Several of you have asked how we are doing with our move so I’ve composed this report. This past half-year has been a major transition. We sold our “homestead” of thirty years (13 acres in oak woodland with chickens and 6000 sq. ft. of gardens and barn cats and a dog) and down-sized into a 900 sq. ft. senior apartment in a small city (Chico). I was unprepared for how disorienting this would be. It’s not horrible; it’s mostly a brain fog. All the routines and givens and orientations that unconsciously shaped each day that I had taken for granted for decades are gone and I try, consciously, making my way through each day without landmarks or sense of direction. My writing energy occasionally sputters to life but is usually lost.
Gradually, however, Chico becomes our place. Major streets become known and routes develop. Daily routines of dishes and trash and where the pans and bowls are kept become established. New resources like twice-weekly, close-at-hand farmers’ markets nuzzle their way into our weekly schedules. Medical and automotive services have been set up.
The area around us is zoned for senior living. Each Monday starts with the sound of two-stroke engines of mowers and blowers as landscape teams do the senior center across the street. Every day, older folks walk their small dogs. Two or three times a week, the paramedics arrive for someone. Before sunrise, I start a 20 minute round-trip walk down to a reservoir at the base of the foothills and back. I nod and wave to the other early morning walkers.
A memory arose: dancing in the cemetery. In high school, we’d dance in cemeteries – because we were Young, full of Life and Energy, exultant to dance in the presence of Death. Intending no disrespect, we celebrated being Here! Now! This is our time to be Alive. Others had had their time. Now it was Our Time!
Why did that memory arise during my morning walk? After a couple of days, I came to think of that memory and my morning walks as bookends. They mark and contain my awareness of my place within Time. As teenagers, we were just beginning to feel our heroic arrival on a great stage that had been set by those who went before. As a pre-teen, that larger awareness did not yet exist. But as I grew into my teens, I grew conscious of living within history.
My morning walks now arise from a different place within Time. Our exit from the stage of Now draws closer. Frailty reduces us – unless we keep moving. Unlike our teen inchoate celebratory urge to dance in the presence of death, our lives have now given us enough direction and experience to know a fundamental truth: Keep walking.
“Life is short” goes the cliche, “so live it to the full.” As I age, I disagree. Life is larger than we realize. Within its bounds, it possesses so much surface area for unexpected chapters to nestle, more than I was ever aware of.
On one of these morning walks, I came upon a significant clutter of picnic litter near the water so I picked it up. As I carried it back towards a garbage can, a pair of passing walkers thanked me for picking up the litter.
“You’re welcome,” I replied. Then, after a pause, “My pleasure.”
But as I thought about that, it’s not really my pleasure. I’d be more pleased if there was no litter to pick up. “My pleasure” wasn’t the right phrase. After a minute’s thought, “My seva” would have been the more appropriate thing to say.
I thought about “seva” during the rest of my walk. I had been told that “seva” is the Sanskrit word for “selfless service to God.” But now that I’m thinking about it, is that its actual meaning? So I looked it up. “Selfless service to God” was the first definition but it had another, slightly different, meaning that I like more. Selfless service to the Work. The Work is that which uplifts one’s society and the world. It might feel good but that’s not why one does it. One does it because it’s the right thing to do. The Work is what makes the world work. It’s what the world needs to be a place that can inspire and support spiritual growth in all.
Chico Community Observatory
Chico has a community observatory! How great is that? I couldn’t believe it. So I checked it out – and now I volunteer there. People can come look through telescopes for free every cloudless weekend evening.
My biggest delight is the response of the community. Every open evening, thirty or forty people come. Parents with their kids are the biggest but not only group. Small groups of young people old enough to drive, checking out their universe. People stopping by for the first time; people who come back again and again. We converse, sometimes for 10 to 30 minutes; we stitch their telescope experience into a greater understanding of this Place we’re within. The other volunteers are also sharing their unique knowledge and passions. The observatory often feels like an academy for all ages. These changes in our energy makes this my Happy Place.
I’m taking an intro. astronomy course to expand my understanding. I took Astronomy 101-102 in college 55 years ago – but there were no Voyager satellites (they’re still going) back then. No theories of black holes, dark matter or dark energy. The universe of astronomy has expanded so much in the last decades.
And then there is also Chrysalis. I am teaching there every Tuesday. I did not want to lose my connection with kid energy. Now I have to drive 150 miles round-trip but it is worth it. I thrive when I help kids light up with understanding.
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