Musings

June 22nd, 2006

I’m in Sighnaghi, I may never leave. The grapes are growing, I’ve trimmed the grapevine, and I’m sitting under the green leaves, the sunlight filtering down. Orange tiger lilies have stained my shorts on the butt and crotch, the pocket too. I’ve tried to wash, to no avail. White roses bloom by the stairs, which still need new cement. But gradually the house takes new shape. Water we lacked last night, but today it is here, and the kitchen sink drain was full of workman’s gravel and plaster. What a mess they left, I am helpless before the garbage and dirt. Garbage and dirt will always be here, this is a lesson in zen. Begin somewhere, end nowhere, just the beginning and the continuation. Last night at supra I said sweet words to John W. and Shergil, saying how much I looked up to both of them, how I emulate qualities they carry. Shergil toasted to happiness, not only of our own, but of the understanding of other’s perceptions of happiness. I like that toast. I told Shergil it makes me most happy when I can help my friends, to know that they are well and living well. To know that I can help them, and be helpful in this world. I am feeling alone in the world these days. I have very few people with whom to talk deeply about the world. I want to share my experience, my life, my joys, and secrets. I want to hear those same things from others, and to know that other people are living fully conscious. I am dreaming, and talking in my sleep. So they said last night, my guests, chiding me in the morning for blurting out words like ‘isera’ ‘modi’ and other inane words in Georgian. I sleep deeply and do not remember. Reality is changing rapidly, and I am adrift at the moment. Re-centering may be in the grapes. It may be in singing.