Two Deaths +

Yesterday I went to the funeral of a 15 month old baby girl. Evelyn was the child of a former student of mine, Jim, a great, big, ungainly, sweet and gentle man who has a severe speech impediment among other problems. A couple of years ago he met and married a very lovely woman and a year later they had a baby. He certainly never thought that anything this wonderful could happen to him. Last week his baby daughter died in a trageic accident.

Today I helped a friend clean the house of a long time friend of ours who died last month of lung cancer.

Today is the 94th anniversary of the Armenian genocide.

We must remember that in the midst of tragedy, pain, ugliness there is Beethoven, Wyeth, Robert Browning's love poetry.

New Chapter

I woke up with a pounding headache and vowing not to spend this cold, dark April day ruminating. A cup of coffee helped subdue the pain in my head, and instead of doing 20 minutes of meditation practice, I went back to bed with a book and the dog.

Lying in bed I risk a peek inside my head and I am met with a crazed swirl of images, colours, forms, names of people, snippets of thought, plans, wishes, dialogue. In an effort to impose some order on this I decide to put it all into categories, and I immediately fall asleep!

With a nod to Goenka and my vipassana friends who tell me that concentrating on my breathing will cure my monkey mind maddness, I wake up and attempt to 'meditate'. It just doesn't happen, and furthermore I don't really care. I am satisfied that I can breath and feel no need to watch it. So that's it, I get up and head into my day doing things I like to do.

Sayonara

June 4, 2009

Reflections

“Worse than being blind is to see and have no vision.”
-Helen Keller

“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of
the past.”
-Thomas Jefferson

Air Fare

I am so pissed off it has driven me to tears. I can fly to Paris, round trip, for $400.00 and it costs $1300 to fly to Dominica. F*&# this. I might just go to Paris. I have to get out of here.

Is There a Future?

I need to get back to Dominica. I am dying here. Only money is stopping me. I am looking at getting a job, but so far anything that has come my way is not worth it in terms of income tax, gas, deductions etc. I need $20 an hour under the table. I am willing to do anything. I can't borrow from anyone because I can't pay it back. I am collecting stuff around the house to sell, but again the return is peanuts. However, it is good to get all these extraneous things out of my life.