SOME DAYS ARE BETTER THAN OTHERS

Thursday

9/14

Gallery Opening at Tibet House

22 West 15th Street

NY NY

 

Two beautiful people I spent time with

~*~

Friday
Spent the whole day in and out of Bed. Then to the Zendo for our once monthly meeting of Elders.

Waiting for the Bus

No photographs of our session of course. We were about twenty women and men. After brief meditation, read a Mary Oliver Poem and let it lead us in lively and intimate conversation. Chodo Sensei read this one before a final meditation to end our session:

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Mary Oliver

Caught this image of the Full Harvest Moon at 6th Avenue on 23rd Street. Difficult to be stable with a hand held camera surrounded by a Friday crowd in a great hurry.
Hence, elongation.

Almost home, I noted these ice cream lovers from the local precinct and only saw the one staring at me after the fact.

READ  
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/18/well/mary-olivers-poems-taught-me-how-to-live.html
~*~

Friday Late Night
Read some, watched a movie "Everlasting Piece"-Against the turbulent backdrop of Belfast in the 1980's, fellow barbers, Colm, a Catholic, and George, a Protestant, form an unlikely partnership to corner the toupee market in Northern Ireland. But with rival hairpiece company, Toupee or Not Toupee, getting a jump on the competition, Colm and George have to come up with some creative sales techniques to bring a different kind of piece to Northern Ireland-It's a comedy.

~*~

Saturday
Where did it go?  Poor sleep, too many thoughts and afterthoughts. Puttered, napped, washed clothes, cleaned a bit. Walked out with no destination in mind. Kids in the playground of the public school were tooling around on their skateboards and this little guy in his new red car was having such a joyous time navigating.
Thoughts of childhood.
Thinking! Thinking about everything still, I kept walking and walking until I was too tired to go on.
Came home and fell asleep.
~*~

Sunday
My Massachusetts friend is celebrating here 8th Decade on earth and I wish I could have been there.
We spoke on the phone.


https://youtu.be/cIARNcFlRbQ

A Useful Distraction
Food Preparation:

Persian cucumbers marinated in rice vinegar
add drops of liquid Stevia to sweeten.
Delicious on cream cheese sandwiches
and fine for snacking.

Red grapes soaked in light solution of rose water
plump up and last long. Another great snack.

Chopped fresh spinach with Feta cheese
dressed in rice vinegar and spices.
Nice salad side dish.

I get a certain comfort from the work itself and from having these items on hand in the fridge.

Then, while messing around on the internet, I completely erased all my tabs in error and Sunday morphed into
Monday
Unable to sleep I finished this Post.
<<>>

ESCAPE?

STEAMY HOT

NEW YORK CITY

AFTER

A 24 hour full-blown Anxiety Attack

(at least I'm conscious enough to recognize it)

I'm packed and ready to Travel.

*

I Pray for Sleep

*

Hope I hear the Alarm

*

If I post this, I'm Gone for a week

Without Internet

*
However, though I'm posting,
I 'm not Gone.
Anxiety dissipated and was replaced by aching limbs
So,  I rescheduled for July.

I'm inside with the A/C on 77 Energy Saver to cut humidity, much more comfortable after a five hour nap, while outside the storms continue to arrive with severe flood warning for the rest of the night and into tomorrow and Thursday.

  ~*~

AIR CONDITIONED and COMFORTABLE

First

My unnecessary anxiety over clearing a path from the poorly angled entrance door, through a very cluttered hall, and several rooms to the front window where it was going to replace the dead one.

It doesn't show but the 3 shelf item on the right was loaded with all sorts of stuff and my Stone Buddha on the top flanked by two vases of dusty old dry floral and leaf arrangements...the hallway out of the frame also had a lineup of shoes, a rolling cart and spare beach chair, plus another small table with more floral arrangements and lots of catch pots with a collection of 'don't-know-whats'. An hour or so of careful sorting, some tossing and finally clear save for the basket which moved into the bathroom and the rest of the rooms got done as well in just another few hours, including the escape break from my last post.

 

Right on time Friday afternoon and totally efficient, two wonderful fellows from Warshaw Hardware, one of the very few REAL hardware stores in Manhattan and friends for over forty years, arrived, removed the old machine, installed and tested the new one and it's just great!

Thank you Matt and Andre.
And Thanks to my friend and neighbor Ron Sherbet, who did me the favor of calling me to be sure I was awake and came over to spend time with me during the installation.

