The Chamber music concert Sunday afternoon definitely brought back fond memories. Music was a big part of my childhood. While I can recall some negatives all involving my father and his mercurial temper, music itself was always a lovely thing.

Deciding what to do about the move to Austin has been very painful. It is impossible not to think of Lesley while I consider the possibilities. A friend of mine told me my motives had to be pure. I can't do it. The best I can do is practice letting go, something I have been trying to do a little of every day.

As for feeling like a different person, J was the first person to point out how different I was from the way I was a year ago. She described it as being sort lofty, high and mighty. Then many months later I'm laid low by heartache and depression. As I emerge from that depth I find myself not returning to "normal". My hubris has been wiped away. Not drinking I have no place to hide from myself. Going to therapy and talking to friends, some of whom I have not seen much of until lately - like you - has helped me find the words for what had been going on with me over these past four years. When we were driving back to your house from the concert and I told you about my falling out with A you asked me what was I thinking. I wasn't thinking at all. I was living on impulse without thought of consequences. I'm not doing that now. It's weird. When I look for the impulsive bastard I used to be a few months ago I'm not finding him.

Lately I've been too needy to give much to others. Perhaps my past giving is the reason why I had people I could lean on when I needed them. Now that I'm feeling better I find solace in listening to my friends. I have a lot more clarity than I've had in a long time. And my recent hardships helps me empathize and really listen better than I ever have in my life.

I felt rotten this morning. Rotten all day. Almost cried during zazen. And yet all that misery was ok, just a drop in the bucket. It's temporary just like everything else. Eventually I was able to let it go.

In the Samyuktagama Sutra the Buddha compares living beings to four types of horses. The best horse will run fast or slow, turn right or left, with the rider's will, without the use of a whip; the second best runs as well as the first at the sight of the whip; the third responds when it feels the painful lash on its body; the worst horse responds only when the pain penetrates to the marrow.

I am the worst horse.

Monday of the Sixth week in Ordinary Time

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Originally uploaded by gesualdo

Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials,
for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.
And let perseverance be perfect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

James 1:2-4

Valentines Day 2010

The Heart will know what the mind cannot
Solitude is never bridged,
Even in Love's fevered knot.
Dreams are echoes
Of Words unsaid,
Pantomimes of Hope and Dread.
The World is awash in chance encounters,
A lonely figure in the rain.
Through it all she learns by listening
To the Authors of her Pain.
So when the Lover met her Other
Her Confidante and Counterpart,
She knew that reason has no season
Though even Winter has a Heart.

Sunday Morning

Yes regret can keep you stuck in the past. It can also be prospective. I will never be a young father for example, something I'm reminded of when I see young dads with their children. But you're right, whether it's about the past or the future regret gets me out of focus and stuck someplace other than where I am now. It's another form of wishing, escaping.

I'm glad and surprised to learn W helped you through your grieving. I first heard about him from one of his patients. She is the sister of Amy #1. It was around the time I was living in Bandera and when I was seeing you. My friendship with her is a story for another day. I just wanted to acknowledge our longstanding connections. It's quite something.

The idea of going to the Zen Center stems from a lot of different things - an interest is Eastern culture, past experience with meditation and the need to quiet my troubled mind. I thought about yoga first but that is too connected to memories of Lesley to be appealing right now. Coincidentally the Center is quite near my house. I'm planning on walking there for the sessions. Also coincidentally the first book in the list of suggested reading posted on the Center's website is "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind" by Shunryu Suzuki. I've had a copy since 1978. I know because I kept the receipt for the book tucked inside its' pages. 32 years later I'm finally getting around to reading it carefully. It speaks to me and my situation quite directly.

Perhaps this time is a respite to catch up on my grief backlog. Hopefully nothing will add to it. I recognize I'm not supposed to be in a relationship right now. Perhaps my biggest mistake with Lesley was not honoring this credo. I thought wrongly the marriage was over and I was ready to move on. I wasn't. Knowing this is one thing, sticking to it quite another. The longing is always there. And there are many ways of giving in

Letter to Mary the Red

This is a better morning for some reason. I'm still too much in my head and lonely. But my mood is better. I'm finally getting started on fixing the roof today. I'm thinking less about what's going to happen with Lesley. I have a lot going for me which will just slip away if I don't get myself back on track. I'm feeling more hopeful that everything will be ok. I'll get the house fixed, make some progress at work, start doing more with myself than just sit around.

Last night you mentioned something about the internal conversation one has with oneself, how the repeated wish for death is a hallmark of depression. These "ideations" trouble me even though they're not seriously entertained. I've had them more often over the past couple of days. This morning I remembered this was not something new, how I slipped into this kind of thinking in the past, going back to my freshman year in college. It has been with me a long time.

Last night as I was driving home I thought about how my suffering was really tied up in this self I was holding onto. I was reminded of my favorite part of the film "I'm Your Man" about the musician Leonard Cohen who spent five years as a Zen monk. Cohen said of his teacher, Roshi “became a part of my life and a deep friend in the real sense of friendship: someone who really cared about – or didn't care, I'm not quite sure which it is – who deeply didn't care about who I was. Therefore who I was began to wither, and the less I was of who I was, the better I felt."

The less I was of who I was, the better I felt... That makes a lot of sense to me. Maybe I've found my path forward.

The Art of the American Snapshot, 1888-1978 by Sarah Greenough

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
A nice history of film photography. The text frequently referred to photographs on some other page. Would have been better to organize things so the reader doesn't have to flip back and forth through the book while reading it. After a while I just read the words and looked at the pictures later. More bettah.

I didn't know the word "snapshot" originally referred to a hunter getting off a quick shot at his quarry before it scurried away. I have sometimes felt like a gunman carrying my camera in a bag. Once I was hassled by people at a club thinking I might actually have a gun.

I like the "no rules" message of this book. When taking pictures, it's all good. Random misfires always teach you something, about the camera, the setting or yourself. But when snapshots work they have a beauty all their own, like John Cage's chance operations.


View all my reviews.

Praise for Greg McKendry

Another hate crime over the weekend, this one in Knoxville. An unemployed man who hates liberals opened fire with a shotgun during a children's play at a Universalist Church. I won't write his name here. He doesn't deserve recognition. Instead I hope the whole world hears the name Greg McKendry over the next few days.

A burly usher who died was hailed as a hero for shielding others from gunfire at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church...

Church members praised Greg McKendry, 60, saying he attempted to block the gunfire. Barbara Kemper said that McKendry, who died, "stood in the front of the gunman and took the blast to protect the rest of us."

Kemper said the gunman shouted before he opened fire, though police said others didn't recall him saying anything.

"It was hateful words. He was saying hateful things," she said, refusing to elaborate.

"Greg McKendry was a very large gentleman, one of those people you might describe as a refrigerator with a head," said church member Schera Chadwick. "He looked like a football player. He did obviously stand up and put himself in between the shooter and the congregation."

Update: Two of my friends, Beauvais and his wife Diane, were in the church just a few feet away from the shooting. They weren't hit by any gunfire but are dealing with the awful shock of being there. More over at The Tin Foil Hat...