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Boredom and John Berryman

August 19th, 2007

I am bored. If I had the choice I would be leaving for Portland and a new life TODAY. But I don’t have that choice. I have to teach five more classes. I don’t want to, but I must. I am restless, and irritable, and bored, and I want to throw things and break them. Dave wondered if I might be exhausted from revealing so much about myself. No. I’m pissed off because there is nothing more to reveal. I’m living indoors, hiding from a blast-furnace Houston summer, dreading the new semester, cursing and kicking things. So of course I am reminded of John Berryman. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Texas | No Comments »

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Dave’s brilliant idea

August 18th, 2007

I could blog mostly about movies and books! Now there’s an idea, suggested by Dave, who I’ve never met but who occasionally sends encouraging comments to this blog. Kendall’s Quest could morph from the quest for a-place-to-plant-my-little-self into a quest for what matters (to me, maybe to others) in books and movies. Travels, when they occur. And who knows what else. There are other blogs that do book or movie reviews, but they tend to be cutting-edge: movies you can’t get from Netflix and can’t see unless you live in New York, Toronto, or San Francisco and go to film festivals; books that won’t get cataloged at your local library till you’ve already forgotten about them and have lost the little pieces of paper on which you wrote the titles. I love writing about books and movies (and poetry and damn near anything else that crosses my mind)–so yeah, I could do that, Dave. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Blogs and Blogging, Books and Movies | 1 Comment »

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To blog or not to blog

August 17th, 2007

Here I am again in one of those existential blogger moments. In summer of 06 I went to Portugal and started this blog of a pilgrimage, a journey. I came back from that adventure with the sense that all life is a pilgrimage, so I went on with the blog, during which time I intensified the search for a place to plant myself, a place to “retire” and step into as much freedom as I can find. I wrote about books and movies, about my daughter moving out, about the search for a new way of life, and about my cat. Now I think I can vaguely see that new way of life ahead…if I get Section 8 housing in Portland, and if nothing unexpected arises to stop me. In the meanwhile I have one more semester to teach, before that career is over. Do I go on blogging? Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Blogs and Blogging | 3 Comments »

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Wandering shoes

August 15th, 2007

My shoes are full of stories. The sand of Muir Beach is still in the toes. I can’t make myself empty the sand out. Some of the red mud of Santa Fe in its monsoon season is in the treads. Gently, I place these shoes in the closet of my Houston apartment and feel a little dizzy. Soon I must go to a mandatory workshop on “assessment measures.” I’d rather eat a bucket of sawdust. Yesterday I had a migraine (irregular sleep patterns trigger them), but I stumbled around. I visited Manko (she’s fine, enjoying her work selling vacuum cleaners with her boyfriend’s brother’s company). I unpacked, read my mail, and stroked Basho’s soft fur as he kneaded my belly with his soft paws and butted me with his head. (I marvel at his forgiveness.) I feel like a different woman than the one who left here to make that trip. Every time I let go of a delusion I am freer and older. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Texas | 2 Comments »

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Portland it is!

August 13th, 2007

I only had from 1 p.m. on Saturday till 10 a.m. today (Monday), but it was enough. I am in love with Portland, Oregon, and with the neighborhood where the dazzlingly interesting Shakti Khan lives. It’s called “nob hill,” it reminds me of the Notting Hill area of London, and it is everything anyone could want a neighborhood to be: old Victorian houses converted into coffee shops, art galleries, clothing resale shops, and bookstores. In a twelve-block radius I saw more restaurants than I could count (all with sidewalk seating), parks, a few warehouses, apartment buildings for all income levels, a hospital, two accupuncturists, shingles advertising massages and lessons in everything from guitar to Chinese conversation, plus two yoga centers. People walk there, and the life of the streets is entrancing. The strolling multitude is multi-colored, multi-formed, of all generations: plenty of kids with piercings and tattoos; families and multi-racial couples, gay and straight; leashed and well-behaved dogs (last year Portland was named the most dog-friendly city in America); roses, tall trees, tough-looking bikers, bicycle riders in spandex, a few drunks sitting on porch steps, and gray-haired bohemians in all manner of dress. How could I not want to live there? Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Oregon, Where to plant myself | 1 Comment »

