Vulnerability Avoidance Tactics in Everyday Ramblings

Local leaf litter from yesterday evening, I was fascinated by how the backs of the red leaves look almost purple.

Although we had some rain this weekend (and there is more on the way), we also had periods of big skies and clear blue.

My walk this week with Mrs. Sherlock and Frida was flat and residential but still engaging. We were on the lookout for pale autumn crocus and all the early fall colors. There were a couple of gorgeous orange trees that we couldn’t identify. I bet there is an app for that! I also have another student that has a horticultural background we need to take with us sometime.

I think one of my vulnerability avoidance tactics is to stay busy. I am listening to a Dharma talk by Tara Brach on living fully in the river of change that makes up our lives.

But there comes a point when the news is bad enough, difficult enough and work is a mash up of stress and boredom and class is enjoyable but effortful, not the class but all the stuff around the class that one just wears out.

Then you throw jury duty in the mix. I have been dragging my tail feathers this weekend.

Mrs. Sherlock heads off for Wisconsin in the morning and will be gone for a week. Kes and Most Honorable are in Seattle. Miss E. is going to New York on Wednesday to visit a few friends she made at a ACLU training (she turned 17 last month) and to visit a couple of colleges.

All this absence and change for some reason brings up missing Mr. Finch. I was listening to Megan Devine earlier talk about how grief can be something we carry with us throughout our days, our lives and it is okay that it never goes away.

It is the little things I miss, talking about the older golden retriever that lunged and barked at me on a corner this morning and how in his scolding I was afraid the owner was going to hurt the dog.

About the beautiful rich music at church today and how weird it is for a bunch of over-educated mostly privileged white folks to talk about mercy our topic of the month.

Mrs. Sherlock and I talked about mercy yesterday, trying to puzzle it out.

It is like a koan. Drop the idea of it into the brain and let it percolate away in there, steep in the juices of everyday living.

And how troubled I am by all the trash, piles and piles of trash the folks who are living rough around here leave.

This morning I had to laugh because along with the big orange tent and the stolen bikes and shopping cart today I saw next to the freeway bridge I walk over most often someone had dragged a stolen recycling bin.

I doubt the recycling trucks do ad hoc pickup but maybe they were going to wheel it back from whence it came…full?

In jury selection we had to answer a series of questions in open court and one of them was have you ever been a victim of a crime. There was one other woman besides me that had experienced a crime against her person but all the others were property crimes and the defense attorney laughed when we got to the 5th person who has had a bike stolen.

Apparently it is a right of passage here.

Tomorrow I teach my first class back at work in a long while. Wish me luck. And renewed energy.

Last updated October 09, 2017