InMotion

  The six of us were a bit chilled but sun soaked as we rode up to Karma Coffee Bar and Bakery in Dallas for warm-up and refueling. This was a late November Salem Bicycle Club ride, 37 miles out and back.   Someone spotted a truck parked out front, with a rear window decal featuring a combat-style weapon and the wordplay “OreGUNian”.   I facetiously suggested that we inquire as to the capacity of the magazine on that semi-automatic*. My imagined stereotype of the truck’s owner was that he voted hard right, and that he stereotyped us (bicyclists) as hippie hard-leftists.   We laughed.   Good down to 30 degrees After some good coffee and carb loading, we spent two hours replacing all our winter riding gear (seems like it sometimes), and pulled our machines out, ready to roll. One of us habitually locks the bike every time, especially since it’s a high-end custom (really a good policy for us all).  There are downsides to locking, and one we rarely consider is lock mechanism failure.  No

  Like perhaps thousands of other couples, in 1984 Carol and I included Kate Wolf’s song GiveYourself to Love in our wedding ceremony.   I listened regularly to several of her albums in the early ‘80’s, after first hearing her on Mike Flynn's syndicated radio show, The Folk Sampler, and we got to see her perform and briefly speak with her, in Lansing Michigan in 1985. She died of leukemia at age 44 in December of the next year. This was a monumental loss for many, and in 1996 a memorial concert was held in Sebastopol, CA.   It became an annual festival, moving north to Laytonville, CA in 2001.   Once we heard of it, after emerging from the haze of early child-rearing, we vowed to go.   Finally, we arranged to meet two of our best music buddies there for the 25 th annual (rescheduled from 2020), said to be the last one. We drove eight hours on the first day so that we would only have an hour’s drive the next day to the festival site. Having been advised by the festival info to n

  In December of 2020 I came up with the strange idea of reading everything in an issue of a magazine and then writing about it for a blog post.   Now, with 2020 hindsight and a terrible, disabling case of “writers block”, I set out to do something like that again.   After reading the entirety of the May 30 issue of The New Yorker, I sat down to write. I started, but then froze up again.  The  read-it-all tactic to help thaw out wasn't working. Finally, here’s what I came up with.    The cover of the magazine features an illustration called “Open Vistas” and the artist is Cannaday Chapman . My initial impression of it was of a woman in a hat gazing off down the way.   On closer scrutiny: Two women sit at an outdoor table with their café-au-laits and powdered beignets, one is wearing a large hat and sunglasses and is looking away as she stirs her coffee.   Her companion has her sunglasses hung on her shirt while she studies her cellphone. A sign saying Jazz Club hangs from the

  Last week, I drove 100 miles north from Salem OR. and parked my borrowed car at Cloud Mountain Retreat Center . Inspired by friends and readings, I wanted to be on retreat with others seeking to deepen our meditation practice. This would be a retreat held in noble silence, no speaking, reading, phones or other digital devices.   As I walked the grounds at Cloud Mountain, I would reach in my pocket to discover that there was nothing there.   No oblong device there, my pocket had achieved what we retreatants were leaning into: emptiness.   If you attend a 6 day retreat and maintain silence for the duration, stuff happens. Questions come up: who am I?, why am I?, what's my next step? Having a daily meditation practice as I have for a number of years is helpful, but for what?   Sometimes I think my meditation is done in order to check a box to get credit in the category of “spirituality”.  As in, "i f I don’t go to religious services, pray, chant, perform sacred rituals, or me

  Preface : in re-reading and tweaking this post, I notice that I have not once mentioned, you know, IT.   Would it be possible to try that out in real time (no talking about IT). Like maybe as a new years resolution. That would be challenging (97.5% of the time it’s the first thing you hear on NPR in the morning).   Nevertheless, I am considering   it.  Maybe regular periodic moratoriums.  That’s all I have to say about that. 2021 started out with meeting the gutter man, the electrician, and the handy man as final preparations were made on sprucing up our 160 year old condo in New Orleans. It sold right away for the asking price. It was fun to review my Google Calendar for the early months of last year, recalling my visits to doctors (I am an old   man) and friends down there as we had our last visits together in the Big Easy. One last bike ride along the shore of Lake Ponchartrain. I would have had a last bike ride along the Mississippi river with our NOLA social riders had my knee