The Big Purr

A cat suffering mortal pain, it is said, will purr loudly. There are scientists studying this, though I'd prefer they didn't; which neural mechanism is firing doesn't matter.

It's that purr - that little piece of what? - I care about.

The context is my mother's post on These Hands of Ours. That's a photo of her pruning a bush. I asked her why she hadn't sent me a picture of her hands with a beautiful bloom, something artistic that speaks to the beautiful gardens she designs. Pruning is the most mundane activity and it seemed too humble for her creative work. What she told me is that humble and mundane is 90% of gardening, and she hopes her photo says that.

What she doesn't say is how she came to her profession. And that's the Big Purr.

When her mother started showing the painful, embarrassing signs of Alzheimer's, my mother, a homemaker who had never pursued a career, decided she would be my grandmother's primary caregiver. With my father's blessing and support, she moved my grandmother to their home in South Florida and dignified the daily care of a woman who was quickly and dramatically losing her ability to function socially.

Day or night, she changed my grandmother's sheets, and then her diapers. She learned to negotiate the quicksand of meals, shopping, car rides. And she survived the heartbreaking moments when my grandmother would look at her, and ask "What am I doing here?"

My grandmother could not be left alone for any significant amount of time. There was a nurse she tolerated well enough for my parents to enjoy Friday "Date Night." And three afternoons each week she very happily sat and ate popcorn with other Alzheimers patients in a local adult day care.

My mother refused to wall herself from her mother's pain. Her relief in a quiet moment was to put on gloves and step into the garden. She and my grandmother, herself an avid gardener, would toodle around the local nurseries. In time, my mother became an expert on tropical plants, and then, following South Florida's climate shift, on the Mediterranean plants that can withstand drought. She became known for her yard.

One day, about five years after moving to my parent's home, my grandmother called my mother from the kitchen where she was fixing lunch, and leaning into her arms, she died.

For a long time, our family talked about my mother's enormous sacrifice. Until then she had led a pretty carefree life. But in taking care of her family and nurturing a lovely home, she had never found her own creative center.

Somewhere in the essential care she gave my grandmother, my mother found the Big Purr. In my view, it was my grandmother's gift back to her.

This is meaningful to me right now. For the first time in my life, I'm panicking about my ability to make a living in a failing financial market. I'm thinking about the Buddhist concept of "Right Livelihood." And it's honestly funny to me, but last Thursday when I started reaching out to women I know and love, I wondered if something hadn't started purring.

Sheridan Crumlish - A Memory

My friend Sheridan Crumlish died.

That was his real name. I asked him once if "Sheridan" was common when he was growing up. No, he told me. "Sheridan Crumlish" was a very difficult name to grow up with.

Here's my first memory of Sheridan Crumlish.

It is March 2002 and the U.S. has just started bombing Iraq. I madly Google the word "peace" and find the Peace Testimony of the Quakers, and this quote from George Fox:

"Walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everybody."

From my yoga practice, I reply "Namaste," and decide to go to a Quaker service.

Sheridan was the first person I heard speak in Quaker Meeting.

The group is sitting in concentric circles of chairs and I'm facing the door. I'm watching a very tall old, old man walk down the long hallway towards the room with a cane. Meeting for worship has begun and the room has shifted to the deep still of common, silent prayer. Sheridan very slowly, carefully shuffles towards us. He is wearing hunter green wide wale corduroys, a white oxford shirt, and navy blazer. He has a bright pink sweater wrapped around his shoulders and a beret. And on his feet are a pair of hand-woven rattan slippers with red pom-poms. As he walks into the room, I can't keep my eyes off the pompoms.

He looks exactly like my grandfather, only unapologetically colorful.

He sits down in an open chair in the inner circle, and settles in for about 10 minutes. He is the first to speak:

"I read in the New York Times this morning that despite U.S. bombing, the fisherman of the Tigris and Euphrates are still fishing this week, exactly as they have done for a thousand years. And somehow this gave me a great deal of comfort."

