Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Rehab

Now I know why people join monasteries. A monastery is like a rehab program to get people off hysteria. It’s ironic how stress, anxiety, and bad feelings in general can get you to quit the mindfulness practices that are supposed to help you deal with those things. Daily life conspires to wear down mindfulness habits, it seems.

It’s so much easier to keep up good habits when you’re not challenged. And when things go bad and you fall off the wagon of meditation and so forth, that gives you one more thing to feel crummy about.

I skipped belly dance class last night because I was too busy entertaining gloom. I'm justifying it by telling myself that perhaps, in fact, my gloom needs to be fully honored, and if I suppress or ignore the gloom it will ambush me later.

This water slider is one of a tribe of water sliders living in one of the pools in the stream in Fisher Park. I love the way their shadows on the stream bottom are the shape of the dimples they make on the water and not their feet.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

You could use this time for better use by perusing the want-ads if you really want to get ahead! M

Anonymous said...

You young folks really get my goat when you whine incessantly about how unfair life is. I lived thru the depression and WW2 and have suffered thru 2 marriages and 8 kids. I didn't have time to meditate on a stream or go to belly dance class. I had to raise 4 kids with my first husband, a no-goodnick who got drunk every friday nite(payday) and thought it was fun beating me up. When the SOB finally died in Korea, I was stupid enough to get married again! This time to a momma's boy. Me and him and our seven kids had to move in with "momma" because the SOB lost our house due to gambling debts. That was '57. Then in '61, I find out I'm pregnant again by the SOB! Now we got 8 kids, living in his mom's 1000 sq. ft. ranch house in Albuquerque. I finally decided to pack the kids up in the studebaker and drive to New Hampshire, where a favorite cousin lived. I got a job and me and my kids lived in a trailer until the youngest was 18. Now I'm 65 years old. Working at Wendy's, listening to stupid jerks yell orders at me. I've got nothing but a room I've been renting in a flop house in NYC for the past 4 years. Care to compare "bitches"?

Anonymous said...

One more thing, honey. I've got 3 kids who are now dead (2 Vietnam, 1 aids). I got 5 left. My son I haven't seen in about 8 years. My oldest, Marion, is a lawyer. My daughter, Wiley is a housewife and married to a big company exec. My daughter Julia is a crack whore who hits me up for my tips anytime she's feeling really low. My other daughter married the "twin" of my first husband, the alcoholic from Hell. It tears me up, cause they have kids...my grandkids!I'm 85 years old this past weekend...and still working. I've been waitressing my whole g.d. life. So please, honey, stop bitching! It could be worse, trust me. M

Anonymous said...

I'm confused about the comment from the Depression mom. First you say you're 65, then you say you're 85. Which is it? Definitely if you are only 65 then you cannot have lived through World War II and the Depression. If you're 85, then you're really old, and should not be serving people in a restaurant. Just wondering......

Anonymous said...

I'm 85, but tell people I'm 65 cause I got good jeans! I'm from solid stock. I may be 85, but I've got guys pluggin my little rosebud who are 30 years younger than me. If I wen around telling people I was 85, who in christ's name would want to fuck me? Jesus, you sure are stupid! I'm 85 (86 this September) and still tight as a drum,j at least where it counts.
By the way, I don't want anything under 7". Pee wees need not apply! Millie

Anonymous said...

Did I tell you that I was sexually abused at the age of ten? My Uncle Rupert had a little girl fetish and liked to spank me really hard before he skewered me. Sick bastard//He's dead now, thank god. Of course, no one back then believed me. It was 1934 and "nice people" didn't talk about thinks like that. When I turned 17, in 1940, I did my own USO tour...If you know what I mean. I met the first bastard in 1948. He SAID he loved me....a crock of warm shit if ever....but I was stupid and decided to marry him. That was in 1949. In those days, if a girl wasn't married by the age of 30, it sent off an alarm that she was a lesbian (as I am.) I figured my boobs weren't getting any firmer, and christ, my ass struggled to get into a girdle, ao I said yes. Now this young buck, right off the turnip truck, was only 19. What was I gonna tell him....that I was an old whore of 27? .... that! I went for the meal ticket. But I paid for those meals....he'd come home at night, burst into our trailer, swearin I'd been cheating on him. I got about 8 black eyes, a broken arm, a fractured pelvis, and a dislocated vertebrae from that sweet, good looking ass whole....You don't even want to know what happened when I told him my real age, when he thought I was 19!