Llanoland

I am a huge fan of hotel breakfast buffet. Today I had one in manhattan after a great night catching up with some former students over dinner. Maybe drank a little too much because I’m dehydrated this morning. 

Book shopping is next before heading back out east. Meanwhile, just look at those eggs. 

what an amazing project idea!!

It is incredible how a smell or a taste can really bring you back. This was the beer that my good friend, the Poet David and I drank when we could in college. It seemed like it was reserved for special times. Maybe not too special, but it wasn’t cheap so we didn’t have it all the time.

I saw it at Stop and Shop last week when I dropped in to pick up some necessities and here it was - an unplanned necessity. I think it was maybe $9 for six of them; now it’s closer to $14. 

After having a couple at the computer I was brought back to times in undergraduate where we talked about great books, great reading, and the art of writing. Ironically, these were all things that I imagined I would be able to do more and more freely as a professor. 

It was a nice nostalgic moment for me to go back to when reading and writing had little institutional purpose and felt a lot closer and meaningful and part of the world. I think that writing and reading were more open-ended at that time in my life and free of institutional purpose. 

There was institutional writing to be sure, many assignments called for it, but it wasn’t the entirety of reading and writing. It was just a slight amount. It really had little to no relationship with the reading and writing I was doing outside of the institution.

But the institution made it possible to do this reading and writing. Visiting the physical library was much more vital in those days but the institutional access to the library is still incredibly vital.

Where did that relationship to writing and reading go? Have I let my institutional association take even that from me through my frustration and disappointment with them? 

Or should I have these beers more often?

Spent a lot of today cleaning up after the winter storm last night.

I am reminded that Buddhist thought considers this kind of work - cleaning up - as a valuable privilege. 

It’s a good opportunity not to just lose yourself in the work or whatever might be the standard Zen idea of it, but it allows the mind to race through thoughts, feelings, and ideas without dwelling on any too long or too little. They simply come and go.

This is how it works for me anyway, not sure if I am doing it right. It might be something antithetical to the practice to think of a right or wrong way. To hover over this conception is perhaps the most antithetical. 

But wondering about the borders and boundaries isn’t bad it’s hanging on to them. So I’m grateful to spend a few hours removing the snow which over time would have removed itself. It’s too funny.