Sywell Country Park
Swans and ducks out on the water. A hundred sandal-wearing men and women walk their dogs. This is where **** and I used to take her dogs for their walk, usually in winter when it was cold and muddy. But it surprises me how little I mourn the passing of those times. Perhaps "meeting" ***** again cured me of nostalgia.
Plane chugging slowly overhead through clear robin's-egg-blue sky.
Abandon inner dialogue! Only immediate undiluted interaction with your environment gives happiness.
Crows cawing.
Sparrows tweetling.
Planes chugging.
Ducks calling.
Water lapping.
People talking.
Grass growing.
How again exactly
do you feel alone?
Ant investigating the immense green sward of my summer shorts.
A fish rising up out of the water glimpses another universe, then plops down into the familiar.
To a fish there's no Sywell Country Park, or Earls Barton, or New York, or cars. But they are there! Maybe it's the same with us and the heavens and the hells.
I don't blame ****. I don't blame ***** or C. or anyone. Nobody wants to hurt or let down anybody else; nobody starts out to become someone else's bad guy. Buddhism is right: it happens because people cling on to the illusion of a Self--from that basic error comes all the suffering we experience in life.
This kid with cool plastic-rimmed sunglasses and carrying a big stick--he's tromping around in the long grass while his mother watches protectively from a bench. As I approach he holds out a really tiny hand and says, " Man! Man! High five!" I touch his fingers gently with mine and look towards the bench with an apologetic smile. I want to signal to his mother that I mean no harm. She looks at me expressionlessly from behind her own black glasses. I don't know whether I have offended her or not, but her little boy has definitely made my day.
from my journal
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