I’ve had a full week of organizing (as it were), my new digs and getting used to the subtle (yet useful), paranoia that is part of urban life. When I was young and closer to life on The Street or The Block I was always confident and felt I could prevail in most situations, which, by the way, was an erroneous view that persisted despite evidence to the contrary. I had my ass handed to me on more than several occasions. Nevertheless, I was mostly too deluded to see that confidence may not be all that it is cracked up to be. So, I blundered, and with huge amounts of luck and residual good merit I managed to reach what I now consider, fairly, to be old age.

Still, still; I strut a little when I walk past young men who are as I was when I was a street guy. Which I might as well differentiate from a street person. A street guy, is a young boy/man who knows the ways of the underclass and aspires to learn the ways of the middle and upper classes so that he can bring that street knowledge to bear, in a mistaken and often fruitless attempt to “get over” on the denizens of the country club. What the street guy has to find out at some point is that the denizens of the CC’s all come from families that were started by some ancestor who was a street guy and basically wrote the rule book for “becoming” . Not getting over.

A street “person” is one who has lost all the battles to become, or get over. This is one who has given in to the blandishments that fun and high times offered and now has the sinking (literal) feeling that things will only get worse. And, they do.

I’ve had the good fortune to be in all three places, and survived them all.

I went over to Napa Last night and went to a meeting at the place that the big change in my life began. The place where I first got sober and clean. When I went there over 31 years ago I was a real wreck. I could not think a straight thought. I could not look beyond my own cynicism wrapped in fear. But, one day at a time, incrementally and ever so slowly, I began to change. Until I became the paragon of virtue that I am today. Until I had enough time and distance from that earlier version to see that I was not really changing so much as learning to not act so much on my impulses. Many are still very much in place and accessible, but pretty withered from disuse (hmmmmm).

Anyhooo; my experience is that basically I act different and I  didn’t sense that until I was back in a more “urban” environment and I could see some old thought habits crop up. A sixty-seven year old coot “Bustin’ on down the street like a stone diddley-bop”, as we used to say… It is amusing, and I suspect provides a chuckle or two for any modern diddley-bops who happen to see this old ghost reliving an old delusion.

Life is wonderful, but we don’t have to keep repeating everything and sometimes we can just grin and shake our heads and realize that old fools are usually the result of being young fools.

Being a fool, young or old is not necessarily a bad thing. If you learn from it, and, live through it.

I am in a new place. A small apartment in downtown Vallejo. This was the first big(er) city to go bankrupt several years ago and is trying for a comeback. There are definitely signs of life and resurgence, but it has many of the basic urban problems. I’m in a small building with four other tenants and it’s pretty quiet, although there are enough urban noises to keep one alert when going about. A high speed police chase went right by me the other day; and as it was when I used to live here, was the sound of ambient gunshots.

In Tekoa when I heard gunfire I could safely assume it was another hunting season, here I can safely assume that when I hear gunfire it may bode ill. Although the hunting guns also bode ill for the animal(s) in question.

In any case, this week I’ve been getting together the basic things I need. The annoying thing is that I have all of that stuff but it’s in storage back in Tekoa; so a short trip back there should easily pay for itself in terms of not having to buy a bunch of useful gee-gaws. I’ll do that next week.

This morning instead of going right into my to-do list I went and hopped on the Vallejo/S.F. Ferry and went to the early parts (staging) of the S.F. Giants Parade. The boat was full, a mix of regular commuters and Baseball fans. When I got to the City I just walked up Market Street for  ways and got the feel of the the Baseball fans that were starting to come into town for the big event (2 million expected, yes 2 million! I have to remember that the SF bay area is the fourth most populous urban area in the country), and it was starting to rain. After an hour of that I went back to the ferry and caught a ride back to Vallejo. I was the only passenger.

I am extremely grateful and glad that I was able to spend the last three months living at our temple in Berkeley. I didn’t know how crazy I had become. The daily schedule and constant proximity to a Zen Master(s) and other practitioners was a great benefit to me.

My plan is to develop a routine of practice for myself in this apartment and go to the temple twice a week in Berkeley and see if I can integrate a creative practice into my daily routine. More on that as it evolves (or doesn’t [or de-volves] ). :)) he indicated parenthetically…

How to live a grateful live gracefully. That’s what I want to learn. Or, perhaps a graceful life gratefully. I’ll take either.

Life passes as swiftly as an arrow,

The morning dew is gone,

The sun continues its climb.

