Lesson 4: When life throws you some snowballs...

A half hour before I left work, a coworker emailed all of us in the Agency saying that Jenny, another teammate and good friend of mine who had left a few minutes earlier, wanted to warn us of an extremely slippery parking lot. The flurry of snowflakes I had seen caressing the windows of the West staircase at lunchtime had apparently amounted to more, or it had melted and then frozen as the otherwise clear day was blanketed by dusk.

The walkway lights outside glimmered in the sidewalk reflection. I put my weight into each step, remembering the lesson learned in my first tai chi class two weeks ago. Put your foot in front of you, and gently, slowly pour your weight from one leg to the other, like tea into a cup. No problem.

As I moved farther out, I realized that roadway in the first parking lot had been sanded. One of the dump trucks must have come by earlier spreading gravel from its tail-end sander. I then walked on the paths of dirt, laughing to myself. I don't know why Jenny left when she did, but clearly, if she had waited another 20 or 30 minutes, there would have been no need to heed us warning. I imagined myself texting her with mock ridicule, followed by a colon and lowercase p.

Before I could do so, my foot slid sideways. I was past the first parking lot, heading into the second. The muscles in the left of my back tightened in a sharp clench upward from my lower ribcage. I gained solid footing and took a breath. OK.

I noticed that this section of the lot had not been sanded. I walk slowly, more carefully this time. I was aware, then, that sometimes I walk briskly. But now, I was chugging along, taking another step, pouring another cup of tea. I looked across the crisp, dark, clear air at other people readying to leave.

I remote-started the car, wiped away the fluffy snow off the rear window, and scraped away a thin layer of ice on the windshield. A dump truck crawled by, its sander spewing gravel on the ground. As I got in the car and put the scraper in the back seat, I felt my phone vibrate in my coat pocket. I put on the windshield wipers to clear away the remnants of ice, pulled out the phone and saw a mobile message from my sister. We had talked the other day, on her birthday, about her yearning to sketch drawings like she used to do years ago. I had taken it upon myself to assign her to sketch a nose, one of the more difficult body parts for her to sketch. So I was delighted to get a snapshot of a sketch of a couple of noses. "Who KNOWS what you might come up with," I had joked to her the other day with encouragement. HAR HAR!

I then realized, in the dark of night, that it had become darker than it was a few minutes ago. I looked up and saw an obstructed view before me. I turned on the headlights. With the hedge now illuminated, I saw thick clumps of snow piling up on the windshield. I glanced out the driver's side window. I saw no ground, but snow, already a thick layer, and with the help of another car's headlights, I saw a great gust of wind bring down a billow of more snow.

"Holy shit," I said aloud. "It's a fucking blizzard!"

I had been in the car barely three or four minutes, I figured, looking at two noses, one a fairly normal yet somewhat gnarly nose, and the other a crooked one not unlike one belonging to a good friend of mine. Who KNOWS? Who knew a squall would burst through? Certainly not I, who doesn't check the weather online or have watched the local TV news — or TV at all — in the last two years.

As I backed out of my parking space, my mind darted back to two New Year's Eves ago, when my last car was totaled in an accident during a snowstorm. I hoped for the best, and crept along, arriving home just under an hour later. Safe and sound.

Some days nothing interesting happens, and some days the universe throws a snowball at you. Maybe it's just to keep things interesting, to knock the monotony off course, off-balance.

I heard later that my girlfriend had caught the last few seconds of the sunset today, harkening an orange glow over a beautiful blanket of snow, undisturbed, along the trees. I missed that scene by about an hour, but I caught a glimpse of something just as special. So, I cursed my way through it, caught by surprise. But the swears were followed by giddy amazement, a wide-eyed wonder at how impermanent life can be. One moment you're just walking along. Then you're suddenly pre-occupied by exquisitely drawn noses. Next, a freakin' snowstorm rolls through and it makes you think, "I totally did not see that coming."

Mind your head. The next curveball is coming your way.

More tango, and random minor updates

In my attempt to keep this updated at least once a week, here's this week's entry. Not much, but I've thought of another relatively deep topic but will need some time to process my thoughts on it.

