I just realized that I let Mona finish her visit without really getting any great photos of just her. I wanted to post a very elegant and beautiful photo with this post, but alas - I was not present enough during her visit to take advantage of some of the pleasant moments with some dedicated photo-taking. Sigh...I have the skills to do this well, but was so preoccupied with self-pity and demanding attention from Mona that I didn't create something of lasting value for both of us.

Trust me - she is elegant and beautiful. I'll just insert a photo here to symbolize Mona for now, as I only have snapshot-type photos to offer otherwise.



Here is a big realization I have been pondering this afternoon - the opportunity to know Mona better and have her attention and experience her wisdom, fun and enthusiasm is so much more important than the things Pat and I have left behind. Had we stayed with that life and not ventured forth with such turmoil unfolding, I think my sister would always have been a little-known artifact of a family that was never intimate in any way. I might have eventually crumbled or hardened entirely under the strain of evolving events, instead of seeing opportunities to grow - and maybe find true peace one day.

I have resisted the outcome of those changes so vigorously, and accepting responsibility for them - it has been the cause of much suffering. This would come as no surprise to anyone acquainted with the Buddhist fundamentals. What I want to be mindful of now is that there is something new that wouldn't have existed otherwise, and that is a precious jewel - this connection with my sister, and the beginning of a better connection with my true self. This is the kind of gift that can be received only if the present is accepted and embraced. The alternative is endless and probably increasing struggle.

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Mona is here visiting me here in Alameda, and her 'baby' Serena in San Francisco. It is a joy to have her nearby, and it will be sad to send her off to Wyoming again early Thursday morning.



Yesterday we went to the ocean at Point Reyes - Pat, me, Mona, Serena, and Cole driving another carload of their friends.

Patrick and I are always reluctant to venture out on a big outing, especially here in the Bay Area - and especially now with the stress of our jobs and our precarious living situation. At least in my case, I feel so insecure and ungrounded that I hesitate to part with the limited comfort I have been able to find here in the Alameda Point rental house. On the way and once we were there, though, it was fun to see how excited Mona was about visiting the ocean - even though the beaches in that area were all sandy - making the rock-picking a marginal exercise.

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The plans for the future continue to materialize and dissipate around different possible outcomes. It seems for now the best thing to do is not much of anything. My contract employment seems to be rolling toward an offer of a full-time 'permanent' salaried position. If I continue in that role, I will need to assimilate a lot of new technology information - something I have not been keen to do as I contemplated an exit from information technology altogether. Still, it is pleasing to be wanted and recognized for some ability, even if it is not in an area I find tremendous satisfaction in any more. What this means, of course, is that this is a great job for the ego but probably not so good for the genuine inner person.



Today painful memories of the house on Camden Ave. Intruded on my thoughts and weighed on my contentment a lot. A beautiful spring-like day, with fruit trees all in bloom drew out memories of the paradise of cherry, plum, peach, nectarine, apple, orange, and other citrus blossoms that would always perfume and sumptuously decorate the spring days there. For all my griping and resentment about the upkeep, I always fully appreciated the beauty and miracle of such riotous life as the cycles repeated over the seasons and years.

I went to work today to make up some hours taken off to enjoy with Mona, and working in the Sunday-unpopulated windowless fluorescent-lit cubicle warren on such a sunny and warm Spring preview day seemed a metaphor for the trading away of the Camden nature preserve.

I know these cruel mental conditions are manufactured by a wayward mind, but at times I seem powerless to apply all the wonderful teachings I have been exposed to since our life routine disintegrated. Painful events are inevitable in every life, but obsessive thoughts of loss and a fearful future are artifacts of a struggle to enter the real world of detachment and equanimity, and give up purposeless attachments. At times I feel my friend who suggested psychiatric help was right about the failure of my 'self-help' efforts to right my turned-over apple cart of a life, but I really can't imagine what such a thing would accomplish. I already know what is happening, and probably have the answers close at hand. However, applying them is not as simple as understanding them intellectually. I will keep striving to move on, and not be weighed down by what has occurred before or may happen down the road.



