[18:43 working on this again, after dinner.
{Will I return to this and send it? Why?}
@16:29 was caught in re-reading, conversing-with-self mode when I hit:
"----
hygeine, cycling
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that released me, and I could leave it, made it home by 1700. That is the performance in "prfrmatv sp(ee)ch". I began to look at _Eat, Pray, Love_. . .
{the neighbor's dog, lonely, howling, whining, suffering, barking <<it's more peaceful in maid's room downstairs. Planes quieter too. Upstairs light may excite him/her.>>}
The considered title for this post:
terrible mind --> beautiful mind
Carolyn of the sifter/craig's list and of la jolla fantastic(?) frisbee has the former as her sig ("the mind is a terrible thing"). It stopped me a while the first time I read it. It seems to sum my attitude ever since I learned from TNH:
"Breathing in, I calm my body. Breathing out, I smile"
Wow, my mind is running like a maniac. I/my mind is making me miserable.
So, a recent (half-aware) theme has been: let the mind do all its crazy stuff. Let it. Follow it. Enable it {better: smooth its path}. Watch it and wonder why. Where is the goodness, helpfulness in this cycling, restlessness, frequent change of focus of the mind?
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Here's some other speak-of-the-mind I scribbled while walking back:
{my job is to read YES! magazine} (intended for a particular spot)
{Do the least you need to do to cycle the mind so you can be content staying still/moving little.}
<<also (not while walking, but in the time since last posting) there was a concern/imagining about economic collapse-->>
{You may plan great movement, pretend to be preparing for great movement, yet never need to actually move.}
{Cutesy-- avoiding right livelihood/larger self?}
on to the old: (temporal collage/conversation between slices of time)
the substantial, caring, compassionate people never self-stimulate like this? Merton did? There is an other-focus. Merton did write for others. Only his journals perhaps like this. Peace--]
A new adventure. I'm in Point Loma. Laying on warm asphalt in the shade. [Sitting cross-leggéd.] On the grounds of a school.
Let many thoughts go since last written post. There is a quality in not writing. {in not having written.}
Mental hygeine. Vs engagement. One brings to mind rinsing, washing, cycling. The other, focus.
Met with mom. First time in nearly three years. Would be three years in January. I am her son. I saw anew who I am and who I've been. What I reproduce.
Avoiding self-critical reflex: the reflex to criticize self as inhuman, lobotomized.
[we had good fun, and a day at the beach like I've not had since I was a little kid (and a walk through her memory in OB, where she and dad lived before/after I was born), and just today I got _Eat, Pray, Love_ from the library. She recommended it. Had a good time attempting to explore/ explain issues related to monkhood/spiritual practice/creativity to grammie, mom, mom's friend, thanks to mom's friend's interest--was thinking of doing the two weeks at the monastery before committing self to job/mariner school.]
There were some "lobotomized Colin encounters feeling Mom" moments though. The resolution of them feels to me. . . to have ended well (nvr mind the grmr).
Really let things go--no weights, not lasting in the pool. Sort of catering to the smallest impulse. Want out? Let's go. [watching the cycling--how long do I need to be away before I can return and continue. Attempting to check in with larger self--the half-hour monastery bell-ringing, the leaving house to exercise every (early!!) am, pm (go to sleep.), regardless; awareness re: eating. The larger self that cares for body-- the self caring for the future, the longer(, wider, stiller, ever-) view, rather than the moment's engagement.]
Let's go.
And some days/nights mindless eating and probably reading was an issue. I watched "self"(?) cease to exist--all that was there was a strange sense of not being nourished, wondering what to eat.
Think it was lack of fat--the visit with Chef Jem (up to 4oz raw butter/day, 3pints/day raw goat milk +bee pollen +spirulina--see last photo in recent album), +kombucha, +kefir, helped. Things that will satiate, was avoiding: the whiting, and the parmesan/romano too salty for me to want to eat. So using the hiking staple: cream cheese. Is cultured, and --
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very nice day here
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Let the temp app go, haven't followed up. Let it go.
