Zen

 

October 25, 2026

Glorious concert by Asheville Vocal Ensemble last night. Precision so sharp it hurt. I waffled about going, and now am glad I went.

Crows and squirrels delight in the corn I bought for the turkeys. 

Perfect day in the heavens. Some Zen posting on line put its finger on the exact issue that plagues me, perhaps worse than anything else: still reaping blame from trespasses I committed long ago. The posting calls them “the memories of a ghost.” Remember, it said, you are no longer that person. This is helpful, especially considering that for all my anxiety I could not think of how to make those errors right.  No need to make them right, even were there a way. The person who did them is gone; the people to whom they were done are gone. 

October 21, 2026

Began the day at the Y, the hardest and best workout since my return, and the one with the least staggering about afterward. 

Planted houseplants I’d snipped and rooted in jars on the window sill. 

Driving back from rehearsal, my headlights caught my rabbit in the back yard. Turned off the lights as fast as I could, so his terror would be brief. 

 

October 20, 2026

Cold and radiant. The blue of the last few days has been spiritual.

Coffee with A, who told the sage of getting his 95 year old mother out of her house and into a rest home. 

Thought I might fast today, but it is barely 9:30 and I’m ravenously hungry. 

 

October 18, 2026

V is dead. I lost track of him through the years, but his obituary makes his life seem as one of singular achievement and blessedness. 

Watched a film about Nureyev’s Swan Lake, and couldn’t get past my irritation with his misuse of the corps. There were scenes in which only two were dancing, yet the corps were lined up on stage like fence posts, trying to be inconspicuous, or like God knows what with their arms waving in the air. Do they get extra money for every scene they’re in? If only two need to be watched, get everybody else off stage, bring them back on when needed. Classical ballet is not my favorite thing. So much of it is waiting for a dancer to strike a pose already known and approved, and to be judged on the exquisite sameness by which it is achieved. Even at passionate moments– lovers’ paux de deux– there is no actual passion, just conventional gestures intended as indications of passion. I suppose the very things that sadden me are those in which a fan delights. 

Engaged and productive day, after several in which I seemed to be spinning my wheels. Grasped where a play went wrong. Planted the delivered boxes of Siberian iris, most in the ground, but two in a giant green pot I hauled onto the porch. Emptied the dirt of pots whose flowers had died into the new one, with a little fertilizer. Left the geraniums, because they caught new life after the rain and may have a week or two left to them. 

Pure and gleaming day in the peacock mountains. Were I a tourist here I would think I’d gotten my money’s worth. 

 October 17, 2026

Cold. All windows closed. Heater in the study on, furnace set at the lowest point I can endure. 

Thomas confides, as we pass the very spot, that he was conceived in the Burger King parking lot on Patton Avenue. 

If I sit at the desk downstairs I see the sky-blue (sometimes) and lavender (sometimes) hydrangea flowers held on stalks to tall and thin they look to be floating. 

 October 15, 2026

Y again, two days in a row. Went harder on upper body to avoid yesterday’s wobbly legs. Had my times wrong, so I missed PT. 

Voted on the first day of early voting. I hate when people who have not seen each other for five years meet in the voting line and need to catch up. Heard at length about the wilderness retreats and spiritual journeys of the people behind me. The man was R, whom I worked out with at Rusty’s and whose silly paintings I praise on Facebook.  I didn’t re-introduce myself, unsure whether I had any spiritual anecdote to offer. I stand in the midnight garden and hurl challenges at God.

 October 14, 2026

Y first thing in the morning. Did more cardio than usual, and when I stepped away from the stationary bike, I stumbled and zigzagged like a drunk. No pain, no disorientation– very difficult to explain. When I returned home, the crows were gathered to thank me for the heap of peanuts I left for all comers. 

Orff last night. The man next to me said, “You are great!” Indeed, for that hour, I was.