Winds of Change
This morning I awoke early after a poor nights sleep - 60mph wind-gusts shook the house all evening. Fitting, I thought, for the first evening in my new place in Boulder. I stepped outside this morning in the warm, still dark air of 5 in the morning on my way to the Zendo, slipping my sunglasses on to avoid the flying dust and stepping over the recycling littering the neighborhood from the fallen garbage bins.
Yes, I’m back in Boulder. The yellow-house with the white picket fence in Denver did not work out.
Yesterday, I packed up possessions, yet again, filling a small van with about 20 rubber bins and boxes. I did this time what I should have done two years ago when I left for my year abroad. That is, I sold off all of my large items on craigslist, putting the remainder on the curb for the lucky scavengers. While I cringed watching my favorite chair, memory filled kitchen table and practically brand-new mattress walk out the door, there was simultaneously a relief of simply not having to manage or move these things anymore. Ultimately I decided, except for my skis and bicycle, if it did not fit into a storage bin, it had to go.
A good friend of mine and his girlfriend have graciously taken me in, allowing me to sleep and store my things in their furnished basement. I am humbled by their generosity in this very trying time in my life. I am now sitting on their sofa with Sherman the dog, looking out the front window at the Flatirons. Right now, the past two months feel a little like a dream.
In some respects, I feel like I did when I first started this blog two years ago and was packing up for Asia. Here I am again, ticket in hand to Thailand for the end of April, a couple weeks away from sesshin and with no major plan for the future. It is in fact these plans, that ultimately cause the suffering and heartache that I’m going through now. I thought my life was clearly headed down a certain path, maybe not a path defined in great detail, but one with a direction, a set of ideas of what the next few years would look like. The lake that boat was sailing in just ran out of water. As I sit in my boat in the middle of a dry lake I’m aware that am going to need to start walking.