After the complete discordance of a few weeks ago, we find ourselves with an amusing and loving 3 year old who loves nothing more than to read his books, come looking for us and “catching us” and who goes for his nap easily and who has taken to wanting to dress himself. Don’t look back, just ride this wave until it ends:
The Times Picayune published an article by David Brooks, who writes about education for the The New York Times – the article is entitled “What you don’t learn with a top degree” – it’s an interesting look at why we go to school as two thirds of the article is about the brain drain that Wall Street created in the last decades as it attracted the best and the brightest. Towards the end of the…
The zen temple down the street has started offering dharma talks after the meditation on Sunday mornings and the topic has been Genjo Koan, which was written in 1233 by Eihei Dogen, founder of the Soto Zen tradition. The “issue at hand” is the koan of everyday life. And so let’s just start with that. As I kneeled in the corner, facing the wall, meditating and practicing the tradition of letting thoughts come and go,…
I’ve partnered with atheists my whole life and yet I’m always drawn into other’s religious views as they express them. Today, I was on the porch, watching Tin walk to the nun’s house to bring her some jambalaya, the bayou was in pristine shape, the air had the right Gulf south humidity, and there was a feeling of expansiveness all around. Let the Mystery Be by Iris Dement was playing on the stereo and I…
Tin completed his first year of nursery school at Waldorf and the class went to celebrate by the Tree of Life in Audubon Park today. Many of his classmates are moving onto kindergarten so that means next year Tin will be the big boy. Hard to believe. But Tin is ready for summer; he absconded with his classmate’s trombone and he began his lessons in earnest – musicology 101. First the moves, then the music.
Occasionally, as I’m reading the newspaper in the morning I’ll glance up at Tin who is watching me and tell him, “Look closely because when you grow up you will not be reading a newspaper.” Sure enough, yesterday the New York Times leaked that the Times Picayune was paring down to three papers a week and focusing instead on their online presence. Only, the Times Picayune doesn’t really have an online presence – the nola.com…
I spoke with a woman today who said this, that, it’s all up in the air, nothing predictable, hard to know what to think or hold onto. Ah yes, uncertainty, the new black. We are early adapters of uncertainty here in New Orleans, cutting edge so to speak, for the U.S. that is, because there are many countries and people that have been dealing with uncertainty most of their lives. From the seat of advantage,…
I was starting to feel better and I credited my newfound attitude adjustment but yesterday was like WHOA, slow down. So again, I’m back to renegotiating to take stock of what my condition my condition is in. When I speed back up to my normal pace, I get rattled not to mention nauseous – yesterday I threw up on my shoe. Ugh.
Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change – this is the rhythm of living. Out of our over-confidence, fear; out of our fear, clearer vision, fresh hope. And out of hope, progress. Bruce Barton Jazz is unique to us – to the U.S., to New Orleans, to this household. We’ve spent the last two days getting reacquainted with our house, our books, our selves. I listened to WWOZ playing the blues for…
There is a zen saying that you only know the circle of water you are in and how true that is. Today, after a restless afternoon of Tin not wanting to nap, me trying to get all the myriad scheduling and tasks done, and then trying to relax into my circle, we took a walk on the bayou and came across friends and their son – both boys have grown so much in the last…