And somehow that gave me a lot of comfort, and hooked me on Sheridan and Quaker meeting.

Our friendship grew in between bursts of doting attention, and his fiery alcoholism. There was a birthday dinner party for him in his NYC brownstone; a visit to his summer home in Québec for a long Memorial Day weekend; and a winter of Sunday morning phone calls: "Sheridan, I'm going to Meeting and driving by your house. Do you want a ride?"

There were also afternoons in his home with groceries and lunch, and lots of stories about the women, but mostly men, he'd known over the years. He cheered me on even while he dismissed my romantic interests: "Sister - You're pretty, but no Palm Beach. Don't waste your time on the high flyer." I remember one day I was "Brigitte the Irish Chambermaid" while I was in his kitchen making tea for everyone. He was complex and alive, and sometimes just happily rude.

I liked trying to practice my French with him. He spoke four languages and at Northwestern University had tutored, and been engaged to, Nan Robertson, the wonderful New York Times reporter. He had also served as an diplomatic administrator in Europe after World War II. But he told me I had to stop: my accent is terrible and it made him cranky. He was also fussy about the words I used. He would mimic a particularly casual usage and make me stop and rephrase. "Say what you mean," was his abiding command.

He couldn't get to the Met or enjoy NYC the way he'd planned when he bought his brownstone and started renovating it, but one could always find him in his downstairs study on a Saturday afternoon listening to the opera on the radio and reading the New York Times. He spent the winters in NYC making plans for the houses he was renovating in Québec and always had pictures handy.

His interior design style was wabi-sabi, a term I swear I learned from him, but he swore he'd never heard of. Everything in his homes, it seemed, had received some repair and in the Zen aesthetic of wabi-sabi, the care you take to repair something adds to its value and beauty. The porcelain jewelry case that belonged to his mother had been broken and repaired once by her, again by him. It sat prominently in the entrance to his brownstone.

One memorable exception to that was "The Million Dollar Couch" on the second floor of his farmhouse - an enormous couch he'd bought at a design showcase on Long Island- in turquoise velvet. He told me the price. It didn't cost quite a million since he bought the floor model. A crane had to lift it through the picture window to get it into the room and it sat next to his easel and a wide view of neighboring mountains.

It occurs to me that my friendship with Sheridan laid some precious mortar after the end of my marriage. And surely Ashtanga, the Alternatives to Violence Project and blogging are more of that.

From Sheridan I developed a love for old kitchen utensils. His toaster was an Art Deco open-coiled monster from the 1930's that had no On-Off switch - it had to be unplugged to let the coils cool.

Here's his most romantic recipe. He taught it to me in that old farmhouse in Québec, calling directions from his chair in the living room while I executed. It was a lovely gift, and one day I hope to cook it as intended.

"Paris 1948" Take 2 Tablespoons of butter and melt over a low heat. Stir in 1 Tablespoon flour and cook the roux. Add about a teaspoon of curry powder, some tarragon leaves to taste. Then stir in some frozen shrimp that have been melted and dried thoroughly. Pour the curried shrimp over rice, or linguini, or angel hair pasta.

I grew up in an antiseptic Betty Crocker household, as did my mother, and Sheridan was the first cook I knew who left his cheeses out on the farmhouse kitchen table, happily ignoring the line of little ants streaming over the tabletop. Cheese really does taste better at room temperature. And mustard? Buy it dry and mix it as you need it. For a salad dressing - dissolve the salt into the vinegar before mixing in the oil, and make small amounts, you don't need a vat of the stuff. For Sheridan I also learned to mix a martini.

When I last spoke with him in January, a few weeks before he passed, I asked whether he should be returning to Québec in the winter. I didn't need to remind him that I'd pulled him out of his bed one winter in NYC, wet, shivering, naked and on the verge of pneumonia. He was cranky and said he'd be fine. I told him I loved him and was glad he was carrying a new cell phone.

