Ordinary

Saw these flowers after my run this morning as I stretched against my neighbor's retaining wall. These are the flowers (I don't know what they're called) I recently heard a friend describe as "ordinary," meaning they are available at every nursery and supermarket in town. Yet I love them--their brightness and their, well, their cleverness at holding two flowers while being only one. I realize that seeing them is one of the everyday pleasures I get by running in Berkeley, where I've been living and running for more that thirty years. Simple pleasures like seeing these little blossoms are what I'm fearing losing these days.

Recently I've been out of town a lot--first to Idaho to visit my sis and see the sights, then to LA to stay with my new grandson and, oh yeah, his parents, too. The prospect of doing a lot more of this kind of travel is exciting but also very scary. If I spend a month in LA, will there be flowers? Will there be friends? Will there be running and the camaraderie I associate with it? Will there even be a temporary space that's welcoming enough that I can call it my heart's own? 

I'm doing what the Buddhists identify as "clinging," that is, trying to hold up my hand and arrest entities that refuse to stay put. The biggest entity, of course, is time. Whether I acknowledge it or not, time passes, and as it marches on, inexorably, so does change. Am I large enough to recognize change, to accept it, even to embrace it? My friend Time will only tell.

Here I am, after a morning run in LA. See, self, there is running in the Southland. Ignore how vulnerable you look here. You're always as vulnerable or invulnerable as you feel. 

 






And here is flora, seen after that same early-morning run. Where there is green there are flowers.

And below is a photo from another place and time--Boise before dawn, seen on a run around the capitol building and down along the Boise Greenbelt. Yes, I know there is running everywhere. But part of what makes it joyful is knowing I can go home and treasure my memory of it. My worry is, what might life be like if home becomes more of a concept than a reality? The answer is, of course, that it's actually always just a concept, one that I've taken in and chosen to make an actuality. Ah, now to be flexible enough to carry my spiritual home with me in a strong enough way that I can appreciate new experiences without fear. Luckily I'm a runner--and runners are strong.

Just a note: We were in Boise during a perfect time of year. It is a good example for me of a strange place I was able to feel at home in.