Meanwhile, I've had an energy-rising weekend: Among other activities, I walked for about seven miles at Fresh Pond on Saturday just after lunchtime, and then went to Providence Tango's penultimate LongaMilonga (an all-nighter dance) and danced almost nonstop for six hours, from 10pm to 4am! Luckily I had a cool carpool going with some good conversation and laughs, which helped me stay awake for the drive. I got home just before sunrise and woke up just in time to get ready for the three-hour tango practica in Cambridge.

Can't wait for tango/camping this weekend!

Oh, and perhaps the sudden increase in Argentine tango in my social life lately has helped me to lose more weight. Just today a woman at the practica said that every time she sees me, she thinks I've lost more weight. Tonight I stepped on the scales (before dinner) and was surprised to see it pointing to 180 pounds. That's a far cry from the 210 pounds in 2000, and undoubtedly much more in 2002, a year after college graduation (I didn't really pay attention to my weight since then, until now). Woohoo.

For the most part, I'm generally happy lately. It's a nice change of pace.

... thunder. ... Can't you tell? ;-)

The other side.

I'll be on the other side in about a half hour

Secret passage to Fresh Pond

Meditation and mindfulness

Today I am recapping my busy month.

In many ways meditation should be first on that list. This has been one of the most important things I have done in a long time. It has been occupying most of my free time, when it's not spent dancing Argentine tango, surfing the Web, or taking walks. So because this section deserves more attention, and rightly so has turned from a brief synopsis on the list to a lengthy description of where I am at, it has become its own blog post.

So. You know how sometimes you're just sitting there not doing much, and you have a hundred things going through your head? Or if you're in a situation, and your mind overreacts? Or your mind just starts coming up with stuff that you know is irrational but you just can't help it? Some people call that mind chatter. (Somehow I keep remembering it as "mind clutter", which might clue you in on my interpretation of it.)

I have been meditating a lot lately. My mind clutter over the last few months was just getting more out of control, I guess you could say. Or I was becoming more aware of it, and I didn't really know how to deal with it.

And somehow the universe guided me to find all of these options:

Taking time at work
I found out about a meditation group at Staples, where I work as a contract web developer. They meet at lunchtime Mondays to Thursdays. It's a small group, and sometimes it's just me and another person, sitting in a dark room for a half hour and listening to strange (yet perfect) music. It definitely helps break up the day and relieves stress.

Awareness practice group
I started an Intro to Awareness "meditation practice group" at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center. It's a six-week course on Mondays, and we're halfway done. There are about 15 or so in the class, and we're in this spacious and goregeous room on the top floor. The instructor (see picture; he has longer hair now) is great and has a soothing voice, which helps guides us during the 30 or 40 minutes of meditation.

The first half of the class is about learning to be present in the moment, and to focus on your breathing, and to find a way to take time in our busy lives to just BE, and not think about anything else. (The second half of the class is about paying attention to what sensations or distractions become more prominent, and to focus on that as an object of meditation. More on that starting this coming Monday.)

Being present in the moment is HARD to do, and I nevertheless recommend this class to anyone remotely interested in meditation. The Center has free drop-in sessions on Tuedsays and other courses for newbies like me.

Sangha
I have been going to sangha (community) nights at the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order center in Somerville. I first heard about this place last August, but didn't check it out until late June. I am not interested in the worship of Buddha; however, I am interested in the meditation time that the sangha night offers, as well as the discussions of Buddhist dharma (teachings). Sangha nights are times when this small group talk about life and becoming a better person, and what it means to be a better person.

Walking meditations
I'm continuing to take walks to Fresh Pond. I even found a little scenic route that includes two stone walls, where I sat atop one day and meditated while soaking up the rays of the sunset. At my second CIMC class, we learned about walking meditations, and I tried to do that twice so far at Fresh Pond.

First I thought I had to walk more slowly, so the first time I tried it, the loop around Fresh Pond took much longer. Then last night I tried it again, after realizing I didn't necessarily need to walk slow. I just needed to be mindful of the sensations, of the feet against the ground, of the breeze, of the feel of the walk itself, the feel of my body moving forward with purpose through the air. I must say, it feels different. I feel bigger, taller.