I heard today that he returned to Québec to die - further medical tests when he got home showed that his prostate cancer had completely metastasized into his bones and he could not find a way to get warm. He had apparently been in quite a bit of pain.

His best friend, Richard, adopted his fat dirty cat and says that she actually cleans up nicely in the Québec countryside. We laughed about that today.

And the cemetery near his home granted his desire that a large round boulder be placed on his grave as the only marker, although I understand it split in two when they moved it onto the site. There is no name on it.

A Skunk on my Labyrinth

And some Tantra.

I'm juggling thoughts of Elizabeth Cady Stanton right now, and comfortable shoes, and a thousand other things. But I'll start simply.

Before I do, a friend directs me to Scrum - we're discussing Agile software project management. Googling Scrum is how I begin and that leads me to Rugby 101 on Youtube.

I really had no idea. Rugby is so, obviously, superior to American football. Forgive me Uncle Fielding.

OK, now back to that skunk.

It's sunset when I find my way up Heartbreak Hill to the labyrinth behind the church in my town. I pace the labyrinth as I often do, moving slowly, hands clasped at my heart, smiling a little. At some point I close my eyes, and step thoughtfully along the bricks.

When I open my eyes, there is a skunk in the yard about 20 feet from me.

He is happily rooting in the grass, prancing back and forth, chattering to himself, or so it seems. And a surprised part of me thinks "OH COOL! Here, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty!"

I don't believe I actually said that, but I have no one to ask. It's a slow moment before I realize, as he trots cheerfully towards me, that this creature has the power to make me deeply uncomfortable. In an end-of-the-road kind of flash, I think of all the places I'd be unwelcome if that should happen, and it's time to slowly back away.

What surprises me, though, is that I'm in no way resentful of Mr. Skunk. I don't mind that he disrupted my evening meditation. I understand that he is a skunk and that I lack a basic understanding of how to behave in his presence. I am happy to give him a whole lot of room, and glad I'm wearing sneakers.

If he were a human with the power to make me deeply uncomfortable, I might grapple earnestly with the best approach: kind? humorful? apologetic? stern? etc. I might discuss it with girlfriends, sisters or colleagues; shed tears; lose weight. But a skunk is what it is and it's amazingly easy to be ok with that.

It occurs to me that he is a mighty strong metaphor for some human encounters. You can't ever know what will make someone else feel threatened, or harmed, and you can't predict what their reaction will be. But if you know they're a skunk, really, just stay away because it won't matter to them that you are on your own little labyrinth of life, meditative or prayerful, kind as you may be.

I shared this in Quaker meeting yesterday, surprised to hear it coming from my lips, but several women approached me afterward and told me the message had spoken to them.

I haven't forgotten about Elizabeth Cady Stanton, or my fabulous and very comfortable shoes. I'm just pulling on some threads.

Of course, as women find themselves participating directly in the world economy, a platform designed and operated by men, it's hard not to notice that in many respects women are not especially well-schooled for the emotional and social elements of a good scrum, or skunks at work.

And women are really pretty new to the game. I am sitting at the desk that belonged to Stanton's granddaughter. She graduated in the first class that allowed women students at Cornell's Engineering school and she built this house. And her granddaughter is my landlady.

We may not realize it, but we're at the edge of living memory on the fight for a woman's right to vote, or to own property, or have rights to their children. And I don't believe we're completely whole yet.

In between raising a family of 7 and her marriage to a charismatic and very handsome man whom she adored, Stanton spent a lot of time researching the laws that restricted her. She and her devoted girlfriends tore open the Declaration of Independence and restitched it to include the basic rights of women as human beings.

But it seems to me their work isn't finished until all men are willing to let women in the game, and are ready to play by some new rules that may include fashion-forward and very happy shoes. I wonder what Stanton would think of my shoes?

That's pretty simplistic, I know. And maybe it's even more simplistic - or just blissfully simple - to understand that some of them are skunks doing their best to make you uncomfortable, and some of them may have a great pair of rugby shorts in the closet. I'm surely not the first to notice.

