Long Walks On Leafy Streets

2/21/2015 Tuckerman St NW, Washington, DC
It is a very snowy day here in Washington as you can see from the picture. I went for a three mile run around ten in the morning. It had just started snowing then and got more intense during the run. Nevertheless it was enjoyable. I wore double layers of everything. The streets were quiet and the ground especially the asphalt road surface which had been repeatedly treated with salt was clear and easy to run on. I even heard some birds chirping. Wondered what they were doing in this wintry 20 degree weather. How do they stay warm? Birds are amazing. There is a bird nest in the juneberry tree in front of our house and it has pieces of a plastic bag woven into it. I have heard that they also use cigarette butts in their nests and apparently the butts are beneficial in some way.
Yesterday was wonderful, after a couple of weeks that were full of challenges. In the afternoon I read the great news about the extraordinary recovery of our Thay (teacher) Thich Nhat Hanh from a stroke he suffered in November. He seems to be moving, communicating and is even able to swallow food. This news brought tears of joy and gratitude to my eyes. Then in the evening Nicole and I watched a cricket world cup game between Pakistan and West Indies at the newly opened Grand Trunk restaurant near the Archives metro station. You can see a picture of me sitting there on my flickr page. Click on the little photo on the top of this page and then “Pictures.” It is quite a lively place to be in. The Pakistani owners were very friendly. They have named this restaurant after the famous and ancient – over 2300 years old – Grand Trunk Road running from Kabul to Kolkata and passing through Lahore and Delhi along the way. They have put bright lights and wall to wall TV's in the restaurant creating the sense of being in an airport lounge or train station.

It is good to have some rest and relaxation but it is also good to overcome challenges in life. I have found that difficulties, however small, can serve to awaken us from the slumber we sometimes fall into during our everyday life. First, on tuesday of last week my indispensable Macbook Pro refused to work. After much effort I realized that the hard disk has been damaged and it needed a new one. Luckily just the night before I had done my weekly back-up. I am still waiting for the hard disk to be replaced but once that is done I should be able to start where I left off. Although I have the data backed up it did in a way feel a bit like the death of a dear companion. It reminded me of the transient nature of life. That night as I was trying to sleep I realized that our mind itself is in many ways like a computer. There are people who are researching ways to “back up” all the data in our minds so that in case our brain shuts down the mind can be re-created! The next morning I actually woke up fresh and more relaxed. I realized I had been pushing myself too hard and worrying about unnecessary things. In the Gita Krishna tells Arjuna, who had laid down his arms refusing to fight, “wise men do not worry about things from the past or the future.” Often in life we get caught up in our daily struggles and forget that there is more to it, that to God all of this is just a child's play that happens in the blink of an eye. For a brief moment I was reminded of how in the passion of my youthful ambitions I had wanted and tried to become a monk, renouncing worldly life. I am glad I didn't, because I know I was not ready. Besides, as I wrote earlier, renunciation is more about things falling away than being thrown away.

Then on monday of this week the African lady who rents our old house in Columbia Heights called to say that there was no water in the house. The night before the temperature had fallen to record lows and several houses on that block had had their pipes freeze. I went there and got into the crawl space under the house and warmed up the pipes where they come out of the ground with a hair dryer. After trying for about four hours I quit and told her to wait and see if it would come back on tuesday. On wednesday morning she wrote me that it still had not come back. I went to the ACE and Home Depot hardware stores to get something to heat up the pipes. They had run out of electric coils. I asked a friendly Home Depot employee if there was something to blow hot air. He showed me what is called a heat gun. It could heat air up to 1000 degrees F. I went back to the house and spent another couple of hours in the crawl space, moving on my hands and knees in the cold and dark space, heating up the water pipe. This time I opened up the insulation and warmed up the pipe all the way to where it goes into the kitchen. It still didn't work. Leaving the heat gun on near the wall at the base of the pipe I decided to take a (late) lunch break, feeling quite frustrated and hopeless. I would not have walked two blocks before our tenant called me to say the water had come back. I felt a great feeling of relief. Finishing my lunch quickly I went back and put back all the insulation in place, replacing some of it.

That was certainly one of the most mentally and physically taxing things I had done and the fact that I was finally able to restore the water gave a big boost to my confidence. It reminded me of the time I biked up Mount Haleakala in Maui and hiked up Mauna Kea in the big island of Hawaii. There will always be difficulties and challenges in life. It is how one reacts that matters. If we take each moment as it comes without worrying about the past or future and tackle the problem with energy and concentration then challenging times can be a learning and growth experience. Besides, all of life is a gift from God to be enjoyed and lived in service to the world. It is childish to spend too much time worrying about one's own well-being.

Directory Previous