Various points May 6-8

So then I'm on a bike in the morning riding to the zen center also known as the Unitarian Church, and then I am talking to this new couple who were originally from Bolivia by way of Houston and the Houston Zen center and they have all the zen trappings in their black robes and me in my bike shorts and jersey.  And no they are not going to the sesshin at the end of the month because they are going to a week long sesshin in Bolivia.  And then we start zazen and I notice that they are moving in zazen. Then I think are they going 2000 miles to sit and move in Bolivia.

But then it feels like anxiety. Or the idea of anxiety.  So I go exploring to find out what this is.   And its  like a top spinning off the land and I realize the sensation is just me, I am the top spinning on the  the world beneath me.  And I hear the earth tell me:  "Don't worry I will give you what you need."  Then I realize that this feeling of anxiety is really just a feeling of not being connected to what is around me but separate, and separate feels alone and scary.  But don't worry, you are of the earth and I will give you what you need.  And then everything was rainbows and unicorns again.  For I am not separate, and I realize that whenever I feel separate to relax into the ground.  And to look into the eyes of others.  And to feel the earth beneath me.

And then Elihu was giving a dharma talk and it seemed to have more of an edge than usual.  Very sharp and condensed.  And funny.  I remembered to look up the book he referred to:  "Trying to Give up what you don't have."  LOL

And then I try to take a nap and can't.  Then I go to a birthday party at It's all About wine and I talk to Rick and his girlfriend who I don't know that well but she seemed to really warm up to me when I made the joke that she needed to stop showing me the pictures of her twin daughters (college age) who were demonstrating cleavage.  Which is true by the way in the sense that I don't really need to see that and that 2) they did have nice cleavage but 3 it seemed to make their mother happy that I thought "them" attractive.   Further jokes on this issue will undoubtedly take place in the future because they are going to Summer camp with me evidently.   Which of course will take place on my birthday.  Which is probably good that I'm not going there alone on my birthday, or maybe not.  It would probably be good for me to be alone for awhile.  But I digress.

So then I continue to move boxes, but take a break.  And then I talk to the landlord dude, or at least I think that he is the landlord dude and he seems very nice almost to the point of being intrusive and I wonder and start to devise plots so that Dave and none of the other tenants know that I am a lawyer which might get them believing that I have something interesting to steal, which I do not, unless you like carbon bikes or wine.   And I have those hidden in a different place anyway.   And Dave the landlord dude seems ok anyway.   And it feels like it could be a home.

And then I go to Delinda's art opening at the Hoogland.  And she has a painting of people sitting zazen at her house by the lake.  They are sitting not moving of course.   And it is called something to do with zen.  And I look at the different designs on the picture representing perhaps the mental states of each one of the meditators and I think about it for awhile and wonder if one of them is me.   Which I am sure it is not, but I imagine that if one of them were about me, it would be the one with overlapping concentric circles like multiple ripples in a pond.  Certainly not the one with polka dots.  LOL

So then there is a long interlude with my daughters.  Taco party.  And then I strong arm them into going to a yoga class with me.  Their first one.  And the other people in the class comment that fathers day has arrived early because they are doing it for me.   But I know I doing it for them, so that they will go to the YMCA yoga class in Decatur by themselves, and know what to expect.

And then I move boxes again.  And then I make M very sad again which is very sad in itself.

And then I go to the open Mic poetry night at William Van's and I wait a long time before my name is called and then I read without humor or emotion.  I read "what must be done," "help," and "drunkenly sober."  And I wonder what Ian and Mason think about it.   Well not so much Mason because I know he was higher than a kite.    And my mom wants to hear what I read so I send them to her which is probably not a good idea because now she is worried that they are worrisome poems.  Which when I read them again they are a little odd, but I insist to her that I am feeling ok, which I really believe I am.  Except for this morning when I woke up all tight in my back.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I was the highest bidder on the djembe recommended by Dennis and Dawn.  And that it is enroute.  For my birthday.  And I think that I will like the drum circle business.   And Dennis and Dawn.