Long Walks On Leafy Streets

1/8/2017 Rock Creek Park, Washington, DC
This morning was exceptionally cold. Certainly we have had temperatures in the 20s (Fahrenheit) here before but it felt very cold because the previous few days were quite warm. Washington, DC has always been a very capricious place when it comes to weather. Because it is in between the tropical and the arctic regions, we alternate between cold, windy weather and warm, wet weather depending on where the air is coming from. Now with the disruption of the climate due to our activities the fluctuations have become even larger.

I was walking to the Takoma metro station in order to take the train to a Friends Meeting in Bethesda. I have long been an admirer of the Quakers. Nicole went to a Friends school in Philadelphia. Richard Brady, of Quaker background and a teacher at the Sidwell Friends School for a long time, founded the Washington Mindfulness Community. I love the work Quakers do to promote peace and prevent war.
So it has long been our desire to go to one of the Friends meetings. When a good friend Zamin sent an invitation to an interfaith gathering at the Bethesda Friends meeting house I wanted to try to go. Since they didn’t have childcare Nicole decided to stay home with Prashant. I met Zamin at a meditation gathering of the Washington Mindfulness Community. He has been organizing interfaith gatherings for the past two years, an effort I believe is very important for these turbulent times.

For the first five minutes or so I was busy just keeping my fingers warm. But then the marathon training kicked in and I started walking briskly, adjusting my attitude to deal with the discomfort and enjoying the increased heart rate and heavier breathing. I was even able to take in the beauty of the first coat of snow on the winter landscape.

Another reason my body was struggling with the cold was that I was just recovering from a bout of stomach flu. I was lucky there were no classes this week. Tuesday morning I woke up with stomach cramps and then doubled over in the bathroom spilling all the contents from my stomach. The whole day was spent going to and from the bathroom like that and I could not eat anything all day. Luckily it only lasted a day and although it took me until today to get to eating normally I could go through my daily routines starting Wednesday.

This happens once every year or two. I work my body and mind until they reach a state of exhaustion and then I catch a flu or something like that and then it forces me to rest. I must say, though, that the stomach flu really got me down. This was my first time at least as far as I can remember and have to say it earned my respect. I had to stop running, something I never do even when I have the flu. It also incapacitated me for a whole day. But on the positive side it cleaned out my alimentary system and I fasted for two days, albeit involuntarily. I also rested completely in terms of my work. All I did was to take care of Prashant when Nicole was absent. So it was a purifying and refreshing experience for the body and the mind.

The Friends meeting went well. I really enjoyed it and the people that I met. While going to the meeting I was looking at the city with some melancholy worrying about what would happen to the country under the new administration. But on the way back I felt better about everything as I watched the city roll by me. It is always good to spend time with kindred spirits. Knowing that there are others who think and feel the way you do and who care for each other is uplifting for the spirit. As the Buddhists say, we need the refuge of the Sangha in order to follow the path of the Dharma.

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