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A perfect day at Muir Beach

August 10th, 2007

Today I have breathed in long, cool draughts of what I want most: time. I walked so slowly through the gardens, so slowly that the local doe and her two fawns didn’t even lift their heads or bat their long lashes as I passed by them, so slowly that the tribe of quail continued pecking at the ground, did not flutter away as I moved among them. There is so much to see, smell, and touch. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Buddhism, California | 2 Comments »

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Two options down, one to go.

August 9th, 2007

When I finished the dishwashing for today, at about 3 p.m., I staggered to my room and had a good cry. All I could do was huddle down in my sleeping bag (it’s freezing cold again) and sob. This was my summer vacation? No. It was my research project: I wanted to see what these Zen centers were like. Now I know. I wonder if Zen is like water–if it takes the shape of its container–and if these Zen centers in the USA have absorbed the puritan work ethic and the headlong drive toward productivity that is the USA. At its worst. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Buddhism, California, Where to plant myself | 1 Comment »

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Everybody is a hoe

August 8th, 2007

Up at 4:30 a.m., meditation for forty minutes, and then the whole place–managers, gray heads, newbies, everybody–heads for the fields on Wednesday mornings, to work from 6 a.m till 7 a.m. I guess the idea is to keep everyone connected with the original mission of the place. Today the job was hoeing. Everybody got a hoe, and we chopped the rows, weeding and aerating the soil around the baby lettuces. The chunk! chunk! chunk! of the hoes was rhythmic in the dawn as the birds began to sing and fifty people fanned out in the field. Flaming queens in their hats and scarves; old dykes with faces like leather and painter’s pants with farm implements hanging from the belts; young and buff people, old and stiff people, couples and singles, everyone working in silence. Then breakfast. Then I had dishwashing for two and a half hours, cleaning toilets and guest rooms till lunch, then more dishwashing till nearly 3 p.m. I’m absolutely worn out, but the best part of the day was the hoeing. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Buddhism, California, Where to plant myself | 1 Comment »

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The Pacific!

August 7th, 2007

I went charging down through the gardens and out to the ocean “as if my hair were on fire.” Beautiful, beautiful! And still more beautiful. There are rocks and waves and sea gulls, as one might expect. There is sea weed and that sharp sea smell, and there is that quality of air that has brought me back to life many times when I thought I was about to slip into something less than life. I watched three blonde children digging in the sand, and as they dug, completely engrossed in the hole they were making, a young sea lion surfaced, not 20 yards away from them, peering at them, curious and incautious (in very shallow waters). The sea lion appeared to be wondering if they could be playmates. Or dinner perhaps. Its eyes met mine. It saw me looking at it, looking at them. And then it dove and disappeared, taking a piece of me into the ocean.

Posted in California | 1 Comment »

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GG Day 4: she loses her faith

August 7th, 2007

Buddhism is not, of course, a “faith.” It’s a way of life, a set of principles, ethics, and stars to steer by. I have not lost any of that. But I have definitely lost a dream. For many years, I thought, “If I can just get through this, eventually I’m going to become a Buddhist nun, and then I will be fully who I am.” Hah. It was a romantic fantasy I had, that in my old age I would blossom into a saint, or something like that, in flowing and graceful robes, with a shaved head and a smile of bliss on my face. (I haven’t read Queneau’s La Dimanche de la Vie four times for nothing.) The truth is, I have have spent my life becoming fully who I am. The idea that living in Buddhist community would be a kind of glorious finale for my life is a delusion, like so many that have come before. It is always wonderful to be freed of another delusion. I felt more fully alive and more connected with the universe in Portugal, sitting on the miradouro in Melgaco, than I have felt at either of these Zen centers. That is not to say anything negative about the Zen centers. They are wonderful in their way, and they offer nourishment for many people. But not a way of life for me. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Buddhism, California, Where to plant myself | 1 Comment »

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