(The modesty in me wants to correct that to say, I don't feel as small as I used to feel. Because I am a tall person, that might seem strange for you to hear. That might be a future blog post in itself, perhaps having much to do with being one of the youngest and shortest kids in my high school class.)

Being more grounded
I've learned that you can take five minutes out of your day and just sit and focus on the sensations of your body, and nothing else, and that will help you feel more grounded.

That, perhaps, is the greatest benefit I have had with starting to learn meditation. I feel more grounded. In fact, in one of my late-night journal entries, I wrote that sometimes the foundation I stand on feels like a rocky pile, and I'm not standing tall and proud upon it, but squatting down, trying to balance myself on anything that won't crumble. Lately, I have found a more solid foundation to stand upon, and I don't have that feeling of squatting and trying to find balance. Maybe that's why I feel bigger, stronger, taller, leaner. I have found myself, and I have found myself to be worthy of being found.

Busy month

I wish I could say I was on an actual vacation for most of this month. I haven't actually written a real post here for most of July, as I've been unusually busy. Not really with busy work here and there, but I feel I'm occupying my time, for the most part, more wisely. There is a better sense of purpose. So here, I will try to do a brief (haha) synopsis of my month, picking up where I last left off.

My weekend getaway.
On July 4, I saw my friend and his wife, and caught up on life over the past year. I have grown so much in the time since we had last met, at their wedding, and it was good to hang out. Then it was off to an undisclosed location, which, by a number of readers of my blog had figured out from my photos, was in Rockland, Maine. I had hoped for a beach to lay out and just vegetate, but I ended up getting a ripe red farmer's tan (burn) just walking from my motel to the Rockland Breakwater, and beach time lasted only nearly two hours, tops. I got a free four-day three-night stay at the motel for resisting buying one of their timeshares after taking a tour of one of their condos. I decided to drive back to Massachusetts via Route 1, but after four hours and STILL in Maine, I hopped onto I-95, which ended up having worse holiday traffic. Six hours later, I landed in my neck of the woods and went straight to the last hour of the Cambridge tango practica, before heading home. All in all, it was a good trip, but I realized I could really do with a two-week vacation, which I haven't done since my trip to the U.K. over eight years ago during spring break of 2000.

Staples | Corporate Express acquisition (I mean, integration) website
Just before going to Maine I started work on the integration website of Staples and Corporate Express. And when I came back, I was working full-throttle on getting it done. One week I actually got an hour of overtime. It took me and a number of people on my team (I'm currently a contract web developer at Staples headquarters, for those who don't know) the better part of three or so weeks to get done what normally would have been months of work, according to one higher-up who applauded our efforts once we were done. I did most of the HTML, CSS, javascript and a dash of ASP (someone else did the Flash and design). I had some help on the javascript part from one former contractor who has gone full time. The Staples Corporate Express site is now live, but you need to have login access.

Then it is on to a new, big project, which I am knee deep in now. And once that's done, my duties will completely change. Sounds like good job security for now.

Life is a one-man play on a stage
One evening earlier this month, a friend of mine from New Hampshire and I went to the New Rep Theatre in Watertown to see "According to Tip", a one-man play performed by Broadway and TV star Ken Howard. I don't know anything about Broadway, or Tip O'Neill, but my friend is a political junkie. And because the New Reperatory Theatre is in my neighborhood, and because I am interested in the arts (even though I haven't done much with it), I thought what the hell. Ken Howard was great. Because he sang a handful of Irish drinking songs, does it count as a musical?

Howard has been around for a long time, and apparently he is sometimes in the U.S. version of "The Office," and he was in the (fantastic) movie "Michael Clayton," which starred George Clooney. I'm the type of person who can't do movie quotes to save my life, and therefore I cannot remember who Howard was in the movie. I'd have to watch it again.

Life is a one-man play on a stage, Part 2
The same night as "According to Tip" there was an Argentine tango milonga in Brookline. The play was done at 10:30pm-ish, and the milonga still had at least two hours left, so I decided to go. That was the most interesting two hours at a milonga I've had in a long time, if not ever. And that's putting it lightly. I saw my ex arrive there with a guy friend of hers, and I (apparently?) jumped to conclusions and had to step outside for a while to clear my head (see more about meditation, below). I stepped back inside and ended up having incredible dances with some of my favorite dancers, and with those I haven't danced with before (they were added to my list of favorites).

