Another Rainy Day

There’s not much to say about the weather, other than it’s been wet.  Walking has a reduced effect as a seasonal depression manager when it’s done in this weather.  Abby thinks a light box would help.  I like the idea.  It’s cheaper than moving to the desert.  And anyway, I’d miss the moat, and the churches, and the cafes.

Other than the rain, the Weinachtsmarkt is what’s happening.  It’s especially fun to walk through my neighborhood and listen to the little automatons in the wooden booths telling their own fairy tale.  It’s even nicer to check out the looks of astonishment on the faces of the little kids.  With Fairy tales and Christmas, not even the rain can dampen the spirits. I’m going to take a walk.

A Cold, Dark Sunday in November

It's wet and the darkest of grays on the other side of my living room windows.  I passed on the opening of a photo exhibition in the Mehgenerationenhaus today.  It's a three kilometer walk and even goretex is uncomfortable on the city streets in persistent rain.  I've got a couple of friends exhibiting and would have loved to see them, but it's is proving to be very comfortable here at Stone Street.  I've got cookies and coffee and plenty to read.  The direction the mind is taking is a good one, with doodles and sketches and a stirring of the wood carver's muse.  Some days, just getting a word or two on the page is enough to frame a story.  Some days, it's enough. 

The intersection of certain memories when the weather is like this brings Neruda to mind, the gray beret and its time and place, cafes and theatres.  One of the interesting aspects of mind is its ability to formulate vignettes on the recollection of a word or phrase, a scent or sight. 

I like my mind and all of its peregrine wanderings.

Christmas is on the way.....

There's a big tree standing in the Gaensemarkt, the one in the Altermarkt is coming today, I believe.  It compares in size to our Gaensemarkt tree as the Altermarkt compares to it in terms of foot traffic, which means, it's a BIG tree.  I'll take a walk on Christmas Day, just like I would on any other, but instead of trying to empty my mind, I'll fill it-with my kids, my Mom and Dad, my Brother and Sister, and, of course Gideon the Great.  I'll think about some German families I've spent Christmases Past with, and of my aunts and uncles and cousins and I'll smile about it all.  That's the nice think about Christmas, unless you're stinking drunk, you love everybody.  I try to make it Christmas in my head for a few minutes each day.  Even the Big Buddha enjoyed a holiday.....

What next?

So far this morning, I've awakened from my sleep, brushed my teeth, cooked the coffee, read, thought, and performed bodily functions of a nature which need not be described on this page.  Because of the exigencies of internet, I've browsed fine art and coarse, caught up on the news, and been invited to two photography exhibition openings.  No one has offered to publish a book, or even a collection of short stories or poetry.  All of this is in keeping with the notion of the great karmic wheel.  What I'll probably do next is walk.  Alone. Given the grayness of the November sky, the temperature in the single digits (centigrade single digits are nowhere near the cold of Fahrenheit single digits) I will probably not meet anyone along the way who'll stop long enough to converse. Which is why I'm talking to you now.  How are you?  Do you have plans for the day?  Will you be travelling soon, and if so, where will you be going?  Well, enjoy yourself, wherever you go, whatever you do.  Pay attention to the autumn leaves and if you see a snail, tell it the Scheckenbuddha says hello.

Enough of you, then, let's talk about me.  I am fine.  Thank you.

The Oppressive Silence of Contentment

It's been quiet at Steinstrasse 1a the past few months.  I've taken a few licks off of a few blocks of wood, scribbled a sentence here, a paragraph there, but I've accomplished nothing more than to amuse myself.  When you realize there's nothing to prove to yourself or the rest of the world, that there's nothing wrong, but everything right with just being, it doesn't matter if you're 16, 66, or 96.  You've still got plenty of time to finish the job of living, even if it's just a year or a month or a day.  You can't tell a book by its cover, say the less than sage, who may be sager than the buddha in my copious self.  I am not Hemingway, or Rodin, or Robinson Crusoe, or even John Zavacki.  I am a buddha who lives five stories above the ground and stares from his balcony into the moat.  When I sit quietly, or walk at a snail's pace around the city wall or in the fields and forests that surround it, I am at peace with myself.  I realize that all of the failures and sins and omissions of the past are just the paths of particles in space that I may encounter again.  If I do, I am better prepared.  If I don't, I remember them with compassion, compassion for my self that was and the selves of others with whom I interacted.  I no longer need readers or admirers or lovers or even friends to complete me.  The kernel of the universe, the fractal that is infinitely recursive, recursive enough to be all of space and all of time, starts here, ends here, and depends on nothing.  It's okay to have a lapse in productivity.  The universe survives without reading my words or seeing a piece of my sculpture, but it survives differently.