Meditation 35 – 50 minutes minus Metta
Exercise Day – 44
It’s nice to see you again.
It’s been four days since I last wrote. A confession without a priest listening to me repent before assigning me Hail Mary’s counting beads on a rosary. I felt guilty yesterday. Not today. While the exercise is to develop the muscle of writing daily, I filled in with the daily meditations since Sunday.
This letter celebrates the act of starting over. Picking up again and again. With decreasing frequency and severity. Remembering to keep going, picking up sooner than last time, after every fall. Endurance improves.
The incandecent lights illuminates the street dotted tree with wild hair spreading onto succulent grass. Three shadows walk closer to the seawall. There is only one of me. How deceiving, this sight of ours. Only seeing what is in front of us, not seeing how it plays tricks in our minds.
As I walk, yesterday’s heat radiates from the pavement. Waning full moon lights the way. Is it always high tide when the moon is full? Water is close to the edge, with no rocks to separate me and the water. A row of waves crashes against the sea wall, breaking into a mass of white, like a ray of white light.
As I cross the road, from a beat-up black car, a sound from a man. It’s like a cat whistle but different. I used to feel disgusted. I ignore them. What do they think? That I will look their way and smile with gratitude? A row of homeless people to my left. One rises, unfolding the large blankets around his arms as he stretches. The mother city is in full swing, cars hooting, bikers dismounting for cups of coffees.
How are you? Bongi greets me. She works here. I’m a customer. How wonderful is it to see familiar faces and be warmly greeted.
It feels good to be here, writing on a black tablet purchased from little sister.
I am grateful for this healthy body and legs that will take me along the promenade. Able mind to remember a waitress’s name. Fingers to type. Ability to write without looking. Loving sister who gets angry injustice committed against me. Wonderful day turning blue from the previous dark grey.
It is a Friday, and I am staring back up again.
