101824


Part 24

On fresh thinking

I have found that when I sit down to write, or work on a somewhat larger project, it is always best to approach it with an empty relaxed mind, and usually after having just woken up, or having walked by myself for awhile and just thinking, and allowing my mind to ruminate and empty itself.   

This is consistent with the approach I seem to have taken in life of not really knowing what I am doing - pretty much at anytime anywhere -  when approaching projects, but trusting that I will somehow figure it the resident challenges.    A noisy mind does not allow much into it.   An empty vessel allows for the echoes of thoughts to bounce around enough so that you can turn them on their sides and see them more properly.

***************** 

Icy morning.   My "summer" away has bled into the fall, and much cooler weather, and I never thought I would ever say this, but I am looking forward to getting back to Bandon and returning to my walking life.    I have spent my summer on bikes, and have really enjoyed it, and getting healthy  in the way that bikes give you, especially here in Prescott with its hills and canyons,  but walking life has its quiet thrills as well.  much more contemplative, rather than constantly having to watch surrounding traffic all the time, as every single car that passes is potential danger.  One inattentive sneeze from one errant driver and it could all be over.  

In addition, I can get Tamale back to Bandon and being an outdoor cat and back to her original home.    It is a challenge to keep her inside the house in Prescott, and there have been some scary slipups these past few months here.   Mountain cats live in the canyons.  Hawks fly above.    And a wandering house cat would make a fine snack for either one of them. 

***********

I drove across town this morning for PART 24 to a coffee shop I have never sat in before because another way of allowing new thinking to come in is to place myself in a new completely environment, stare at new people, new walls, look out new windows on new vistas.   It's the wanderer in me, and gets the ruts out of my thinking.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
the whole way Epilogue .     Back in Bandon.   Tuesday October 26 True Voyage is Return This is a quote from Ursula K LeGuin, one of her books somewhere.    The actual quote is "To be whole is to be part.  True Voyage is return".     The first part of that quote did not resonate with me when I first read the book 40+  years ago, so I fairly quickly forgot about it.    The second part though has always been with me. What it means to me - that second part - is that  when we travel, changes occur within us that we never notice, and it is only upon returning back home that we see that the person we have become is not the same person that we were when we left.   That the journey in between has changed us.    We have become someone or something different.    That the voyage we have been on is not fully understood until we compare and contrast these two different people.    Once Was is not Now Is. ************** The drive back from Prescott AZ to Bandon OR was 1,250 miles and Tamale
Read more
Image
  Part 21 The hesitancy great podcast I sometimes get distracted by the notion of what would happen if I could stop myself from ever meeting Michelle, and thus never having her abandon me at age 60  - too old to start over but having to  - and thus leading to the greatest pain of my life.    This gaping chasm that 4 years later I am still trying to crawl out of.   I think what if I went back to that moment of meeting her knowing what I know now, and thus avoiding the great pain that would come 30 odd years later. In other words, What if I blinked, and I was suddenly back in that moment in my 28 years old body, but with my 65 year old sense of self.    What would I do? I think it would drive me mad.     While there would be obvious benefits in that once again I would have a 28 year old body, with all of its quickness, strengths and reserves, in addition to having the knowledge of what companies are going to increase 1000 fold in stock price, it would still drive me mad because I could n
Read more
Image
 10222128 Part 25 11.11111111..... Prescott AZ is a high desert town carved out by heavy winds and ancient rivers and rains, so that now it is all sand, dirt and rocks, and endless canyons.    My sister Jill and her husband Joe say that when they first moved here in the early 1990s they were the only house on the canyon.     Now that same canyon is dotted with houses, there are big box stores in town, and the town has mostly transitioned from ranching to  - now - tourism and retirees having moved up from Phoenix.       Oddly similar demographic trends to where I live in Bandon Oregon, albeit that Bandon is still in the early stages of that transition, and still blessed with the charms of locals who will sit in the coffee shops and scowl and curse at the retirees and tourists because the town is changing too fast for them.    I have been told to my face by one farmer that he is just waiting for all the Californians and tourists to leave, to which I could only respond "Too late for
Read more