Now, I've promised a tantrika meditation so I will do it. I hate to keep reminding, but this is not about sex.

I was given permission to teach this but have only ever shared it with someone I adore. How does it fit in? Well, isn't it the basic care we give each other, the honest observation of another's well-being, that allows us to progress on this planet? So this is a healing meditation.

Let me warn you that personally I find it so lovely and relaxing that it puts me to sleep. Maybe you'll be sitting, or lying down when you try it.

Close your eyes and start to listen to your breath. Feel it lift your belly, your ribcage, your collar bones, and feel it release. Give yourself a few minutes to let your breath relax and soften.

On an inhale, when you feel like it, begin to say or think the word, "Sa", and as you exhale, "Om".

"Sa"... "Om"... This is a very old bij mantra.

On your next "Sa", imagine a bright, soothing light entering your body at the base of your spine, rising up through the vertebra with your breath, up to the very crown of your head.

And as you return your breath, with the word "Om", allow the light to drop back down your spine. Visualize the light slowly moving up and down your spine, and breathe.

"Sa" and "Om".

And smile.

So Here ...

It would surprise him to know that not only do I remember every word he has ever spoken in my presence, I also recall the inflections and resonance of his voice, the whisper of breath between his words, the rise of his chest against his shirt. All of it. And every so often those memories shock me out of sleep, or whatever else I'm doing, into deep alertness.

It is too early for Friends Meeting when I wake up this morning, so I am catching up on email. I see that Jim Dwyer, the New York Times reporter, has written about a play that features four ex-convicts whose lives were transformed by Quaker prison ministry and the Alternatives to Violence Project that evolved from that ministry. Jim's article is being circulated among the Quaker email lists I subscribe to.

I have followed Jim's work off and on for a long time. There are many reasons to read whatever he is writing: the Pulitzer committees have thought so a couple of times. It's worth digging out the New York Newsday columns that won him that award in 1995. They are so beautiful. He was also a very good friend when I was publishing a community newspaper. I'm a big fan.

In effort to catch up with Jim and his work, I scroll through his recent articles. I see he wrote about the Yeats exhibit at the National Library of Ireland. One item on display is a notebook Jim calls the "metaphysical marriage bed" of Yeats and Maud Gonne. I'm switching between Jim's article and this page. I think I'll let you read it. I'm dumbfounded.

I'm going to clean up around here and go find Kumiko.

When I have climbed the giant rock to their home, I knock and Kumiko invites me into her kitchen. I see sushi rice that is shiny and sticky in a big bowl on the counter. She has arranged ingredients with the plan to teach me to the best way to roll tuna, an inside-out roll, and an over-stuffed roll. From Kumiko, I learn about mixing powdered wasabi, finding the freshest sushi fish, and the best way to serve sushi if you're having guests.

She and Hoshi are so lovely. And their home, because she is a photographer and he a graphic designer, is full of many beautiful images they have collected and created. As I leave she gives me her card so we can keep in touch - on it is a photograph she took of a local beach.

At home I frame her card and put it next to the jar of beach glass. I really must add a speckled rock.

Sushi Prayers Redux

It's still being answered, apparently, this sushi prayer of mine.

My Japanese neighbor, Hoshi, was sweeping away the bamboo leaves on his driveway early this morning. I was headed off to the Fairway market in Manhattan with my list of sushi ingredients. While Hoshi and I agree that leaf blowers stink, we have rarely stopped to talk.

Hoshi and his wife, Kumiko, however, stand out in this town of tall blonds. I distinctly recall the day last year when I saw this petite Japanese couple, with their shocking salt-n-pepper hair, first at Balducci's, then again at Whole Foods, and then, surprisingly, unpacking their groceries as I rounded the corner to my home.

It was just too much for my sense of "Now how do you like that?!" and I stopped to introduce myself.