There are the types of good dancers who are so pre-occupied with doing a particular move RIGHT, as in pointing the foot at the correct angle to floor and juxtaposed to the leg blah blah blah, and there are the types of good dancers who move with feeling -- it may not be 100% correct but it FEELS goooood. I lean toward the latter, and I love dancing with those types of dancers too. For a while, I lost sight of that, and I'm comfortable with where I am. (I do know that if you combine both of those types of good dancers, the precise with the feeling, then your eyes roll back into your head with bliss. Been there, done that. That happens when the stars are aligned just perfectly.)

Hosting practica
In other tango news, I had been asked to be host to the Sunday practica in Cambridge. I was host on July 13, and will be host this Sunday. Basically, all this means is that I'm responsible for bringing water for everyone, ensuring that the vibe of practica remains friendly, be welcoming and dancing with new faces on the scene. I have no control over how freaking hot and muggy it gets in there, even when all three air conditioners and industrial fans are on at full blast. Thankfully, I don't need to mop up the drops of sweat on the floor. But I am responsible for having enough money to cover the rent.

Creative writing update
I haven't done much writing this month, other than writing prolific late-night (into early morning) entries in my journal after a long day (see "Life is a one-man play," parts 1 and 2, above, for example). Other than that, I have submitted a very small slice-of-life story as an entry to Grub Street's new literary magazine, the Rag Mag, which will debut Sept. 1. The story is labeled as fiction, although it's definitely based on a true story. In fact, I wrote it during a Grub Street writing class in early June, and it became one of my early blog entries, The revenge of the mysterious green plate monster. I hope it will be published in the Mag in one way or another. So far, I know that two people in my life have read it and that they loved it. I hope the rest of you do, too.

Crowning achievement
I finally got my second crown put in. This time porcelain instead of gold. I waited awhile to get it done, and therefore there were slight complications. I was under nitrous oxide (laughing gas) for about three long hours, and coming out of that consious yet coma-like state was rough. I had to sit down and drink some water to let my convulsing body iron out the shakes. Really weird.

Think twice about asking me to fix your computer
I messed up my computer bad. It actually happened the end of last month, and I let my computer whiz-kid friend up in Maine make a diagnosis. Yup, I lost all my files. Had I actually looked for my Windows XP setup CD, instead of using the PC Recovery Disc, I would have been A-OK. But the PC Recovery Disc reverted my computer as if I had just bought it this morning, taking me through the tour of Windows. Bizarrely, all my programs were fine, even Firefox 3, which I had downloaded a week before my computer wouldn't load. All the files that were stored in the My Documents folder? GONE. All the free videos I got from Amazon Unbox that were stored in a separate shared folder, videos I downloaded but don't have time to watch, and probably never will, were SAVED. Family and friends' photos? Gone. Budget spreadsheet I painstakingly built over the last year? Gone. Website source files for my previous clients? Gone. It's high time I invest in an external hard drive to back all my shit up. Now I'm re-building my budget with Google Docs (read: online).

Meditation and mindfulness
In many ways this should be first on this list. This has been one of the most important things I have done in a long while. It has been occupying most of my free time, when it's not spent dancing Argentine tango, surfing the Web, or taking walks. So because this section deserves more attention, and rightly so has turned from a brief synopsis on the list to a lengthy description of where I am at, "meditation and mindfulness" has become its own blog post.

One more week
There's still one more week to go for July. What more could possibly be in store for me?

Sunset meditation

In the time it took me to type "Sunset meditation" and send this off to this blog straight from my phone, the sun had set.

Little black spot on the sun today

Hmm. Tip your head to the right. (Duh.)

View from lighthouse

Lighthouse. No more hints! :-)

Lighthouse. No more hints! :-)

Need a hint?

Can you guess where I am?

On my way to getting away

The previous blog posts are proof that my phone has a shitty built-in camera. Where there were Canadian geese swimming and flapping their wings in the Charles River, all you saw was a murky midnight-bluish-gray. Those were taken just a few steps south of Watertown Square, on the bridge near the Galen and Watertown streets intersection.

