said, "That's it. Get her out of here." "But –" I tried to protest. "Ep ep! Out," he repeated, and that was it. We crept out like dogs who've just gotten caught with their heads in the garbage (to cite a familiar theme), vaguely ashamed but not exactly sure why. "What just happened in there?" we asked each other.

Flora wasn't like that with us, but I can imagine her brooking no nonsense from anyone, least of all two yokels stumbling in on a Friday night without a reservation. I liked her very much.

The decor is cool, too – dark red walls, marble floors, heavy curtains, dim lighting, small but comfortable tables. The bathroom is lit by candles only – two on the tank, and one next to the sink. I liked that, too. If you go, be sure to look for the intriguing cat-shaped metal handles on the bathroom door.

Way more than anyone in theirright mind would ever want toknow about my trip to San Francisco

The first time I went to San Francisco was in the fall of 1985. It was around Thanksgiving, and I'd driven out with a bunch of strangers from the ride board at school in order to visit some friends in Oakland and Sacramento. As we crossed the Bay Bridge and drove into the financial district, I was totally blown away by the scale and intensity of it all – the bridge, the buildings, the lights, the people. It was the first real city I'd ever seen and the moment I saw it in person I knew I wanted to live there someday.

Not long after that I did move there for a couple of years, and by the time I left I was thoroughly weary, wary, worn out, worn down, exhausted, and pissed off. I still loved the city, but only as a friend ... the kind of friend whose voice on the phone always makes you tense up just a little, the kind of friend who never seems to know when enough is enough.

Anyway – to cut to the chase, this weekend I sort of fell in love with San Francisco all over again. Maybe because I'm older and more comfortable with myself these days, or maybe because I knew I didn't have to actually live there again, or maybe because I wasn't trying to drive and park, or maybe because the city itself has changed since I lived there – whatever – I felt good there.

(And here I will interrupt my narrative to report that I just offered Tater a sip of my Breathe Easy™ tea, which he declined (by turning his head away, and away, and away, until I thought it might actually turn all the way around à la Linda Blair), preferring to suck on one of Mr. A's crusty wool socks from the dirty clothes hamper. This is funny because he usually loves any kind of tea I offer him – what is it he objects to about this one?)

So the hotel was just a couple of blocks from the Civic Center, and by some weird freak of nature we ended up with an actual view – the beautiful, newly restored dome of City Hall, all lit up and looming over us like a big benevolent bald head at the window all night long.

Sunday morning I got up early, and since we were so close to the Tenderloin I decided to go to the 9 o'clock service at Glide Memorial Church. I totally, totally love Glide – why didn't I know about it when I lived in the city, when I spent so much time feeling lonely and like I had nowhere to go? I did used to sometimes sit outside some of the gospel churches in my neighborhood and listen to the choirs ... but going inside and actually connecting with people, and singing, and hearing positive, hopeful messages about love and hope and reconciliation – that's a really good feeling. I decided while I was sitting there that finding a way to feel that way more often is something I want to do for myself this year.

There was this woman in the choir, a soloist, who was introduced as being in some kind of enormous crisis and wanting to offer her song to God as thanks for seeing her through whatever it was. So she sang the song (about continuing to stand) in an incredibly strong and powerful voice, and as she finished she sort of semi-collapsed, and then all these people surrounded her and it was just so beautiful to see her being embraced by so much love and support.

After that I headed out to the de Young, where I spent several hours taking in a show of paintings, drawings and wire sculptures by Ruth Asawa (that's her in the photo at the top of this post). Wire is one of my favorite materials to work with and I got a lot of new ideas from this show.

From there I went next door, to the Japanese tea garden, where I saw my first blooming tree of 2007 – a single tiny cluster of pale pink blossoms. Then I walked through the park – taking pictures along the way of some of my favorite old trees that I used to like to visit – and past my old house on Fell Street. It's been repainted (the part that was mauve is now dark red) and the big tree in front is gone, replaced by a much smaller, younger one. When I lived upstairs in that building, I would look out my windows and instead of seeing buildings, cars or people, all I could see was the sky and the beautiful green leaves of the top of that tree ... it was one of the main things that made it possible for me to stay in the city as long as I did. (Julie, the downstairs apartment we both lived in is vacant right now!)