This morning I decide to ask Hoshi where to go for sushi ingredients. I know Fairway will have some of them, but Mitsuwa market, the large Japanese superstore that used to sit across the Hudson from Fairway, has closed. Hoshi tells me to visit Fujimart, and gives me directions just a few exits away. And he invites me to "Come over any time" because his wife is an expert sushi roller.

Of course, I learned the basics from Jan last weekend, but the thought of having an expert Japanese sushi roller show me how is wonderful. And being invited into my neighbors' home is very wonderful. But even as I thank him cheerfully and agree that I will come, I start feeling a little shy because what, exactly, does "Come over any time" mean in a Japanese home? Hoshi must see this because he emphasizes "Really, come over any time. Just come." And points up his steps.

At Fairway I pick up toasted nori leaves, a small bottle of rice vinegar, and, among the arborio, jasmine, and basmati rices, a small bag of sushi rice. But I am missing the ginger, wasabi, and bamboo sushi roller, and will need to make the trip to Fujimart.

When I get home from Fairway, Hoshi and Kumiko are hauling bamboo stalks into the back of their black SUV to bring to the town dump. I decide to test the waters with Kumiko and so I stop and show Hoshi the toasted nori leaves. Again he tells me that Kumiko is an expert at rolling sushi and I should come by any time and let her show me. Now it's Kumiko who looks a little worried, and maybe a little overwhelmed in her big garden gloves and a car full of tree cuttings.

And while I thank him kindly and agree that I will come, I also decide it won't be today since Kumiko clearly has her hands full. Kumiko's English is not great, and I speak no Japanese, so this may be stressful for her despite anyone's best intentions. And I wonder if she is lonely, isolated as she is by language and culture.

Instead, I board the ferry and spend the afternoon on Great Captain's Island.

There is a spot on this quiet island that I have found luxurious and fairly isolated in the past, so as the other ferry passengers bear left along the sandy path to the BBQ sites, I go right, threading along the high water line of stones and seaweed.

The sun is bright, the wind lively. There is a trio of deeply tanned older women gathering shells in the crook of the beach ahead of me and so I stop and spread out my towel. It's actually not a towel, I suppose. It's one of the hand woven lunghis sold in government shops in south India. Gandhi, in his exploration of simplicity, urged people to weave their own lunghis, and this particular design speaks to that aesthetic.

Shall I keep going, and tell you about the Oregon woman and the kildeer nest? It was all part of such a lovely day.

I know it was a kildeer fussing at me the last time I sat in this spot because she made such a racket, and was so obviously unhappy with me, that I went home and pulled out a bird book.

Today another woman walks by the shell hunters and heads towards me on the beach. As she passes, she stops to show me a spotted rock in her hand. She tells me it's about the color and size of a kildeer egg. The last time she was in this area, walking along the stones, she looked down to see three large spotted eggs that looked just like the rocks they were sitting among.

It's funny, I also combed the rocks the last time I walked along that beach, but what I saw and collected was lots of beach glass. This woman saw the kildeer nest.

She's hoping to find that nest again if she can, and I'm quietly hoping I didn't step on them. We talk for a few minutes, I tell her about the kildeer momma and my assumption that she would have nested in the grass. She tells me how she watched the bird climb back onto the eggs. And she tells me she's from Oregon. I notice in our bikinis, that we share the choppy tans of women who mostly stay out of the sun.

And with a large smile, she wanders off again looking for the nest.

A few minutes later the Oregon woman is standing at the end of the island, shouting. I round the corner with her and follow her to a tidal pool where she points out for me the kildeer and three baby kildeers racing back and forth along on the mud. She laughs and says she feels somehow connected to this little family.

And so we part. And in the deepening afternoon of the ferry ride home I wonder if I should have added a spotted stone to my beach glass collection, and then I wonder how many reminders I need to stop collecting things.

Tomorrow I will go see Kumiko.

