Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I talked to my two best friends today and it was so comforting. We didn't really dip into politics. We've got our mail in ballots and will send them in the next couple of days. We talked about what we're doing, and how we're feeling and this sense of letting go of so much we used to carry. Getting older lightens the load, as, sometimes without thinking, responsibilities and worries just slip off like a silken wrap. We pare down to what matters: love and compassion, and those little moments that make up our joy or insight or sadness. Be here now, as they said in the sixties, but it gets easier. I don't want to shop and accumulate, even without the covid, I want to see and walk in nature, smile at faces, pet a dog or cat, talk to a bird. There are two crows who live in the parkway across from my house, and when I come down the stairs to the garage or sidewalk, they barely move. I say hello and they know I'm their neighbor, and caw or look up or waddle around me. We coexist. I like that. There is the cat who comes in our yard, the gray fox that visits, the owl and birds boucing on tree branches, the frentic bouncing around of the squirrels, the dogs bemoaning being left in the house by their owners. It's POPULATED here. All sentient beings, all the time. I'm one among many.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Today we babysat our one year old grandson, and we had fun. My husband picked persimmons from our tree, lined them up on the fence, and then the three of us carried them into the house. The grandson carried his carefully and didn't drop it once. He likes the deck off my studio to be swept clean, and had my husband and I taking turns sweeping up. He would point if we missed a leaf or acorn. Late in the day our other apple tree, which hasn't produced any apples in a decade, had one big green apple hanging, and my husband picked it before the squirrels could steal it, and for the hour we strolled our grandson he held it carefully in his hands like a golden treasure. The wonders of fruit are a miracle, but I doubt I'd notice much if wasn't for my grandchildren. The earth itself has splendors no human construction can match. I'm grateful I have little ones to remind me of those blessings.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Today I took two walks. There is so much electricity in the air from anxiety, the headlines and the toll isolation takes on us that physical exercise is the balance that keeps me sane. If I am. I know I'm saner than Trump. I received such a lovely missive today from my Zen teacher's daughter, and it provided great support for my own grieving. She enclosed the obituary, which was full and lovely and captured her spirit. I take comfort in the Weather Reports the teacher made us email weekly about our practice - many years of them - so much of my life the last few years has been described in them, and I can hold and read them when I miss her or need guidance. She gave me my foundation, and my current Tibetan teacher gently moves me along my path. I don't actually think I had a real mentor until my Zen teacher. I moved around too much, even as a child, and I was raised to be "independent" which meant I never bared my soul to anyone. Now I try to keep my heart open and responsive in every moment, to make up for all those years of not trusting others. Now I trust myself, and that is the key to connecting with others.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

In the middle of the night last night I woke up wide awake and worrying about our canoe at our cabin. We left it down by the lake for our younger daughter and her family, but they decided not to go up this weekend. We realized last weekend up there that we were too old and decrepit to carry it all the way from the lowered level of the lake to the parking lot, where we had planned to slide it in the back of our car and drive it up hill, then take it out and lug it up and put in the underside of the deck. Our daughter insisted they wanted to use it, but I had a premonition. Now, either the canoe will be stolen (easy enough to put in the back of a pickup) or tagged by rangers or lost somehow. We can't do it ourselves, and there is no one up there to call and help. I worried over various scenarios, but couldn't find a solution. I had lots of REGRET. We should have done it while we were there, but now going up again risks our backs, hips and knees or a bad fall. I called and left a message for our daughter, but she is trapped as well by having a baby and 3 year old, and her husband works intensely from home and doesn't get days off. Finally, I said my prayers and fell asleep, and this morning realized the canoe is a proxy for all the ways in which I feel helpless right now. I'm too old, too isolated, too afraid of politics, covid and fires. I'm back to telling myself if the canoe disappears, it's not a tragedy. We've had it for 30 plus years and have many happy memories. Last weekend we took it out for a two hour canoe ride and it was exhilarating. In other words, this morning I was sane again.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We are driving up to celebrate our grandson's fifth birthday. The air is okay up there and supposed to clear further. Ours is unhealthy for sensitive groups but clearing hopefully this afternoon. There will be cupcakes involved and we're bringing up a game from the cabin that he likes to play. His presents from us are hidden away in their garage already. No other cousins, friends or schoolmates will be there. Such is covid normal. He will get zoom calls but these little guys are fed up with all that. Actually, some of us big guys as well. Trump's covid sends a chill to the rest of us: he was tested and monitored constantly, but still he got it. I hope the lack of a mask is the reason, but I can't help being a bit more paranoid than I was. I have a target painted on my back because of age and I know I'm in the most vulnerable group of all. I pray someone gets a handle on how to proceed with protocols and we can protect our citizens, but it may very well be past the tipping point, as is climate change. We had a chance and we blew it. We did not rise to our better natures. And reading Isabel Wilkerson's book "Caste", I see we seldom did. Our country was the inspiration for Nazi racist laws, and we need to disavow our ugly history and mend our country. The time is now. The time for everything to change is now. In the midst of turmoil and chaos. Now.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

The air was bad today, but we managed to have a good time. We got some groceries at our local market, and I went to a pharmacy and filled a prescription from several weeks ago. Then I wrote all the birthday cards and Halloween cards I'd just bought, and they are all set to go in the mail, along with my 100 postcards to voters. our younger son brought our grandson over in the afternoon and we Facetimed with our younger daughter and her two boys, then I made us early dinner, and our grandson was so distracted the whole time he barely noticed we hadn't let him outside in the back yard. Now I'm hoping for better air tomorrow, no wind and a cooling off of temperatures they've predicted. Life is good, especially if you have made gluten free brownies with walnuts for dessert.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I finished writing my 100 postcards to encourage women to vote. I hope it helps. At least I'm doing something and not just complaining. Our sky is again weird today, and the air quality not great, but much worse other places. We're all holding our breath here that these next couple of days with red flag warnings don't trigger new fires or exaserbate the the existing ones. I avoided the debate, and from what I hear I'm lucky. I'm reading Isabel Wilkerson's "Caste", a phenomenally well written book about race in America, that brings our history into clear focus in a powerful and refreshing way. She speaks truth, the way James Baldwin so eloquently did. I hope we can work on these issues and have a form of truth and reconciliation in our country. We need to acknowledge our past and energize ourselves to repair and heal. And attack the inequities and restructure our society. We can do it if we are brave and have the will to change. Every country has ugly history, we just need to "gut up" as Brad Pitt's character says in World War Z and fix this. Let's fix this. We can.