After that I walked up to Haight Street in search of a certain kind of fabric I want to line all these wristie things I've been knitting. I didn't find what I was looking for, but I did buy a slice of pizza and some books and a groovy thrifted zebra-print corduroy skirt, and even treated myself to a small brass sculpture of a hand making the sharanagamana-mudra (the gesture of giving refuge). Then I caught the 7 bus back downtown and was dropped off a half a block from the hotel just in time to hook up with Mr. A and three other instructors, who by sheer chance had made plans to have dinner at the same Chinese place I used to go to for the cheap lunch buffet (which now costs almost twenty bucks!).

So that was Sunday.

On Monday I went to the Mission hoping to have breakfast at a place I used to love, which is no longer there. Instead, I had pancakes and eggs at the Pork Store, which was almost as nostalgic, since I used to frequent the one on Haight Street when I lived in the neighborhood. After breakfast I walked around the Mission for awhile and spent a couple of hours at the Mission Dolores, mostly wandering around the graveyard reading stones. I love the old engravings and artwork and poetry – here's one I found this week that I hadn't seen before:

The night dew that falls, though in silence it weeps,
shall brighten with verdure the grave where he sleeps.
And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls,
will long keep his memory green in our souls.

Being in that graveyard sort of reawakened my childhood obsession with Victorian hairwork and mourning jewelry. A few years ago I made a great little woven piece out of some of the long hair from Tater's tail; now I want to look into engraving stone. How do they make gravestones, anyway? That would be a cool skill to learn one of these days.

Another new thing I noticed on this trip is that MUNI drivers no longer seem to be checking bus transfers – they don't even take them from you anymore, just glance at them and wave you in. When I lived there that never would've happened! They used to always take the transfer and actually check the time, and if it had already expired you had to pay again.

Anyway – I used a transfer (non-expired!) to get from the Mission to Japantown, where I ate yummy Japanese snax, looked at antique woodblock prints and brush paintings, considered buying several fabulous cast iron teapots, and actually did buy some incense and a bunch of weird Japanese office supplies (another obsession – a sort of useful one, this time!).

And that was basically it! After Japantown I went back to the hotel, packed up my bags, and drove back home to feed the dogs and go to bed. But I'm going back tomorrow night to have dinner with Mr. A again and probably spend another night at the hotel – I love that king size bed!

Mini-vacay

I haven't even written about my Christmas vacation yet – in fact, have not yet unpacked from it, either – and here I go, taking off on another little trip again. So unlike me! And yet, so very wonderful, and very much appreciated.

Mr. A is teaching a course for his professional organization all next week in San Francisco, and even though it's less than an hour from where we live, they're putting him up in a hotel – so I'm going along with him for a few days. Check-in is tomorrow and the course starts first thing Sunday morning, so while he's doing his thing for work, I have the entire city to myself from Saturday afternoon until Tuesday morning.

It's funny – we really are so close – only about 35 miles from our driveway to the toll plaza on the Golden Gate bridge – and yet I hardly ever go into the city for any reason. Maybe twice a year I'll spend an afternoon at some music or art fest, or have dinner with some friend who's in town on business. I'm just not much of a city person, I suppose – or maybe I'm just not accustomed to all the traffic, noise and chaotic activity. Most nerve-wracking of all is driving and parking. I live in a town of less than 10,000 people and am not used to driving as aggressively as you have to when there are upwards of a million other people around, all trying to shove you out of their way.

Luckily, on this trip I won't have to drive at all. For fifteen bucks you can get a three-day transit pass, and even though the residents of San Francisco seem to have nothing but complaints about MUNI, to me it's a huge pleasure to be able to go anywhere I want to go in the city without having to navigate, drive or park. I have my whole weekend mapped out, and I can't wait.

Thinking about cities ... Living in the country on the outskirts of a very small town, most of what I see and experience from day to day is at most maybe half created by people, and the rest is just nature. Trees, plants, birds, animals, mountains, sky, water – nobody put any of this there. In a city those things are available as well, but they're (to me) totally dwarfed out of all proportion by the vast preponderance of things that people have made. Buildings, streets, cars, sidewalks, traffic signals, machines, products, products, products – not to mention the people themselves ...

