Like Words Together Reflections from the deep end of Practice.

1Jul/080

I don’t want to write boring entries

My Tuesday evening yoga class was filled with four new students, one completely new to yoga; eight total signed up. I found that the community center had not adequately alerted students that the class started a week later, fortunately no one seemed too upset over the confusion. So far my Sunday class has been very small, only three people registered with some drop-ins showing up. Usually the Tuesday class is that way.

Although my back had been aching after the drive the past couple of days I was pleased to find my energy somewhat improved for tonight's class. It helped that I've worked from home the past two days. Tonight's class was more energetic than Sunday's because I was feeling better.

I restarted a blog in part to put travel narratives, restaurant reviews, and that sort of thing somewhere and the LiveBlog application on Facebook was not working for me. I also thought it would be a good way to try to get back to keep a journal. I'd been doing pretty well for a few months last year, but as spring progressed and my family grew to include my relationship with CK, I find it harder and harder to write in my journal. I thought perhaps putting it in a blog, which allows me to type would encourage me since I type very quickly.

However tonight I found myself as resistant to writing again as I did going to meetings again. It isn't as if I still want to be away from the routine of my life, there were many things about that routine I was missing last week up in Canada. I believe I resist writing sometimes because I have nothing interesting to say about my day. I like to write about things when I find them interesting or at the very least, entertaining. It is the daily humming and drumming that is hard to get back to, the tedious underpinnings of living.

I'd like to be interesting but there's laundry to be done, vacuuming is desperately needed, the cats need claws trimmed, somehow I'd like to fit in making baked treats for the Fourth of July out at the monastery, I'll be at CK's tomorrow night, then zazen with a meeting for the refugee outreach beforehand, I'm supposed to chant after service on Thursday & I'm terrified inside, I have a therapy appointment Thursday... And I'm not even giving thought to all the tasks on the work list that have come back into play or the rather busy weekend ahead of us.

Details rushing around. The white-noise of how life gets lived. On holiday or retreat you either have none of those details because you're outside of the routine on holiday or in retreat you have a very specific routine that takes care of all details so the mind can be empty of them. And I don't find them all the most interesting things... I can certainly pick out the things I find most interesting on that list and I'd really like to let all the work, chore, tasks lists fall to the side so I can focus on those, but life needs to be lived (which is another way of noting that there's a mortgage to pay, etc.).

So maybe that's why I don't want to journal sometime. I feel I've got nothing to say but the mundane lists that buzz around in my head, that I have to settle again and again. The routine of writing a journal becomes just another item on just another list and when I am not actively entertained on some level by the task, I don't want to do it.

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30Jun/080

Returning to Routine

Today I have been finding it interesting to observe how I chafe a bit at returning to my routine. Given the high level of anxiety traveling causes me, getting ready to go & the initial journey, I'd think that I should welcome the return to the routine. Yet I found myself feeling a little bit of irritation at the play of emails and meetings.

It isn't that I still want to be on holiday. I was wanting to get back to yoga classes, Zazen, tasks around the house & garden -- but to get back to my job today was challenging. Chafe is the right word. Like I was rubbing psychically against the routine of it, the ever growing task list, the talk of the contract negotiations in August, just the usual stuff.

My strengths lie not in the usual stuff of my job although those day-to-day tasks provide excellent practice for cultivating patience, compassion, deep listening, and even just the practical organization of tasks. So very useful just not always compelling. I've felt like I've ended up at this place due to skill, but not on purpose. I'm doing what I happen to have good aptitude for, not what I actually feel I should be doing.

I told my teacher once that I didn't feel very connected with the Dharma in what I do to make a living. Not that I feel that I'm working in a path that is unethical, I just do not feel as connected as I'd prefer to be. I said when I teach a handful of beginners how to do yoga I feel that connection deeply. Of course that's obvious and he immediately pointed out to me however remote, my job did connect me to people in important ways.

After some interesting discussions with CK and AM I think I can see this differently. I feel deeply connected to the Dharma when I am with yoga students because I am teaching. I do not have nearly the opportunities to teach in my career and that's why I feel the lack of connection.

This is something I am somewhat aware of and have discussed with my manager, but it isn't something that much can be done for. Although she would like to move me to doing more coaching and project management, I'm really needed to keep doing the programming that often leaves me feeling somewhat drained. The atmosphere has tension to it with many recent, downsized retirements, inter-team conflicts & personal clashes, and every couple of years two summers with contract negotiations in August. Yes, excellent practice for being with things just as they are.

I think that feeling of resistance in getting back to the job routine is having spent a week away spending time on building the foundation my relationship with CK by traveling together for the first time. She is full of encouragement and determination that a path to my becoming a teacher as my career. She and AM both know that what I do now is important, but not what I really should do with the rest of my life. To move back to the early, slow, boring steps is what chafes a bit.