I have started serious house/apartment hunting in Bay area. I plan to move at end of month and am looking in Craigslist and alerting friends to keep an eye out for a small place for a short term (perhaps longer depending on price and situation), lease so that I can experience this area again and see if I fit in, come Spring. I am so grateful for the opportunity that the Abbot of this temple gave me by inviting me to stay and live and train with him for these now almost ten weeks. I am starting to get some clarity and also some relaxing of views and tensions and heretofore unseen anxieties. So, a great opportunity offered, and taken, and deeply appreciated.

Last week I was sitting by Lake Merit waiting to go to a meeting nearby. I was about 15 yards from the lake and watching all the jogger and after-work exercisers thronging the circumference pathways. the sun had set and the sky was red-orange and deep blue and the lake quiet and reflective, as was I. When I heard a huge splash beyond my left peripheral vision field and turned in time to see a pelican coming up from its dive and working to swallow a fish it had. It then lumbered up into the sky with a rather awkward take-off and very slow altitude gain, but off it went.

A jogger went by and we were both grinning at our fortune of having seen this primal feat right in the midst of this huge urban sprawl, our eyes met briefly in acknowledgement of our good fortune. It was a nice moment. Over the next five or so minutes I watched three more pelicans dive into the water and get some dinner. Oddly, they got better. The last one I saw barely left a ripple on the surface, because the entry was so clean and smooth. #10 in Waterbird Olympic Diving Contest for sure. The first one which I didn’t see enter the water, but definitely heard, was probably a #5-6; in that range. No sooner had the last bird left the stage with its fish (I’m fairly sure the four fish concerned were not so happy about the evenings events), when I was startled by loud shouting and screaming coming from somewhere to the right of me.

Walking/staggering/weaving, gesticulating screaming swearing angry words, wild haired and eyed, came a drunk; mad at the Universe and  sharing his confusion and anger with everyone he encountered or withing earshot. He came staggering towards the bench I was on and while sitting/falling on to the bench I was sitting on, he turned to me and very seriously and loudly said, “Now you look like an intelligent man!” In the fashion that some people use in trying to start a sales pitch or some proposition proffer. I just turned my head somewhat towards him and said, “I am not one.”

He did sort of double take and as he lurched to get up and started to stagger on in the direction he was going, he said “Then you must be an idiot!”

I was very still at that moment, because some points had been made in front of my very eyes in the last 5 or 6 minutes. I’m not sure what they were, exactly. But they had to do with life and moments and transactions. Not all things we learn have deep meaning or are necessarily connected, but everything that appears is a teaching. A fair amount of the time we just wait to see if some other dots appear and we can connect them and learn maybe just some small thing  that may turn out to be big.

Here’s what I learned that day. If we sit still and just watch, there’s no end to the surprising things that arise in front of our very eyes.

Go figure!

Woke up early this morning to the refreshing sound of rain, A real rain. It continued for several hours. The drought here is taken in stride by most people since there isn’t a whole lot you can do about drought. However,you can do something about how you relate to the conditions that a drought brings on; but the drought is a drought.

I’ve a similar experience with my personal drought. I’ve had to work at relearning how to correctly relate to the conditions of my life. The conditions being all those things that  comprise the daily ins and outs and ups and downs of life. How do I get the correct perspective on those conditions? For me, the most helpful things is to notice two things: One, that no matter what the condition is, pleasant or unpleasant, it will change. Two, that most conditions are merely information upon which I have a huge array of choices as regards action, or non-action.

The same is true of weather reports. They are just information, on which, most of it I don’t really have to react or respond to, too vigorously, if at all. So, as I get more and more information about the weather in my life and how I respond to it, I begin to build a picture of the CLIMATE wherein I exist/live. This becomes very useful information because I’m the one who has created the climate of my life by how I respond to the weather in it.

Yeah. I know. Typical tortured metaphor, but then I never metaphor I didn’t like. Or a really cheap pun, as it turns out.

Anyway, life is interesting again in an engaging way and it should be an interesting Winter.

These next few weeks I’m going to actively start looking for a place to live, short-term until late Spring, at which point I think I’ll know more as to decision regarding where I want to invest my energy and life. At  this point I haven’t a clue but I’m still very drawn to the Inland Northwest, and that’s a lot of room.

I’m feeling wave-tossed

And a bit windblown.

Floating and circling

Around the center of

My life, mind and heart.

What does that mean?