Cities are all about people and what people can do. It's a fascinating kind of space to be in when you're not used to it. For instance, social, political and especially environmental problems make a lot more sense to me when I'm in a city – it seems natural that problems like this will arise when most of the people who make the rules spend all their time in an environment that insists people are the center of all meaning in the world. Whereas in a redwood forest, for example, it quickly becomes obvious that it's not all about me – I (a person) am only one small part of a much bigger picture – there are millions upon millions of other kinds of beings around who are also alive and aware and want to feel good and enjoy their time here.

Of course these beings are also around in cities – it's just harder to remember them because almost everything you see is something that a person has made. Not that that's a bad thing. Just that it's so limited – despite the iPhone and other marvels of human invention, we are still so limited. I somehow feel more secure when I can feel myself as part of a larger and more diverse context.

But hmm. Maybe the more interesting challenge is to learn to recognize myself as being in that context wherever I am – in the forest, in my bed with my new heated mattress pad (ohmygod, it's wonderful!), in an office, wrapped in a stained sleeping bag and sitting on the beach with a black-whiskered friend and a bag full of sandwiches, or walking down Mission Street with car exhaust and stinky people and mysterious substances on the sidewalk and all that beautiful, beautiful art and humanity all around me.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to power-loading some intensive human energy over the next couple of days and bringing it home with me to the country and seeing what I can make out of it. I'm finally going to check out the de Young Museum, which I haven't seen since it re-opened, and go very early on Sunday morning to the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park – I love it there. There are several restaurants on my list of favorite old places to revisit, and some galleries, and the church at the Mission Delores (I used to love to sit in there when I lived in SF) and all manner of public art installations to check out, as well as Chinatown of course. Mainly, I plan to spend a lot of time just walking around and looking at things in various parts of the city, hopefully taking some pictures (still need to pick a new camera) and definitely taking lots of mental notes. I love it that San Francisco is small enough to do this. Maybe I'll walk all the way across the city, from our hotel downtown and out to the beach! I haven't done that since probably 1989.

Happy MLK Jr. Day to all. What are you going to be doing?

A little perspective

This morning I was searching the web for information about a mysterious symptom I've been worried about, and came across the blog of this woman I can only describe as totally, utterly pathetic. As in, exuding pathos – in the extreme. In the last year she's dealt with ongoing fertility problems including several miscarriages, plus bipolar disorder, a diagnosis of cancer, thyroid problems and other health issues, and just a couple of weeks ago lost her father, also to cancer. I read several months' worth of entries, entranced. Even more interesting than the posts themselves were the comments they elicited – hundreds of them. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry, you poor thing, life's not fair, this sux, you deserve better, etc. etc. etc."

Reading all that left me feeling strange and surreal. What would I do if I had stuff like that going on in my life? Would I be able to handle it, or would my body/mind fall back into stress-induced depression? How would I respond to a friend going through something similar? How should I respond?

It's always bothered me when people say, after something has gone supposedly wrong, "I'm sorry." I think I might have written about this before; or maybe not – I find it incredibly hard to put my feelings on this topic into words. Sometimes something happens that demands to be acknowledged. Something you don't like, don't want, can't believe. That's when people always start saying "I'm sorry," because ... well, why? Because they want to connect, and you have to say something ... But saying "I'm sorry" is like saying, "This should not be happening. I want you to always get what you want, which is the same as saying I want to always get what I want, which we all know is not the way life is – we don't always get what we want – so what I'm really saying is, I don't like the way life is – I don't accept it – which is like saying I reject life."

So I guess that's why it bothers me when people say "I'm sorry." It's like saying, "I reject life." And really, when somebody's heart is broken what I think people are trying to do is connect, share the pain, let the person know they're not alone ... we want to embrace them and the life that's in them, and help each other be strong enough to bear it all and love our lives – not push it all away.

Why is it so hard to just accept pain? I know we're designed to avoid it – it's a survival mechanism, a way to keep the species alive.

What are some good ways to support a person who's suffering, without negating their experience? There are lots of things I don't understand and don't like, but to say "this should not be" seems ... well, how do I know what "should" or "should not" happen? I had some insight over this last week as well, when I was sick – there was a period of a couple of days when I began to panic just a bit, feeling like I had always been sick and was always going to be sick, and almost half wishing to just die and be done with it – I was very miserable. Eventually some of my practice came back and it occurred to me, "I can let these thoughts come and go – it's not required to seize hold of them and identify with them and keep them alive forever and ever."

