Try to love everything that gets in your way: the Chinese women in flowered bathing caps murmuring together in Mandarin, doing leg exercises in your lane while you execute thirty-six furious laps, one for every item on your to-do list.
Author: carmen
Finding my religion
One time the wise PattiPow caught me on my way out the door, and asked me where I was going. I told her I was off to an all-night dance party. She smiled and nodded. Ah, she said, you’re going to church. Today I went to church at the Mountain Rain Zen Centre. The Centre …
When I am no longer angry at car people
When I am truly without anger toward people who own cars I will know that this buddhist stuff is really working. It’s hard. I’ve never owned a car, but I still have to look at them, hear them, smell them, pay for their infrastructure, and avoid being crushed by them every day. They don’t do …
My valentines party
I am fantasizing a Reclaim Valentines Day party. A party dedicated to love, without the mating-and-dating imperative. All the fun of 2nd-grade V-Day minus the popularity politics. Here’s how it goes: It has the essential bones of my favourite party-type endeavors: an intimate and funky space like the Dharmalab, a few choice dance-crazy dj’s, possibly …
Tripping by train
Graffiti landcapes laundrylines busted-down cars backyard swimming pools. Trainshadow jumps and wriggles over desert mesaland and high ocean cliffs, wine valleys and forests and mountains deep in snow. A couple hours sleep under a table in the lounge car and a pause to change trains in L.A., Chinatown dim sum eaten on a parkbench. In …