The Sushi Prayer

I picked up a little book of sushi recipes last week and sat with it one evening, imagining how good it would feel to invite friends over to learn to roll sushi with me. I thought of ingredients, a guest list, music, how far from the wall I'd need to move my drop-leaf dining table. Sitting still with a little piece of your imagination, I find, can be a potent form of prayer.

Now, my dear friends Jan and Kobi are the only people I know who make sushi at home - vegetarian, given the danger in handling and eating raw fish at home. It's a family tradition of theirs. But Jan and Kobi live in upstate New York and I've seen them rarely over the last 25 years. We've watched and listened as each others' lives have unfolded and refolded, but mostly from a distance.

Here's how my sushi prayer was answered: A phone call from Kobi as he sailed through the Sound to Nantucket on his Val trimaran. An invitation to come up to Tulgey Wood. An invitation: "Gillian says come right now" - Friday night.

And Saturday, as it happened, because the avocados were ripe, became sushi night in the Great Tulgey Wood of Nantucket. It was the first time since 1992 that I've spent time in one of the wonderful camps founded by Gillian Butchman or her mother, Helen "Hellcat" Lamb.















That's Jan starting the process - sushi rolls for 80 people - 60 mates and 20 buckaloos.















Sushi 101: If you've grown up in an institution because of some limitation or another, there's a very good chance you won't know what wasabi is ... That's Kobi demonstrating the "little pinch" to Jeremy, and Gillian behind them.



















Rotate this 90 degrees and you'll see my view Sunday morning in Downward Facing Dog.














Motorcross Racing 101: Will giving a tutorial on Motorcross racing to a group before going out to a bar in town to watch the race.














The simple cedar shake architecture of Nantucket is a legacy of the Quaker settlers. Roof walks, for instance, were considered ostentatious.

Here's a wonderful blog on Tulgey Wood:

http://web.mac.com/pauric_ocallaghan/iWeb/TulgeyWood/Welcome.html

Yemaya's Son

The oyster shells went out as planned, wrapped in strong paper, blustery kiss, all the year of embraces. A week later I'm certain Yemaya was listening, but wish I'd been a little more clear.

It's brunch at Elephant & Castle in Greenwich Village. Sitting next to me is the poet Yusef Komunyakaa, a child of the Louisiana delta and African diaspora. And as Kasha's hand brushes Yusef's, the ache for sweet touch is on both Jill and my faces. Jill and I have been friends since childhood and at this point we are again listening to the other's trouble-with-men blues.

We've mindlessly, thoughtlessly, teased Yusef that his Polish wikipedia entry is so short, since he is dating his Polish translator. But now the conversation has moved on to Faulkner's narrative structure. And Yusef, in his quiet way, mentions that Faulkner published an early book of verse called Helen and wonders if the fluidity of voice in his novels are informed by his poetry.

And the spoken nature of poetry comes up. How else to understand the golf course in The Sound and The Fury, and the haunt of the name Caddie, if you've not said it outloud?

Robert Pinsky has an elegant book called The Sounds of Poetry.

Poetry is a vocal, which is to say a bodily, art. The medium of poetry is a human body: the column of air inside the chest ... The reader's breath and hearing embody the poet's words. This makes the art physical, intimate, vocal, and individual.

Yemaya, am I wrong to miss his voice? I've got quotes, snips here and there that someone else has heard. What if I were to repeat them outloud, or put them in lines and punctuate? In private?

My voice was always unreliable around him. It took thought, mental lines and punctuation, to utter the simplest hi. And then he said hello.

In the meantime, a few cherished hours with the girls and Yemaya's son, a man of brilliance, artistic audacity and a book called Talking Dirty to the Gods that I reshelved quickly at the public library when I saw the cover.

It was beautiful, Yemaya, really, a wonderful morning, but, oh pretty please, that's not him.

Collecting Waves

On this fine day I am collecting shells to send to that man. I sent one from another part of the world a while back and come to find out he went to that beach, or somewhere close to it.