Remembering that made me feel a lot better. But how do you support someone who doesn't have a spiritual practice to stand on, who doesn't have these tools, who feels they're just freefalling into an apparently bottomless pit of despair?

When I've been in pain I think the best thing anyone ever did was just to spend time with me. Not talking or doing anything, even – just sharing their presence with me.

Anyway, just some thoughts.

Also, I listened to this dharma talk today and liked it a lot (click here to listen – it's about an hour long and will start playing as soon as you click). It's more on dukkha – my favorite topic. I've been thinking about something he said about getting what you want vs. not getting it - that both conditions are dukkha, meaning "unsatisfactory." That's the actual word the Buddha used when talking about life, by the way – usually it's translated as "suffering," as in "Life is suffering," which seems like such a negative, bummer kind of thing to say. But what he really said was more along the lines of "life is unsatisfactory." An obvious understatement that is still somehow sort of not allowed to be spoken in the rich and happy can-do culture of twenty-first century America.

I think I started to feel about ten thousand times better about my life when I finally absorbed this simple concept – that getting what I wanted was not necessarily going to make me any happier than not getting it. I can practice equanimity (is that really the same as happiness? To me, it kind of is.) no matter what's going on – even if I'm feeling other emotions that we're not really "supposed to" accept, like anger, or fear, or sadness – whatever. I can accept it all as my life and my experience, and take an interest in it, and in that sense enjoy it all even if I'm lying on the couch crying and pounding my fists against the armrest.

Not sure where I'm going with all this. I just keep thinking of that woman's blog though, and wondering ... are there people in my life who are going through their own dark nights right now, and I don't even know it?

Another great day for technophiles

I finally took some time to watch the keynote about the new iPhone, and wow. Wow! I mean, WOW! Sometimes I marvel at my ability to become all giddy and weak in the knees over new technologies ... in general, I'm more of a handmade, DIY kind of person, but man alive – this thing is cool. It's the device I've been waiting for since I got my first iPod in 2001 – only it's even cooler than I could have imagined it.

The entire address is a little more than an hour long (I'm actually still watching – I was so excited I couldn't wait to write about it!) and if you love this stuff like I do I highly recommend checking it out.

Sigh. Sometimes I really do miss working in the high-tech industry. Not that I ever worked on anything as cool as this, but there's something really exciting about getting to study and document new products while they're still in development, and then see them go into production. Even the boring geeky stuff is interesting to me – like the last really technical thing I wrote, a knowledge base for network administrators, in 1999 (after that I only wrote marketing and PR stuff). I can't believe it's been almost eight years since I've been out of the loop! At this point I suppose it would be impossible to re-enter the industry, even if I wanted to, which I don't ... Still, I love having access to this kind of news, and always look forward to seeing the newest, latest thing.

It blows my mind that that people in some parts of the world are able to dream up and create and own all these amazing devices, while at the very same time in other parts of the world there are people who for whatever reasons (mostly political, I think) are unable even just to simply FEED THEMSELVES. The contrast between all the different ways people live their lives every day just completely stuns me. I always wonder, what would happen – what WILL happen, because I really hope that someday it will – when the privileged elite of the world start applying the same kind of enthusiasm, innovation and commitment of resources to solving problems like poverty, hunger, disease, etc. etc. etc.

I know that this isn't the way things have ever really worked before. The rich get richer, the poor disappear ... isn't that a line from some Gang of Four song? Securing this kind of privilege is basically the reason we're at war right now – more than 3000 Americans have died now to defend our "right" to live this way, so frivolous, so wasteful, and yet at the same time so beautiful and inspiring it's like a dream ...

Anyway. If people can come up with ideas like the iPhone, there's every reason to believe we can also come up with new and as yet undreamed of ways to alleviate suffering and create more peace in the world.

In search of cherry blossoms

I know I am as usual woefully behind the times (by several hundred years, in this case) but lately I've become obsessed with the Japanese custom of hanami, or cherry blossom watching. Maybe because I've been sick, or maybe for a number of other reasons I won't go into here, I've been feeling kind of negative and depressed for the last few weeks or so, and the idea of inviting a small group of friends to join me in the park for an afternoon tea party under blossoming cherry trees has taken hold of my imagination in a very pleasant way.