Warshaw Hardware
https://www.facebook.com/warshawhardware/

My Previous post
http://mscomfortzone.blogspot.com/2018/06/nightime-escape.html

JUST TUESSDAY

Distracting Myself from Anxiety

Purple Stock Dye-distilled in Vinegar.
Several cloth pieces mulling within.

Cut Cloth Notes.
Mail sewing circle friends

Rx Pre-op Eye-Drop Routine

4X-3X-2X

Pennies to Keep Track

Move one to the front after each dose.

Made Cards To Donors.

I'll mail on the way to surgery Thursday.
"Wow-I can SEE THANKS to thee!" 

Neighborhood Offerings
Just up the street

Gramarcy Park

Vendors at Union Square

This eye painting wirh a dove and tree of life by
www.aliciagarviadeleon.com
caught my eye, of course.

Tibet House

Meditation practice with Dr. Miles Neale
"Instinct-Instinct has to know there is no atomic separate structure."

 
Okay.
Now Wednesday

AVERAGE ANXIETY

Here in a very quiet apartment at three in the morning three flights up.  I'm anxious, exhausted, the clock is ticking, a tap dripping.  Now and then the swoosh of traffic far away, and a low hum of electricity, while something on 'mute' plays across the room so when I look up, there are people here with me.

Synapses crackling, this old brain is shooting off too much concern about the stove installation, the super, the workers who will arrive at some unspecified.

Fear

Yes, it's the same super who went off on me about letting him take my A/C out.  They want him to clean out dove nests...there are no 'nests' but there is a peeper on a ledge somewhere near.  For a week now.  It takes 36 days from hatch to  flight.  Don't even know if they (building managers) plan to install spikes, but worried about the peeper, and about my A/C, once professionally installed, and I don't trust these guys to handle it well, though probably I should.  I have to stall for time  The stove exchange is enough for this month, and will involve taking my apartment door off.  I don't trust that my Medico lock will be set back right.  I feel invaded.  If I could hire my own workers, if I owned anything, would I feel better?  No.  Perhaps not.  I don't feel okay about my self.  That's the bottom line.  I'm feeling like I'm being treated; like a liability, a burden, and that I have no inalienable right to be here.  I feel out of place in the world.  I am out of place.  I'm the past with not much future.  Anxious thoughts run wild.  The new fad in education is teaching kids grit.  I could use some of that.  Jury duty freaks me too, having to be somewhere on time freaks me, mornings freak me.  I don't want to go downtown at all ever since 9/11.  Court reminds me of landlord tenant past traumas, fighting for my home, and the assault of Mr. Daniel Cuervo, attack front-man posing as a new tenant back then, and The Vendome clan moving in and taking over, first our community garden, next apartments one at a time.  It was a hell each entanglement reminds me of.  I do my best to stay untangled, but sometimes I just plain need their help.

Wait.

By serendipity and the grace of unknown and known entities I am still here  So, why not just be grateful?  The world is a fearful place without friends.  The world is a fearsome place in any case.  All things are potentially dangerous.  Experience has shown me this.  I have to detach, or as Michael B. said, "Elvis is an idiot, and will barrel in here and make a mess and you'll have a new stove.  Everything depends on how you take it. Let it roll off your back."

Okay.

 Make me wise before I wake.

IT WAS JUST A MONDAY

Advertisement on a bus shelter:

exhorting us to repair our checking accounts

by winning the lottery!

Today's post at an Economics blog:

"Apologies to everyone. My life is in shambles. Today was really hard. I'll be back as soon as I can, but for now I need to heal."

I feel for you, really I do:

I bounced two checks because I miscalculated.  Thought  I had a hundred plus more than I actually did.  I was traveling, then ill this past month, and distracted.  It just caught up with me today, and I slid into a full blown panic.  Fortunately I had to get to my writing group downtown to sign the release form for my stories...had to drop it and go.  All the writing I did reflected anxiety.  In one piece I did manage a fairly picturesque 'ice-skate away into a good looking sunset' scene right at the end, and in so doing created the fictional version that lowered the level of my misery a notch.  Then I saw the advertisement pictured on top, and almost laughed.  The lights were still working when I got home.  Good.  Monday is almost done.  Good.  Tomorrow will likely arrive, and after a nights sleep, I'll negotiate with the bank, and Con Edison.  Then, I'll put my paperwork in order, and hunker down for the rest of the month.

 I'm grateful for todays wake up call.

I hear there's another storm coming...maybe.

I'm grateful I have a warm shelter.

My cataract seems to be worse.

I'm grateful I can see.

My answer machine died, so no messages.

I'm grateful I still have a phone that works.

"Gratitude is the open door to abundance."