Now, I can't honestly say that he got the first shell, I should really check under my desk or in a drawer. So I can't say his trip to the beach is related, but I'm refining my strategy and I will send him oyster shells from the beach under my window. I could use the blessing of Yemaya, the African delta goddess, and Yemaya loves oysters.

My neighbor David is sitting in our yard next to the water. He's watching sailors in thick weather gear race their bathtub boats. It's a warm day but I'll guess the splash of that water is not warm at all.

David says it's his wife who collects shells around the world. He tells me he collects waves and when I realize he is being poetic, I also realize he is talking about surfing.

My sister was the surfer in our family until she read somewhere that every single surfer has had at least one brush with a shark. She is vain and would not consider a sport that could leave her armless or legless. Now she keeps a picture of a shark in a huge wave as her screensaver and as a reminder to her sons that neither of them is allowed to surf, either.

David tells me he won a surfing contest 20 years ago in Nantucket for riding a few long curls in a headstand. He was in his 60's at the time. He'd consider surfing again, he goes on, but probably give up the headstand trick.

The thing in surfing, and in sailing, he tells me, is to listen to the nuances that carry your craft. So much like life, I think, heading as I am into a long week of interviews.

I could sit with him all day, but in flipflops, my enthusiasm for this early spring afternoon is giving way to a chill. I leave David and climb the steps remembering I must dry the shells before I mail them.

Travelers

I would not have seen him last night had Suvisa not gotten on the elevator next to me after work. I would not have gotten to zazen before the zendo doors shut. And I would not have found myself walking down Park Avenue afterwards.

She left the elevator galloping. But instead of running all the way to the train, which I would have missed, I was lifted by this tiny Thai zephyr to a shuttle bus that set us neatly under the arriving platform. Suvisa informed me, in very short order, that we have probably been friends for a very long time: many lives and more. Maybe Thais talk like that.

A little bit about Suvisa: she's in her 20's, has finished her PhD in Tokyo on foreign exchange valuations, has visited 44 countries, 35 of the United States, is on national teams in a couple of competitive realms. And, she plays those really big Japanese drums. As she herself is not so big I think this must be quite a sight.

I learned much more though because she's a talker, and she talked all the way to Grand Central. And, to be fair, I asked her lots about herself and her dreams and her Buddhism.

And, as my friend for many lifetimes, who realized that maybe she had only 45 minutes to reconnect, to share some goodness until our next visit in some upcoming lifetime, she also gave me some things to think about. About change and love and parents and success and sadness, and her trip to Japan in April for the cherry blossoms.

And she gave me a Buddhist image that is very important to her.

She held her hand out as we sat on the rocking Express, and said "Imagine I am holding a very sharp rock in my hand. If I squeeze the rock very hard, what will happen to my hand? And if I let the rock go what happens? I am the only one who can control whether I squeeze or let go. You have to let things go. There's no point in squeezing the rock."

There was more, but not mine to say.

Taking up with someone, a stranger, sharing a conversation, a train ride, is not something commuters often do. When we travel, though, we're much better at gathering experiences, connections, thoughts - taking pictures for the family websites, and noticing the moments we'll talk about at the water cooler.

But Stamford is my Paris this year. I get strange looks when I say that, but I'm quite serious. Absent any real means to travel, I have decided to enjoy the explorer's mindset in my own neck of the woods, and in the people immediately around me.

The dharma talk after zazen was about how physics can map stuff that is of neither space nor time and while we sit zazen and focus on each immediate moment we paradoxically tap into the placeless and timeless that we are so essentially of. And how love does the same thing. I was not taking notes, but I think that's what he said.

With Suvisa's words ringing my head and zazen embracing my shoulders, I walked back to Grand Central. And I thought I saw him on Park Avenue. And somehow, without letting go of my love, which I could no more do than I could release myself from my soul, I released the strain associated with that love.