Serena and her companion Cole have such bright and promising lives - I think this may be part of what threw me off balance today and since we returned from the outing yesterday. They live in a charming and simple apartment in a lovely neighborhood of San Francisco, surrounded by gracious homes and wholesome shops. She is going to magnificent UC Berkeley, getting a Masters in city planning that will enable her to do meaningful work that betters the lives of whole societies. Cole is an engineer with an architectural firm that seems focused on sane humanistic design and benign coexistence with nature and conservation of resources.

This I have allowed to contrast with our situation, where we are unable to find meaning or fulfillment with our work, and have a hard time conceiving of any alternative other than fleeing the country for a lower cost of living and no work at all. I know there is was and is more to the appeal of Mexico than that, but for today is just seems like a desperate measure, and a risky one at that. As harsh as today's reality seems at times, I sometimes fear that we would find ourselves there, wishing it was only a vacation trip that could end soon, and wishing we had a home like Camden Ave. - or even Alameda Point - to return to.

-Stan

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I took the M-dog for a walk this afternoon, over by the low-cost apartment buildings where Navy non-commissioned officers were once housed. There's one area I frequently drive by where I have been noticing an old guy out digging and puttering in what looks like a pretty well-established garden plot.

I miss the Camden Avenue garden more than I ever imagined, even as I recall the way I used to feel burdened and occasionally overwhelmed by the maintenance tasks that went with the vast four tenths of an acre area around the old house in Hayward. A day like today would have been filled with as much pruning and cleanup as I could muster a year ago. Most likely I would have felt resentment about the time and effort required that day to keep up with the gardening demands.

But today, standing at the edge of the old man's big garden, I grieved again for my trees and flowers. Especially my roses. I saw the ancient gardener up on his second floor balcony, watching me, and gave him a wave and a smile. "It's beautiful", I said, and asked "How long have you been doing this?" He smiled back, and in halting English replied "Two years. You come back three months, roses be very nice, many roses. " I could see that he had recently put in maybe fifteen new bare-root roses, and had pruned back a bunch of older established ones. "I plant all these trees." he said proudly, pointing to a row below where he stood. "Cherries." They were about twelve feet tall, and their skillful pruning was revealed by the dormant leafless state. I recognized the shiny distinctive bark, and thought of the huge and productive cherry tree I had planted eight years before. I remembered standing under it and eating my fill of perfectly ripe dark cherries off the tree, and feeding some to the chickens.

As we chatted more, I learned that he was an Afgani - some sort of refugee I suppose. I guessed that he had been there for a few years in the apartment, and that he had immediately started his big garden, with all sorts of vegetables and fruits - and roses. It probably gave him great comfort - being so far away from the home and garden that he gave up for whatever reason.



January is the month I too used to prune back my rose bushes to the short stalks that prepared them for another long season of producing lush foliage and achingly beautiful heavenly scented blossoms. Standing there looking at the old man's plot, I thought about how the city and developers will probably demolish his simple apartment building in a year or two, replacing it with expensive new housing and shopping. I looked back and up at him as the dog and as I walked away past a row of thorny bare canes, and thought about how he would miss his roses and his garden again when this happened.


© Text 2003-2004 Stanley J. Wolf

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As I try to develop the discipline of a writer, I guess the fact that I get anxious when I don't post to this blog is a good sign. I'm reaching the point where after returning home from work, I'd rather spend time crafting a post than fixing dinner - or taking a nap. When a couple of weeks pass without anything new I feel negligent and frustrated.



Writing seems like an inherently worthwhile activity, while the day job seems increasingly like a necessary burden tolerated only to generate cash. If writing could produce a stream of income, I would be happy to abandon the technology practice with the attendant on-call periods, poorly administered environments, and screwy hours. At this stage, even a normal work week feels like screwy hours to me, but I'm referring more to episodes like December 31st when I went in around 6pm for a project and left at 3:30am on January 1st. Feliz año nuevo.



