Long Walks On Leafy Streets

1/26/2015 The Cemetery of Our Lady of the Snow, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
It is another snowy day here in Washington, DC. Not enough to force the closure of schools and offices as many young people and even older ones would have hoped, but enough to leave a fresh carpet of whiteness all over the area. I am just recuperating from a rather busy weekend. Usually I get some rest on Sunday but yesterday I must not have gotten enough because this morning I have been feeling extremely sleepy and lethargic. So I thought I will write this blog before starting work on my research and teaching.
Friday evening I picked up a Honda Insight hybrid that I had rented from Zipcar. I had booked a Prius but that car was unavailable because it needed service and so they changed my reservation. Initially the representative told me they would give me the bigger Toyota Sienna for the same price.
I told him I would rather drive a small hybrid. He must have been thinking I was strange. I hope one of these days caring for the environment becomes the normal way of life in our society. At the same time one must be patient and understanding of the attitudes of people who may not think of the environment as much as we do. There are a lot of causes that I wish I were spending more time on – such as reducing violence, protecting freedom of expression, etc., To each his own. But there are signs of change for the better everywhere when it comes to the environment. Urban planners in cities as varied as Madrid, Spain and Chengdu, China are designing them in such a way that people wouldn’t need to drive a car at all!
I then picked up Nicole from downtown and we went to see the Iranian movie “What’s the time in your world” by debutant filmmaker Safi Yazdanian. I have always enjoyed Iranian movies that evoke a deep mysticism reminiscent of Sufi poetry. We have such filmmakers in India, too, starting with Satyajit Ray. The deliberate, almost meditative pace, the camera lingering over everyday objects to bring out our connection to the world around us, characters being slowly and subtly developed – these are all things that I enjoy. In this movie the director probes the nature of love, our ties to our childhood memories and the transient nature of life itself. As a young woman returns to Iran from Paris after her parents’ death, the Director takes us with her as she tries to seek out the objects, places and the people from her youth. We travel with her through the small town as she explores the fading, moss covered buildings with peeling paint, closed up shops, and the trees and landscape around the town. We are also taken back to her childhood in flashbacks both of her memories as well as the stories of a man who has been loving her from a distance and building a sort of shrine for her in his own mind.
I too often wander around on nostalgia lane although it is better that one lives in the present as much as possible. I wonder about the feelings and memories from my youth, before I met Nicole. We were talking about it last night at the Buddhist Vihara during meditation with the Washington Mindfulness Community. As usual we listened to a recording of Thay (Thich Nhat Hanh) for a few minutes. In last night’s recording he talked about a couple from Vietnam who were married for most of their life, and loved each other so much even in their old age that the husband stopped drinking tea or eating food after the wife died and himself died soon after. Thay discussed the nature of love and life itself. As I grow older and feel the connection with other human beings more deeply, I look with more fondness at the somewhat abstract and emotional love that I felt in my youth. As Thay often says, every feeling, thought and relationship from our life is part of our continuation body, the one which lives after us through our children and others. All the people we have ever loved will always be a part of us, because we are all part of one being.
On Saturday Nicole and I woke up early to prepare for the 10th annual Polar Bear Plunge, a fundraiser for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN). They do excellent work in the areas around the Chesapeake Bay to promote actions that will increase the use of clean energy such as solar and wind power and reduce the consumption of fuels that emit greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane. I went for a short run around 7.30 just after sunrise in the little track around the baseball field near our house. There were still some pools of water on the ground from the previous night’s rain. The temperatures were in the upper thirties but it didn’t feel terribly cold. After a quick breakfast we drove to the National Harbor resort center near the Wilson Bridge. There were about a hundred people from various environmental organizations including the Sierra Club DC chapter. We met some people we knew, made some new acquaintances and listened to some rousing speeches by Mike Tidwell, Director of CCAN, Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Pastor and CEO of the Hip-Hop Caucus and Congresswoman from Maryland Rep. Donna Edwards.
After a quick change into swimming trunks we waded into the cold Potomac waters one by one. Because of the high tide there was no beach to speak of. I dived into the water a couple of times but it was so cold we didn’t stay more than a minute. I have swum in relatively cool beaches, when the water is in the fifty or sixty degree range. It is cold at first but as you swim around your body warms up and you can continue swimming. But when it is in the thirties it feels like you are going to lose control of your body very soon. Anyway I am happy to report that except for some cold feet for the next hour or so I was fine. Nicole cheered me along and took pictures. You can see them by clicking on the little photo at the top left and then clicking on “Pictures.” I have also posted pictures from my aunt and uncle’s visit in the fall.
That evening Nicole was needed a little change of scenery. We used to walk for long distances in the city. Because of her pregnancy we don’t walk that much anymore. Instead I drove her through Rock Creek Park and then on Broad Branch Drive. It was wonderful to drive along the creek glistening in the moonlight with woods all around us.

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