All that I was following was the MMD app--Merchant Mariner's Doc. Physical Monday, -$60. 8-10 passport photos (6 for SIU app) -$50. Up to Long Beach REC (regional exam ctr) Tuesday (-$140 mmd app, -$20 bus fare), and Mike M. is up there, so why not stay.
Thinking I'd stay in mts, but remembered the coldness, darkness--so maybe by the sea. Santa Monica?
Remembering the soloness. Why wander around alone?
{remembering the mad eating of free, unbought bread. . . how did mind forget? Did it?}
Now, there are many crewing opportunities. Found the Latitude 38 list. Big baja cruise left SD 10/27. Let them go.
A famous sailor, BJ Caldwell (briefly youngest solo circumnavigator--he didn't tell, I searched on his email), is delivering a yacht to Hawaii, leaving SD within a week.
A trimaran leaving Morro Bay for SF within two weeks. And redpill too, and so on.
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I called 211 searching for public health clinics for the physical. Later I thought to call the Maritime Institute (local training school) for referral to someone familiar with the coast guard forms.
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Read _Spartina_, about a guy who makes his living from the sea in Rhode Island, and about his lover, and the boat he built, and a hurricane. It and _Gone With the Wind_ were nearly the only real {as in paper} non-Harlequin books left. Got several more ebooks: _Magic Mountain_, Obama's, _GWtW_, David Foster Wallace, _Atlas Shrugged_. Started _Magic Mtn_--already deeply relevant, memorable: time is Lethe, and so is change of place. And DFW is good/great.
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hygeine, cycling
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Read much YES! Magazine before that. Remembering the sidebar on "what if I don't have a calling?": hogwash. But just begin where you are with whoever is there. Not separate from them--you're not--.
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My Point Loma grandma is off to Salt Lake City to (?) care for ailing (black sheep? smoker) sister. I'm here with grandad.
Packed up as if leaving for weeks this morning. Just me and pack, ready to go.
Was hard, but not as hard as before, to do that.
Ordered pattern and cloth to sew lightweight pants: green chili pepper #128, per jardine's rec.--see del.icio links/_beyond backpacking_. -$28: 8' grey (nylon) quilt cloth, -$9: pattern, elastic.
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Updated 7knots crew profile: it is linked to from j9k.org/cv. Looked at other profiles there with photos: a genius {very accomplished, 10yrs my junior} engineer/artist guy is just below me.
Trying not to be self-critical, but think my profile just expresses a sort of oddness, unease: You're not here to get a crew position/temp job/whatever, Colin, but to use the applying as a vehicle for some sort of expression/discovery? Which has an effect on concept of self, life, propriety, in general?
{I really just want to be homeless? To call 211, ask for housing help, food, to be able to say I have no address, to apply for foodstamps? Do I really? Is that my calling? Which I've been avoiding?}
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There may be a fundamental misdirection in making profiles like that, in writing here. The photo should not be of me, but of what I'm looking at, looking for.
"to be of service": the photo is of the ones I will serve.
"right livelihood": the description is . . .
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Returning to the ???? {quality, way of being} of not writing. Grandad, sort of, I'm serving. It is 4pm. An hour to walk back. An hour to prepare for dinner. I nearly never eat with Grandma Ann, but here it is part of the routine. GAnn won't let me do anything? {yes, I could be a gentleman/insistent once in a while, maybe. Easier to stay out of way?} But here, a salad to make, rice to cook, we have jobs to do. Gann won't turn off the TV. But here there's a fancy TVless dining room with a view of the airport/skyscrapers/some of the bay where the sailboats, some old schooners?, some $$$ racers, were swiftly sailing today. And my grandma who's exasperated with my grandad (caregiver marathon fatigue?) is not there.
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{the dog is not at} peace,
2017
peace,
2036
peace,
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