I've passed through three careers in the past thirty years. Photographer, pilot, engineer - each lasting around ten years. I'm at the end of one of those decades now in my IT Engineer period, and once again it feels like the time has arrived to move on. This time, I'd like to pursue a creative outlet - something I enjoyed with photography to some degree, even as a non-fine-art photographer.

Writing could be the right pursuit.

This career shift could be taking us back to the long-neglected Mexico relocation theme. One of the inhibitions that derailed the move last summer was the sense that while the numbers seemed to add up, there was still some apprehension about the financial viability of life as an ex-pat with no source of income. Immigrants in Mexico can't work at an ordinary jobs that Mexicans can hold, so self-employment like writing could offer a source of income otherwise unavailable. With Internet communications enabling business with various publishing markets, it seems like a great opportunity.

I want to offer people alternate views of their environment. My desire to accomplish this through writing is the same as my primary motivation in photography. I want to portray beauty, which is essentially a revealing of truth. Truth is often concealed from us or unnoticed- especially if we are too wrapped up in our pasts and futures to fully experience the present moment.

When I go looking for various aspects of reality to express in visual or verbal media, it helps me find this beauty and rejoice in it myself. If I can share this by creating tangible work instead of simply having an internal experience, and make my work available to others, the benefit of the experience or insight is multiplied.


Recently I was browsing through the local paper when I ran across an article about two local authors who have published a number of books individually and collaboratively. They also produce a syndicated column and are routinely published in various periodicals. This husband-and-wife team is hosting two writing workshops - one to develop the basic craft with aspiring writers, and one to demonstrate the business mechanics of the writing business.

The discovery of this offering on the heels of my recent more serious desire to pursue the writing practice seems like an additional signpost to me, pointing encouragingly in this direction. The fact that they live two blocks away seems like additional mojo.




Text © 2003-2004 Stanley J. Wolf

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We always get a sense of simply surviving the holiday season these days. It just isn't what it once was - which has good and bad aspects. It's good that we don't waste a lot of time and money shopping and buying things that are unneeded and unwanted, but its sad that we don't find the magic in the season that we once did as children. Grotesque decorative indulgences that would have delighted in early years now produce only wonderment at the motivation that causes these garish scenes to appear.



I think the reason the whole season once produced such enchantment is the lapse in hostilities that occured within families, when there could be generosity and cheeriness that was not available the rest of the year. There was also the perception of security in an activity that offered continuity from year to year, amongst a lot of changes and insecurity during the other months. The familiar decoration, customs, smells, and tastes provided a reliable confirmation that there was something predictable and comforting amongst all the uncertainty and dreariness that preceded and followed.



I've been learning that there really isn't any security to be found in external activities or objects. And now, I try to find opportunities for generosity and delight all year. Christmas is to these things what New Years Eve is to drinking - amateur time for binging. I wish everyone would just try to be kind and cheery all year, and give to people who need things and support when their needs are discovered. Instead of indulging once a year while being manipulated mercilessly by commercial interests, we could all become generous with all that we have to offer, all the time.



Text © 2003-2004 Stanley J. Wolf

I think now is a good time to comment on the realization that real acceptance of our eventual demise can be a means for finding release from so much of what drags us down from day to day.

As children and teens we generally have a pretty solid perception of immortality. Intellectually, we know that the end will arrive one day from a pretty early age, but we don't really feel threatened by it for a long time. Then as we grow older and start to see deterioration in ourselves and our peers, and some of our friends and family of similar vintage start to actually expire, we start to grow increasingly uncomfortable about our grip on life. I believe this precipitates the 'mid life crisis' and a lot of unproductive and unhealthy behavior and attitudes.



It's odd - as has happened so often in recent times a lot of things observed and experienced seem to coalesce making some concept more whole or clear.