And that actually lasted deep into the next morning near my third cup of coffee. But it's not lost on me that I have no business being in love with this man. That's the crazy part. We've shared no more than an hour-and-a-half on some bar stools a couple of years ago in a foreign city. Strike that. He was 20 minutes late. We shared an hour and 10 minutes sum total.

I think we both would like to have shared more. And so this path of mine keeps curling over his. Maybe he is someone else I have known over many lifetimes. And maybe I recognize him in this lifetime by that look on his face.

Kitchen Buddhas

I am on a tear tonight, baking pan after pan of brownies. I'm using Katherine Hepburn's recipe, which is quick and easy, and always a crowd-pleaser. To some I've added cherries for a friend who loves Cherry Garcia ice cream. Some have walnuts. Some will be plain. These are Thank You So Much brownies, so the intention is as important as the chocolate.

There isn't much room for baking in this little studio, but a pie pan doubles as a brownie pan and a vegetable roasting pan and it works just fine. In my last home I had a big old kitchen with a door that opened to the backyard and to a larger field beyond. I did quite a bit of baking there. I found an entry from that kitchen recently in one of my cookbooks.

Honey-Graham Muffins June 19 2005 Made in a bread pan (9x5x3) ~ 50 minutes There were children in the field tonight as I baked. Running around with flashlights I could see flicker out beyond the backyard. They said their good nights after much pleading by their mothers to come inside. As I tasted the last of my breads, they went in. Blessed apparitions. Kitchen Buddha thank you.

I didn't know the neighbors yet: I was only a few months away from my marriage, city apartment, and friends. But I was holding on to some pieces of my previous life and that day was the third anniversary of my vegetarian practice. Each year in celebration I've bought a cookbook of some vegetarian cuisine. Those I love best are part travel, part culture, part food. In 2005 I found 3 Bowls: Vegetarian Recipes from an American Zen Buddhist Monastery.

The particular monastery, the Dai Bosatsu Zendo in Livingston Manor, New York, has a second home on 67th Street and, in the lovely way that paths bend back on themselves, I was invited to spend New Year's Eve there this year, sitting zazen for the very first time.

I can't say that I recognized Zen from the cookbook - it had been a long time since I'd opened it. What actually prepared me for the string of five meditation sessions on New Year's Eve was from a different lineage, Shunryu Suzuki's book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. I happened to have it on my bookshelf and grabbed it on my way to the train, thinking it would do in a pinch.

Some people will know Suzuki as the first major Zen teacher in America. He started the Zen Center in San Francisco in the early 1960's, and Greens Restaurant a little later on.

My copy of the book has a handwritten inscription from 1976 "J.P. - Moment after moment everyone comes out from nothingness. This is the true joy of life." Happy Birthday - Love, Linda. I don't know Linda, maybe you do.

Suzuki talks about sitting like a frog. A frog sits in a state of tranquil awareness so it can be ready to grab a passing insect. A frog doesn't think "Here I am sitting zazen - I am aware; I am tranquil". The frog just sits. And that is zazen.

So I sat like a frog. No, honestly I sat thinking about sitting like a frog, but also enjoying my great fortune to be sitting in the beautiful zendo on 67th Street. And when my mind wandered from the exquisite, hand-carved floor tiles immediately in front of me, and the caring stillness of the air around me, I quietly sent love and prayers to my family and friends celebrating the New Year across this country and others.

Sitting zazen may seem like an austere way to start the year, but the practice of meditation is so appreciative and robust, so life-affirming, that I was a little sad when the last session ended. After a midnight bell ceremony there was an exuberant meal - enormous platters of vegetarian sushi rolls, Japanese stews, sake, traditional New Year's noodles, all under a gigantic brass Buddha statue. It was wonderful.

It's getting late and pans of brownies are crowding my countertop. I'd put them outside to cool except for a couple of fat raccoons wintering in my yard on the harbor. And I'm really looking forward to delivering the brownies tomorrow and saying Thank you ever so much for your kindness. You've helped in ways you cannot know.