Long Walks On Leafy Streets

10/17/2013 Roosevelt Island, Washington, DC
So we are finally out of this strange thing called government shutdown. It feels like things are back to normal here in Washington, D.C. Although neither Nicole nor I were affected, if it had lasted a few days longer the D.C government would have shut down because they need permission from Congress to spend the money they raise.
I had a three-day weekend this time because Monday was Columbus Day. Sometime during the day I happened to see a show on HGTV about a real estate agent in L.A. Nicole likes watching shows on HGTV and so when I turned the TV on this show was on. After watching for a few seconds my curiosity was piqued and I watched the entire episode. Part of my interest was due to the location of the show in the San Gabriel valley.
My five years at Caltech located in Pasadena in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains was one of the happiest and cherished periods of my life.
Anytime I think about it a wave of nostalgia sweeps over me. I went into Google maps and did a virtual tour of the neighborhood where I lived for a year. I had rented a room in the house of an old lady named Roberta Ridley. From my room on Chester Ave near the corner with Villa St I could see the Argentina market. Chester Ave itself was quiet and tree lined. I would often walk or bike uphill on Chester Ave all the way to Altadena and then further up on Hill Ave to a trail that went up the mountain.
Through googling I learned that this house was sold by Ms. Ridley’s daughter in 2006 and that she died in 2008. All of this was just a one line piece of data on some website. Ms. Ridley was quite a character and I might write about her and my time in that house in a future blog.
Every time someone that you knew dies, someone that impacted your life enough to remain fresh in your memories, it awakens you to the true nature of life. We are nothing but brief waves in the ocean of existence. What will remain of us? What will remain of a wave in the ocean? Is the wave's existence in vain, then? A wave in combination with other waves changes the nature of the ocean and the beings living in it and shapes the shores that surround the ocean. In that sense every being as part of the ocean of life has a part in shaping and moving the universe along. Yet ultimately the life of the universe itself is, in another time scale, a wave in the ocean of existence. There may be other parallel universes, and existence itself may go through many cycles of creation and death in the form of the big bang and gradual dissolution. Perhaps it is a fruitless and vain desire of ours to seek meaning and purpose in our existence. Or perhaps understanding the nature of existence itself is the meaning and purpose. In a few hundred years we will be just pieces of data stored somewhere, if at all. Such is the nature of life.
In the evening we went for a walk through Takoma Park. We walked for over an hour in the quiet streets and the fading light of dusk. We have become quite fond of our neighborhood and enjoy these walks very much. Some day I will look back on these days and this neighborhood with the same nostalgia that I look back on my life in Pasadena, CA. If only one could somehow crystallize memories and relive them! I guess the beauty of life is that all things pass. If not, we may not cherish them the way we do.

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