I had surrendered my car to Sullivan Tire to fix a blown blower motor around 8:30am, sat on a park bench and wrote for a couple of hours, went to Napoli Pizza for a small one (the guy repeated my order, "Hamburg, and broccoli?" but in a tone that said, "Seriously?"), and then decided to take a walk. I could only eat half the pizza, so I carted around the take-out pizza box, my journal, my eyeglass case and water bottle around in my hands. As I crossed the bridge, I snapped those photos. (Actually the first photo is OF the bridge, taken from the vantage point near where I wrote on the park bench, on the deck where old men cast fishing lines and families feed the geese, even when the signs say to keep them wild.)

My goal was to check out a new set of walking/bike paths in that area. If you hang a right after the bridge, the trail is right there. Turns out that corner is the start (or end) of a particular section of the Charles River Reservation, where there lives many small wildlife in addition to the geese. These include a type of sparrow, dragonflies, and a variety of fish, among others. Nothing that seemed out of the ordinary, in my view. However, it was really nice and somewhat calming to watch a family of geese float by and admire their legs paddling themselves around.

The particular portion of the reservation extended from Watertown Square through Newton, up into Waltham and back down to Newton. I'm not entirely sure how far I went. The trail meandered fairly close to old buildings and was at several points practically in the back yards of many homes. It's a fairly windy day today, which was great in the shade while writing in the park, but it also allowed many twigs and branches to fall on the trail, so it wasn't as clean as, say, the trails along Fresh Pond in Cambridge. Soon I came across an outdoor barbecue consisting mostly of young Asians who had set up white tables on the grounds. Then the trail stopped at an actual road, but blue and yellow heron tracks painted on the sidewalk showed me the way across the street to where the trail continued. Shortly thereafter, Sullivan Tire called to say my car would be ready in an hour, so after continuing for a little bit more, I back-tracked my way to the starting line, and I had my car by 2pm. (As a side note, walking in Birkenstocks today has been a much more pleasant experience than I had on the first day.)

This has pretty much been my first day of "getting away from it all" on this long holiday weekend. I have so much on my mind lately, and just when I've started to sort things out, more gets added to the plate. I know that I could travel all over the world, but I won't "find myself", as it were, until I look inside. Nevertheless, I am traveling to Maine, with a tentative plan to find a beach to just relax and reflect, maybe do some meditating and more writing. Along the way, I'm going to see a friend who has offered to try to fix my home computer. That's really an excuse, as if I needed one, to chill out with an old friend for the first time in almost a year. Then it's onward to the crash of the waves and the hot sandy beach.

Geese on a dam at the Charles River Reservation

Geese on dam

Can you spot the geese? Me neither. Damn camera phone.

More geese

Canada geese on the Charles River in Watertown

Geese

Bridge near Watertown Square

Breaking in the Birkenstocks

My Birkenstocks arrived on Thursday. I had ordered Milano sandals online, and yesterday afternoon I decided to break them in. I decided to walk down to Watertown Square and back. These were my first pair of Birkenstocks ever. I had tried on a pair at a store recently, with those weird little nylon footie things that the shoe store requires you to wear when trying on shoes with no socks on. Doing a brief jaunt around the stack of shoes didn't prepare me for the pain I would soon suffer late last night.

The trek to Watertown Square was OK. It took me a while to get used to the fit: It's basically a flat sole with a cork top. I doubt that anyone with flat feet would be able to wear something like this, as the cork curves up where the arch of your feet are, which is an unpleasant feeling: Not until now has the arch of my foot needed to press against anything. The website where I bought it says it has a shock-absorbing EVA sole. I'm not sure what EVA stands for (as I was sold on the shock-absorbing part), but it probably means the sole is an Extra Vigilant Annoyance. Every time I took a step it felt like I was bouncing, with the reverberations going up my legs.