Recently I re-started our Netflix DVD subscription, and one of the first things to arrive out of my queue was the first season disc of Six Feet Under. This is a a fine HBO drama series directed and produced by Alan Ball, who also created the wonderful film American Beauty for theatrical release. This series deals on many levels with death and dying...and living. It offers an interesting framework for so many of the insights and observations that have come to light recently from other reading and listening.

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The Buddhist body of knowledge and wisdom is full of references to confronting the inevitability of death as the ultimate expression of the impermanence that governs existence. The view is that our resistance to all manner of change and obsessive desire to find and hold bits of security in life has the effect of trapping us in futile and unproductive struggles. This thrashing about results in a lot of unhappiness, and probable hastens the ultimate outcome of our born-live-die cycle with all the resultant mental and physical stress. Everyone so concerned with where they've been and where they might be headed - not much opportunity remains to relax and enjoy the ride as it happens.

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Eckhart Tolle and Alan Watts grasp this central issue in their efforts to bring us to a workable view of sanity and quality of life. Here are a few comments from Watts out of a taped lecture series called "Out of the Trap"...

"...there simply is no point in straining to prevent this from happening... get-off-the-strain, the general up-tightness about preventing one's own demise. And you'll live longer....for you see, it is through the acceptance of death that you become suddenly charged with life. I say if you give up the impossible task, you have all the energy that you've been using to strain against the inevitable, to do something great. So that you become alive in the degree that you accept death."

Dr. Watts isn't suggesting that we stop driving carefully, or taking care of our health as best we can in practical ways like exercise and diet. He is simply saying that the way we deal with each other, and material things, and our work and our politics are often influenced by our sublimated fear of death.

"The current fear, paranoia, mistrust of everyone and everything is itself the process of destruction..."

Watts points out the obvious, which we somehow manage to deny in subtle ways - that there is no point grasping at things that might provide the illusion of permanence and immortality - when a lot of what seems important doesn't really matter since no one will ultimately survive. This fact can be life-affirming and oddly comforting.

We have so much trouble opening up to the world as we perceive external actiactivity and influences to somehow threaten us, as though resisting what we encounter could somehow make immortality more feasible. We could take some of that energy we devote to hostility and defending ourselves, and apply it to more useful thoughts and actions that bring more happiness and peace into our lives and the lives of others.



It may seem implausible, all this discussion of death to better affirm life - but Watts reminds us that the aviator only experiences the joy of successful flight with the benefit of an intimate understanding of gravity.

Text © 2003-2004 Stanley J. Wolf

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Work is going well this week - I am getting deeper into router and switch configuration than ever before, and there is a tremendous amount of documentation to do where none exists or what there is does not reflect the ways things are put together. I'm not as afraid of being unable to deliver high performance in a job, and unable to cope with everyday life as I had been in recent weeks.

Part of the reason these activities - and various other facets of life - are seeming more like fun and not some sort of punishment is the way all the reading has converged on the subject of reducing the amount of time spent mentally dwelling in the past and future. Between Pema Chödrön's "Comfortable with Uncertainty" and the "Power of Now" book by Eckhart Tolle I am seeing this basic requirement for a happy life and emotional health presented in a variety of convincing ways.

Add to that a careful watching of an old recording of Dr. Wayne Dyer and his Power of Intention program and Alan Watts in some intriguing cassette lectures from the beat era, and you have an unavoidable confrontation with some fundamental tenets of the human condition. All of these sources tap into thousands of years of demonstrated benefit from a more honest and straightforward relation to existence than what we are so often saddled with by our conditioning.



One of the most powerful of the Buddhist teachings is that as long as there is struggle to achieve or avoid something, it will never be brought into or kept out of our lives. Once one is able to peacefully abide, things have a way of happening as they were meant to in the grand scheme of things.

And no matter what takes place, at least there can be peace of mind and some appreciation for the life that happens while trudging along the path.



Text © 2003-2004 Stanley J. Wolf

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