Still Got It!

Two weekends ago (I guess I’m getting behind here) I bought a new bike helmet and took the rearview mirror off my old helmet and duct-taped it onto the new helmet. I had to do that over two or three times, trying to get the spot right. The mirror took a couple of days to get used to when I first got it, but now I love it. It’s like a little TV right next to my eyeball that always has a show on about a street.

There was no movie I wanted to see that weekend—I know I should want to see The Lives of Others; on the other hand, I did want to see Mark Wahlberg in Shooter, but, shockingly, it was no longer in the theater—so I got some long-deferred chores done, like patching bicycle innertubes.

I also finished sewing a pair of baggy pants, the final pair from last fall’s annual sewing project, in quite a bright shade of green; green is my favorite color for pants; I have five pairs of green pants. When they were done, I put elastic in the waistband, and did the same for another pair in an eye-catching yellow, and that takes care of that. It’s funny how you can’t tell if a pair of pants will be any good until they are one hundred percent done. Fortunately, all of my pants can serve as pajamas if it turns out I can’t leave the house in them.

In the evening, Tom and I watched Blood Diamond on DVD. There was farting, and an apology: “I’m sorry there’s always so much flatulence at your house: Saturday is burrito day.” It’s not so much the burrito per se; it’s the burrito plus ice cream, potato chips and orange soda.

“Can’t Sunday be burrito day?”

I have decided cooking one dish on Sunday instead of two is plenty, because making two really does take the whole entire day, so that weekend I made Cowboy Frijoles from the bean and grain cookbook, and this past weekend I made lentils and rice with fried onions from Deborah Madison’s cookbook, plus I saw Lucky You (Eric Bana!) and went to the farmers’ market.

I noticed trumpet playing was starting to fade out again, so I added a daily task just to buzz with my lips for a moment or two—the trumpet merely amplifies a rude sound one is making with one’s personal mouth—and this has really helped, because once I do that, then I think, “Hey, it would be fun to play the trumpet,” and then I do. Lately I’ve been practicing improvising with Aebersold tapes, or playing along as best I can with Horace Silver CDs.

The jury is still not quite in on the firm McRoskey mattress. I went to see a man who does osteopathic and cranial-sacral bodywork, who said my gluteus medius was mashed. What he did really helped my back, though it involved some frightening “adjustments.” In fact, I felt great after that.

I must have looked cheerful, too, because a couple of days later, someone tried to pick me up on the bus for the first time in 30 years. (When I told Tom that he said, “You still got it.”) Not only that, it was the cutest guy on the whole bus, a Costa Rican, judging from his baseball cap, about 65 years old.

When he got on, I thought, “Wow, this fellow is very handsome. He must have attracted women by the score in his day.” A bit later, he asked the man next to him how many stops to Geary St. The man didn’t understand, so I held up three fingers and told him it was three more blocks. At this, there were grins and waves and general expressions of enthusiasm.

When I stood up to get out at the movie theater, he asked, “Where are you going?” I saw he was missing some teeth in front and that others were entirely covered with silver. I said, “I’m getting off here; your stop is one more block.” Smiling winningly, he said, “Stay with me. I need you.” “That’s very flattering,” I said, and meant it.

I’m continuing my daily stretching, though prior to seeing Jack, I had noticed that sometimes it felt worse right afterwards, likely a sign of overdoing. I’m trying to remind myself to back off so that the stretch is slight, not major, and the experience pleasant rather than unpleasant. This is the same lesson I had to learn at last year’s concentration retreat.

Once I went on a retreat for three weeks and another time for four, but in recent years, it’s just a week, so I arrive determined to make the most of each moment, and always end up very frustrated after a few days, and then someone has to tell me to stop meditating and go take a nap. The teachers never say to strain or have a do-or-die attitude, but in the concentration retreats in particular, I’ve noticed they emphasize ease and pleasure. A fine reminder for all of life.