There are certain trees that I keep track of in this town, including two almonds and two different kinds of flowering plum that I took especially loving care of at my last house (which I've been secretly missing a lot this winter, for some reason). The thought of those four trees being neglected and unappreciated by the house's new tenants – a pair of antique dealers who only use it for storage – really breaks my heart. The almonds will be putting out their sweet little delicate white flowers sometime in the next month and the plums will blossom shortly after that, first the pink one, and then the white one. It was a modest display but something I used to look forward to with great anticipation every year.

There was (is) also at that house a large thicket of quinces, which have fabulous pink and white flowers that bloom forever when you cut a branch to bring inside. And also, a tall sort of prickly tree outside the kitchen window that had (has) thousands of huge clusters of dark pink flowers that look great on the tree, in a vase, in a jar, in a bowl, in your hair, in a travel mug in the car – anywhere. I loved that tree, too.

At Mr. A's house there are apple, peach and pear trees that have beautiful flowers, as well as about a dozen other fruit and nut trees that offer smaller, less conspicuous blooms (walnuts, persimmons, figs), plus several potted Meyer lemons with little clusters of waxy, pinkish flowers that smell like heaven .... The apple trees are my special favorite – that's why I'm building my alleged studio in front of them – but I'm realizing right now that what I really want, in the middle of a cold, dark, rainy winter, is the knowledge that before February is through I'll have branches full of almond blossoms to look forward to, followed by those gorgeous pinky plum blossoms.

Is it too late to get bare-root fruit trees? I will have to find out. In the meantime, I've set myself the task of scouring the valley in search of soon-to-be flowering cherry and/or plum trees, so that I can start planning my hanami party. I want to do a simple little woodcut print for the invitation, and order a few special kinds of tea and treats, and make some little origami things for the gift bag. Other ideas are percolating as well.

Suddenly, I feel a lot better about this being (in spite of the official beginning on Dec. 21) the real start of winter. One of the best things about winter, to me, has always been planning for spring. And actually, even winter itself isn't all that bad around here. This morning on my way to work I noticed a striking scene – a 30-acre hayfield dotted with ancient oaks, the bright green grass still sparkling with frost, with a very thin but very dense layer of pure white fog blanketing the ground, under an utterly clear, cloudless and intensely vivid blue sky ... With the sun shining on all this, it almost looked like snow. But not. It was a purely Northern California image.

Wonton soup

Still languishing under the iron fist of this mysterious affliction of the lungs ... I'm over the worst of it but my chest still crackles and rattles away every time I exhale (keeping me awake all night despite earplugs, since the noise is coming from inside my own body) and I just generally have very little energy to do anything but sit at my desk, staring at the screen through thick mental fog and slugging down herb capsules with copious amounts of hot herb tea.

I haven't felt like eating anything for more than a week now. But you have to eat something, even when you're sick, and what I've been eating when I have to eat is soup. Wonton soup. I've decided it's the most perfect food in the universe for me right now – days upon days upon days of nothing but wonton soup, and I'm still not tired of it. I had a big bowl of it an hour and a half ago, and am already looking forward to having it again for dinner.

This particular soup comes from a little Chinese place near my office, and is served in all its green and golden glory in a big yellow, orange, pink and white striped ceramic bowl with turquoise dots around the rim. She (there's only one of her) brings it out on a plate – the plates are usually plastic with various Chinese flowery designs, but the other day it was heavy white restaurant porcelain with a pattern of dark green egg-shaped things around the border – and gives you one of those flat-bottomed spoons to scoop it up with. She sets it before you ... and the steam rises from the clearest of all possible lovely clear broths ... and there are the puffy little delicious wontons paddling around on their backs, daring you to kiss their adorable soft white bellies as they float amongst slivers of green onion and big crunchy pieces of bok choy ... and you dip the spoon in and lift it to your lips ... and the yummy delicious warmth and flavors fill your mouth with happiness ... and you feel it (the happiness) move down your throat and into your stomach and all throughout your entire weak and exhausted body ... and suddenly, you feel as if you can live again.

Yes, this soup has restored my will to live. More than once.

Last night as I was falling asleep I found myself dreaming, "Only 15 more hours until I can have some more of that soup again."

Did you know that "wonton" can be translated as "swallowing clouds"? It's true. If that lovely image doesn't make you want to order up a nice big bowl of beautiful delicious wonton soup, I don't know what will.