I walked down to the New York Diner, where I've had many late-night breakfasts, and tightened up the straps. The walk back home was better, I thought, because in that direction the ground has a slight incline. So, while walking downhill to the square I felt as if my toes were not touching the cork surface at all, going on an incline had the opposite effect. I could feel my toes push into the cork with each step, and that made it more satisfying. The bouncing and reverberations were gone. I had heard that the cork eventually molds itself to the feet it's supporting, so all the griping aside, I had high hopes for my new sandals.

I found that walk to be a good exercise, so I treated myself to a fudge popsicle when I got home.

Later that night, around 11:30pm, I had to get out of the house to clear my head. I actually have been doing a lot of walking lately. Not every day, not marathon distances, but healthy doses nonetheless. And it's a lot for me, as I'm not the athletic type. Sometimes I clear my head, sometimes not. Last night's was a wash.

In the past, I walked to Watertown Square a bunch of times. A week after I broke up (on my birthday) with an ex last October, I walked six miles, basically walking to the Cambridge border then hugging the Watertown/Belmont line until hooking around the Square and returning home. When I saw my family earlier this month, I decided to step away and take a walk. An hour-and-a-half into it, after finally turning around, a worried sister called, wondering where I was and if I was all right. I was fine; when I got back three hours after I left, I learned I had done eight miles. Last month I found out about bike paths around Fresh Pond in Cambridge. Early morning on Memorial Day, I walked there and did three loops around the pond, and then back home. That trek, with an hour resting with a book, took four hours and eight miles total. Fresh Pond seems to have become my favorite place, as I've gone there to walk more than a handful of times since.

I admit that in all of those walks I had to clear my head from "residual relationship thoughts" (or RRT). And last night was no different. I decided not to go to Fresh Pond yet another time, but to take a different route. I decided to walk to Harvard Square.

It was late, and there were hardly any life signs at all in Watertown. I passed by a rabbit, probably a wild one, on the intersection of Fresh Pond Parkway and Mt. Auburn Street. Finally, 45 minutes after I started, I arrived at Harvard Square, which was teeming with life: dressed-up preppie college kids, one or two homeless people and a few drunks. Here I was with my water bottle, shorts, a slightly sweaty undershirt and my brand new Birkenstocks. At least I wasn't wearing my Sketchers and white quarter crews like I had done before. I was surprised to find that many restaurants were open; it goes to show that I haven't really gone out much for other than tango in the near-year that I've lived around here.

I continued up Mt. Auburn and made my way to Arrow Street, via Bow Street. At Zero Arrow Theatre, where Arrow Street intersects with Mass. Ave., and where last year's Boston Tango Festival was held, I circled around the Square and then took a shortcut back home via Brattle Street. (Looking at a map now, I realize that is actually quite a longer way to get back home.)

At that point my Birkenstocks were killing me. The support under my arches were pressing into my feet. The straps dug into my skin. Pepples and sand left on the sidewalks from last winter had flown into the crevices, poking into the ball of my foot. I finally stopped to take off one sandal to brush away the debris, noticed a tiny new blister, and I moved on.

I saw another rabbit on the intersection with Sparks Street, and wondered if it was the same one as before. I crossed the Craigie Street turn and stopped to look at it. The brown bunny had stopped, too, and it appeared to be evaluating me, too. Then it turned, waited for traffic to pass by, and dotted across Brattle into a wooded area on the other side. Life goes on.

I couldn't help but realize, even as I was walking at 1am this morning, that it had become a symbolic journey. Although it was an ex who suggested getting Birkenstocks (it will help with posture, etc.), it didn't matter, as I was enjoying the fact I was wearing sandals again. For whatever reason, I hadn't worn sandals since I was a kid. And despite that, apparently, wearing Birkenstocks will be painful for a while as I get used to the new feelings, I just need to plod through and get used to it. As much as the feet felt the brunt of the new sensations, most of the pain was in my head anyway. I can move past that. A new day is coming.

As I was writing the end of this, Paolo Nutini started playing in my mind.

Hey, I put some new shoes on,
And suddenly everything is right,
...
And I made my way to the kitchen,
But I had to stop from the shock of what I found,
A room full of all of my friends dancing round and round,
And I thought hello new shoes,
Bye bye them blues.

Life will be fine, eventually. Just gotta walk it off, so to speak. Stone to stone, I'll take it on.