Now that Daylight Savings Time has ended, it’s kind of dark when I leave work and pitch black soon thereafter. I wondered if I’d have to go back to riding my bike home on Market St.—it was so dark passing behind the ballpark—but after trying Market St. again one time, I decided just to use more lights and stick with my nice route by the water. The next time I passed the ballpark, the lights were on, so this will be fine.
On Thursday I had dinner at Ananda Fuara and then my peer group of five meditators met at the Zen Center. Our class ends in December, but we’ve decided to continue to meet after that on our own, every two weeks. I’ve become very fond of this little bunch of folks.
Prior to our meeting, I had a “practice discussion” with one of the teachers there, D., wherein I confessed how much I fidget when I meditate. I even pick up Hammett for a few minutes if he really, really wants to be picked up, rationalizing that I’m doing “love meditation.”
Hearing from vipassana teachers, I have picked up the idea, rightly or wrongly, that mindfulness is all that counts. I think that is ultimately so, but Zen puts much more emphasis on forms, including posture, as a way to support mindfulness. D. reminded me that moments of being utterly still are rare and precious, and encouraged me to have a bit more resolve. She noted that sitting alone is admittedly difficult. In the zendo, if nothing else, a sense of decorum quells floundering about.
The next day I sat down intending not to move (and certainly not to pick up the cat). The instructions I gave myself were to keep my body still, and to keep my mind with my body. Within about two breaths, I felt like I was suffocating and became intensely claustrophobic—trapped in my own flesh. No wonder I don’t do this very often. I made it through that, and later some definite quiet and peace set in, though by then I noticed I was leaning to one side, curved over like a banana.
I emailed D. to see if, in that case, I should just remain contorted, or if it would be better to make small adjustments as I go along (meaning there might be several movements) or wait until one big adjustment is needed (just one movement, but larger).
She wrote back that it’s OK to regain one’s upright posture, preferably with small, gentle movements, and preferably without getting into movements that aren’t really necessary under the guise of “adjusting.” But she also asked how I had ended up like a banana without noticing it: good question. Since then I’ve been paying attention to that and it hasn’t happened again so far.
My company has just made Veteran’s Day into a paid holiday, so for the first time in many years, I had that day off and utterly squandered it on Facebook, not a week after piously explaining to Lisa M. why I would never become a Facebook user.
In retrospect, it was a bit overwhelming to have elementary school, junior high AND high school come flooding back all at once, but it was really nice to see all of those old names and learn a bit about what people are up to, and some particularly great things happened, too. I reconnected with someone I was very fond of whom I had Googled in vain many, many times. I got back in touch with my best friend in eighth grade, Mark. I found two or three lucid dreamers, including one of my closest friends when I was seven! I am back in touch with a fellow I had a crush on when I was 16; at the time, he seemed like a glamorous older man, so I was surprised to find out he’s actually only two years older than I am.
Almost nothing I’d planned to do that day got done. I spent hours and hours on Facebook, and got to bed a bit late. I routinely write down six or seven or eight dreams each morning, but the day after Facebook day, I remembered precisely zero dreams. It had fried my brain and/or my unconscious was ticked off about something.
The next day, Saturday, I remembered one very brief dream and two snippets. I went to see B. at the hospice. She dozed for the first hour, and then we chatted for another hour or so. I told her my mother was a marine architect by education and her eyes grew big as golf balls. She said, “That is so exciting!” Somewhere along in there, I realized I was absolutely happy, just sitting there with B. There was nowhere else I could have enjoyed being more.
It was a splendid crisp fall day, sunny and beautiful. Tom (my tall handsome ex-boyfriend) and I used a City CarShare car, for the first time, to get to a birthday party for him, Jim and Dan in Sacramento.
“I brought along a selection of CDs,” I said. It had occurred to me that Tom’s musical education had a lacuna in the area of Megadeth.
“So did I,” countered Tom. The battle was on!
“I brought Megadeth.”
“Good. Did you remember to bring your headphones?”
I like to drive with the window wide open at all times, which Tom indulges until it gets to be cold and dark; even then, I’d really prefer the window down. There is nothing like a frigid wind to make one feel positively refreshed.
So I was a little worried Tom might not be able to hear Dave over the noise of the wind as we traversed I-80, despite the stereo being turned way, way up. “Can you hear that OK?”
“Um, YES!!”
“But are you picking up all the nuances?”
“There’s nuances?”
The party was wonderful, as always, although some of us ate way too many cheddar biscuits during the appetizers phase and ended considerably too full (and remembered few dreams once again the next morning).
Here’s who was there: Paul, Eva, Steve, Julie, Sarah, Josh, Dave C., Christine, Dan, Jim, Melinda, Abbie, Tom and me.
On Sunday I was hoping to see Mark and Doug, but I never heard from them, so I went to Rainbow and made brown basmati rice with Portobello ragu and two loaves of olive bread. I used King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose flour and could not believe how much and how fast the dough rose. I’m a convert.
As for getting the olives into the bread, I didn’t precisely follow the instructions—how hard could it be?—and ended up with these giant loaves where the three slices on each end have no olives at all, and all the slices in between have a big clump of olives right in the center. I won’t be able to put this bread in the toaster because all of the olives will fall out, so I’ll have to use the oven for reheating, and next time I will study the instructions more closely. The flavor and texture of this bread, clumped-up olives notwithstanding, is excellent.
I felt extremely calm yesterday while I was cooking—I think partly due to applying more discipline when sitting the past few days—so much so that I didn’t listen to KQED or any music, and this morning I remembered eight dreams, three of which were fairly long, and one of which was about lucid dreaming per se, a good sign.
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