Also over the weekend, I got out my box of jewelry-making stuff and made a pretty little wrist mala out of 21 rudraksha beads knotted on red silk with an antique melon-shaped citrine bead as the stupa and a hand-tied silk tassle. I'm very happy with the way it turned out – everything about it. It's the first thing I've made in a really long time that I've been this satisfied with. The process of stringing beads and tying the silk between beads is a nice little meditation, too.

I was reflecting the other day about how my mind seems to have changed since I changed my daily work from writing to design. Part of me still feels jealous when I see the list of stories other people have been assigned to write, and I know I could go back to writing if I wanted to ... but overall, I have to say I kind of prefer the wordlessness of working with colors, shapes and images. It's still work, of course, and sometimes the production aspects of it get boring, but the work itself – creating a visual space that communicates effectively and is pleasant to look at – is fun. And it seems to be moving my mind away from the linear, text-based space I lived in as a writer, where I was obsessed with analyzing words, thoughts, ideas, constantly trying to precisely describe and explain everything ... and into a more intuitive kind of life, where meaning and emotion can be simply experienced, rather than having to be "said." I don't think it's a coincidence that my artistic life is slowly re-awakening now that I'm putting myself in a more visual, emotional kind of environment every day. It feels good to feel that happening.

Sledgehammer to the chest

That's what I got hit with on Saturday, or at least it kind of feels like it. I've been laid out for five days with the worst respiratory infection I've had in years. It started in my lungs; I could feel it on Friday. By Saturday afternoon I was reduced to sitting on the couch with a blanket on my lap, and on Sunday I spent the entire day in bed, coughing up big globs of gunk and sleeping. I dreamed I was knitting in binary code – little 1's and 0's lined up along each needle where the stitches would usually be – and instead of knitted fabric, magazine pages were coming off the needles. I tossed them into a pile where they were transformed into odd-shaped sections of sleeves and plackets ... very unsettling.

On New Year's Day I decided to venture out with Mr. A for a short trip to the store (this is about the time he started coughing, too). Normally I would describe this trip in more detail, but given my weakened condition I'll just briefly summarize by saying that we caught a lost dog we saw wandering on a busy road and got him back to his people, which seemed to me a rather auspicious way to begin a new year.

Yesterday I was finally feeling energetic enough to sit up on the couch and indulge in a full-blown temper tantrum. I couldn't help myself – I had felt so shitty for such a long time, it seemed, and I was so bored of lying around like a dead thing. I had tried some very gentle stretching, hoping to bring myself somewhat back to life, but it only caused another fit of coughing. Then later, I thought maybe a little walk down the road would feel good, which it did, but when I came back into the overheated house again I felt like I was going to choke on my own lungs.

I don't remember what finally set me off, but once I got started I just gave in to it. I cried and wailed and blubbered away like a colicky infant, totally unreasonable and in pain, knowing that crying would only make my headache and congestion worse (which it did) but having no will to stop myself until I was all cried out.

It only lasted a couple of minutes, and I think it was just what I needed. Afterwards, I was still just as sick as before, but I felt better. Calmer. I love that clear, empty feeling that comes over you when you've exhausted yourself of all emotion and can finally just sit, still and peaceful – a perfect blank – and breathe.

Today is Wednesday, and I'm still trying to decide whether I ought to go to work for a few hours this afternoon. I've been bored out of my mind for days, and would love to get out of the house and do something useful. My lungs are still crackling and full of gunk, but my fever is down and I feel stronger. According to the world wide web, I am probably past the point where I'm most contagious – a crucial point, because I really don't want to start passing this thing around at work. If someone else had had the sense to stay home when they got it, I wouldn't have had to spend the last five days as a miserable, moaning and/or howling invalid.

Watching my mind through this ordeal has been interesting. Even when I know there's nothing I can do to get better faster, some part of me always wants to fight – I think that was what I came up against when I had my meltdown yesterday. Just that rage of being in pain and unable to get out of it. Turning my logical mind off, and letting the anger express itself, instantly took the edge off not only my emotional desperation but the physical pain, too. I don't think I've ever experienced that link so clearly before, and now that I've seen it I want to start paying more attention to it in other areas of my life.

Maybe this will be the year I finally start letting myself get mad.