JUST THE FACTS

SUNDAY FACTS

From my neighborhood, within which there are many owned but hardly ever actually occupied condominiums, like this one where cleaners have been preparing for the owner or renter to return from Winter wandering leaving the proof as garbage at the curb.
 April 15th!

A friend on Face book said "When i lived in nyc trash was my friend, i was amazed at what people left on the side walk .if i could get it on the subway it was mine." I replied "Yes, in the days before so many tourists and constant rental short term folks, the days before bedbugs carried from suitcases of the wide worlds transient population, we furnished our apartments with rich folks cast away stuff and even got wonderful clothing items but no more. I've been in this apartment since 1969 but nothing, or near to nothing is even vaguely recognizable. Every day a new excavation, family business collapse and monster gigantic buildings of glass and steel rising 13 to fifty stories rise to the sky, blocking sun and wind. I'm only here out of economic necessity now, still protected by some elder tenant laws from being homeless like the oh so many others marginals."

MONDAY FACTS

'The Moving Pen' writing Group
6-8PM
Prompts

1. About a Favorite possession bequeathed

2. About a balloon

TUESDAY FACTS
I have a completely independent old LAND LINE but no telephone line this morning! Found out when I tried to phone the Super at 10:00 AM for him to come for a scheduled plumbing repair assessment. I keep an extra phone to plug directly into the Jack for checking if the problem is my Answer machine. Nope. I have no cell phone so knocked at the next door apartment and the cleaning lady let me use her cell to phone VERIZON who said there is no neighborhood problem listed. That means it's outside the apartment, either on the property or elsewhere in their system. They wanted to give me a Friday repair appointment until they realized I have disability status so they called around to their Manhattan repair guys but could only obtain an appointment tomorrow morning between 8AM and noon. There is nowhere they can phone me though because the cleaning lady will be gone. MODERN LIFE IN MANHATTAN on PLANET EARTH IS NOT NECESSARILY very MODERN or RELIABLE. The Spectrum/Time Warner cable hook up is working (at an enormous cost of $75.88 a month, which started at 29.99 for internet access alone and crept up with no additional services)--SO, I am not entirely without access to the wide wide world. But, I do no cash transactions on the web and continue to pay my bills by check walked to the local post office monthly. I am a kind of human dinosaur on the verge of extinction. Still smiling as I warm some soup for lunch :--> Smile is gone--2PM phoned again because the Super told me Verizon is in the buildings working on three other apartments without their phones...so they are now telling me they can't be here in the morning and the new appointment is 1 to 5PM! Had I not had one more use of the cleaning persons cell phone I wouldn't have known.
AURGH@!!@@@!@#!!!


WEDNESDAY FACTS
Telephone service restored
Super repaired shower
I was grateful twice

  Zendo in the evening; sitting, walking, chanting and snacks after.
I had a talk with Chododo Sensei and described my distress over lack of compassion for certain persons whose repetitive attitudinal scenarios rouse my anger. He smiled warmly and while making a circular gesture over his heart, said:
"Just try to make a little space for them." 

THURSDAY FACTS
Visited the Stein Senior Center
Got my membership renewed and made an appointment to discuss some housing issues with the Social Worker.
Bonus

 Noticed a pair of Sketchers at the Thrift Shop
Got them cheap

FRIDAY FACTS
Very nourishing visit with Barbara (recovering from knee surgery and her sister Maggi come to aid in her healing
Tea, snacks, talk and laughter

~*~
Walked home on Broadway
Grace Church

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Church_(Manhattan)

SEVENTY FOURTH YEAR

The rescued file cabinet has fallen apart.

Drawers and boxes are now neatly stacked nearby.

 Synapses connecting to details from bloody birth through tragic early losses, stumbling adolescence, talented teen triumphs coupled with emotional ignorance, and on into the prolonged search for self and decades long struggle to survive have fired up, delivering vivid scenes from a stereoscopic recording lodged in the gentle folds of memory.  In dreams and waking moments they appear as flashes of light behind old eyes unclouded thanks to their new 'miracle' lenses.

Compassionate understanding courses through my veins.

Gratitude regulates my heartbeat.

~*~

SEPTET OF DAYS

SUNDAY
Little Teddy Sending Bear Hugs-thinking Kind Thoughts.
There's comfort in compassion when big tragedies arrive.

~*~

TUESDAY
Tripped off to the High line for Stargazing
The night was cool and bright. Thanks to the NY Astronomers club volunteers sharing their telescopes, I saw Saturn as a tiny white oval with a single ring.

Wandered among stargazers lounging on beach chairs along paths where summer plants are coming into bloom:

Echinacea

 Forgot the name

 Astilbe

Life size sculpture called "Sleepwalker".  Various people posed with him for selfies.  To me it looked like violation, and I had an interesting conversation with two older men also waiting in line.  They agreed, and we talked a bit about how nakedness make us uncomfortable, nervous.  We three identified with the vulnerability.
Read what the sculptor says:
(link at the end)

A cool-Jazz trio serenaded at one end, and a disco DJ at the other where a film was in process with mostly men dancing.  Emerging near Christopher street I headed back North along 10th Avenue where many stores are closed or closing. 

Then a brief sweet encounter with a beautiful drag queen on her way to an event, her costume of cleverly draped stiff cellophane was worn over shorts and top, and she was quite happy to pose.  I didn't ask her name and she didn't offer it.
(Anonymous)

~*~

WEDNESDAY

After a Zazen at the Zendo,
I headed West on 23rd Street.

Walking leisurely until the sun set, then

caught the bus back East to home.

~*~

THURSDAY
Mask at the Opera Thrift

The hand of a metal plated Buddha on display

 

A homeless man napping on 21st Street

~*~

FRIDAY
Unwell, but bumbled through the day doing chores, getting my notice to the post office to hold mail while I'm away for a week in Massachusetts
(Clover and Ialanthus in neglected street tub)

Cooked and froze all foods that might spoil.
(Potato, cumin and coriander in broth)

 Did some hand laundry and pre-soaked sheets and towels. 
Now ready for a trip to the laundromat.

On the advice of a trusted wise-friend, I tuned in to this Omega session with a favorite teacher, Pema Chodron and found it most helpful.

https://youtu.be/YwTSWG64rZE
~*~

SATURDAY
7
The number of notes in the traditional Western diatonic scale (major or minor), there are seven musicians in a septet or a septuor, and today is the seventh day.
(Read about the many meanings ascribed to it)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_%28number%29
 ~*~

LINKS
"Sleepwalker"
 https://news.artnet.com/art-world/controversial-sleepwalker-sculpture-high-line-403190

LEAPING INTO MARCH

 Screen shot from "Medieval Manuscripts" blog post

"The ancient Egyptians had a whole leap-month, called the intercalary or epagonal month, which consisted of either five or six days that were added to the end of the year. It still survives in the liturgical calendar of Coptic Christians."

(see link at bottom)

February was Confining

Yes there were some good times for sure, but I won't mourn its passing.  I counted change to squeeze by,

Was thrifty, but

It delivered me one last blow!

Finding out on the 29th that a check bounced on the 11th produced a knot in my gut.  The sad irony is it was my second $15 contribution to Bernie Sander!
(sigh)

And there was illness, loss of friends and a beloved teacher.

March may have come in like a lion too soon.

Still I know there are sublime worlds, and more questions than answers, so I'll  simply pay sharper attention, sail on, and

hone my blunted compassion bone.

 Rephotographed still from "Hidden Seminoles"
~*~

LINKS

Medieval Manuscripts

Hidden Seminoles