Sitting Outdoors

On a lovely fall afternoon I'm lucky to be able to sit in my front yard. This is the first weekend in a month that I've been home, with no family or work engagements. Some people spend their weekends at that patriotic American activity called "shopping." I try to avoid it as much as possible. Maybe I should be at Home Depot, buying things to imrpove my house, but right now I'd rather enjoy my house, my yard, the sky.

Over the years at my job most of my favorite people have moved on. One was a radiant man, a music teacher who loved to spend a weekend when he could in Buddhist meditation, sitting for the weekend. He left this job because it was too hectic for him and his wife. I still miss Ramon. He was an energetic and enthusiastic teacher who loved his work but prefered a wider margin to his life, like Thoreau.

I've just started to read a new book, "How to Be Idle." More of this later.

Disclaimer: I read the newspapers and listen to npr daily and am well aware of the luxury we have living in relative comfort in this country. I realize that thinking about being idle and sitting and looking at the sky are great luxuries which a lot of the world can't enjoy. This is one of life's great puzzles. Shouldn't we be giving up all we have and going out to right the world's wrongs? Yes, but... most of us don't. So I live with the discomfort and the ambivalence of being a comfortable American, and I sit and watch the bees come to my flowers. It beats shopping.