9/25/20 maybe tomorrow

These days go on and on into an endless oblivion. The sun, the ocean, the perfect unchanging Southern California weather. It's awful. It's painful. It is utterly boring.

I seek some kind of pleasure in food, always looking for the next meal. Anticipating, craving, salivating. I can hardly make it though an hour without checking out the situation in the kitchen, even though I was just there and know the whole inventory. Maybe something new will be waiting for me! Maybe there will be a sweet surprise. Maybe I'll come to a beautiful conclusion about my next meal, a spark of inspiration will hit and this meal will be the meal to end all hunger. These are just some of the thoughts that come to mind as I traverse the harsh landscape that is the day. What do I do with myself? How can I keep from eating? I cannot. I work so hard restraining myself in so many ways but food has such a grip on me. "Study it," I tell myself. "Study the craving, acknowledge it, dive into it." I don't know. Maybe tomorrow. I think I should practice the Buddha's discourse on the repulsive nature of food. I've been doing all of this thanking and showing gratitude for the energy that the food brings me, but maybe it's time to go the other direction and become repulsed by it.

11/9/20 everyone doing nothing together

Nothing ever happens. Or, rather, it is always happening. And so nothing can happen while it is happening because it- whatever that is- would have to stop happening for it to happen and it never stops happening. So that's all there is. Sometimes it's enthralling. Sometimes boring. Sometimes agitating. There doesn't seem to be anything in particular to DO. Everything is taken care of. Am I completely crazy?! Am I just so far distanced from society that I actually believe there's nothing to do when everyone else seems to be running around and DOING all the time? I mean, what is this? What have I gotten into? Pleasure seeking, waiting for the future to come, satiating cravings: it's all a drag. The only redeeming feeling comes from knowing that so many others are doing it too. Or not doing it. That is the part that makes it worthwhile: everyone doing nothing together. What a trip.

12/22/20 Desert Morning

The desert wind rolls and moves and yet remains constant. The morning air is cold and the blues muted and mystical. As the sun emerges from behind the mountains the colors become bright and whitewashed. The sun heats up my skin and I strip my protective layers one by one: the hat, the scarf, the jacket, the sweater, and finally the shoes. To feel the earth on the bare skin is essential in really feeling the soul of a place. I went out to record the wind, but will have to make a trek out farther from the campsite if I really want to capture the fullness of tone and character. It's the tone of the movement across the flats and through the brittle and dried low brush. The mountains reverberate the sound and I can hear it move from one direction to another. As I move toward the sound, it disappears from the direction I am moving to and appears behind me. So I turn and move toward the sound in the other direction and again, it disappears and sounds as if it's from a new direction. What tricks the wind is playing on me! Or, is it my own limited perception that grasps onto a sound in one direction only, never able to truly perceive how the wind is, at all times, all around me?