Long Walks On Leafy Streets

11/23/2014 Tuckerman St NW, Washington, DC
Yesterday my parents left for my sister Jayashree’s place after 10 weeks at our place. They will stay with her and my other sister Hema for some time. There are always tensions when dealing with older parents but lately things have been quite smooth. I decided to stop arguing with them about anything because I realized that they are just too old and set in their ways. Funny how much easier things get when you stop resisting or fighting, as Eckhart Tolle mentions in “A New Earth.” Suddenly things started getting easier and there was love all around.
I stopped worrying about things I cannot change and that opened up the mind to see and appreciate the things I love about them. I realized that I get my zest for the simple pleasures in life from my father. My mother said that when she was pregnant with me she would do a lot of chanting.
She was also doing a lot of prayers at that time because her firstborn, my older brother, died as an infant. I was also sick with different ailments in my childhood and she offered me as a slave to the Lord Guruvayoorappan, the deity at the Guruvayoor temple. Here Lord Krishna is worshipped in his child form. Perhaps she transmitted that sense of life as a gift from God to me. I have always had this feeling deep inside that my life is not just my own to enjoy, that I need to pay back the Gods for giving it to me.
Jayashree and family arrived around noon and they drove to the Siva Vishnu temple in Lanham, near the NASA Goddard space flight center in Greenbelt, MD. Since there were five of them in the car I biked to the temple. I biked to the Fort Totten metro station and from there I took the metro to the Greenbelt station. Then I biked through the planned town of Greenbelt with its leafy streets and bike lanes and co-operative housing. Although it was cold it was a sunny and calm afternoon and I enjoyed the ride. They gave me my backpack and left. I spent a good amount of time at the temple worshipping and eating lunch in a leisurely way. Since Nicole was out with her girlfriends(aka sista girls) for a birthday bash I had the whole day to myself and felt no need to rush or get some place. It is quite a treat when you have that feeling of “Nowhere to go, Nothing to do.” Thich Nhat Hanh encourages us to live every moment like that. My fantasy is to live every moment as if I were on a beach out in a remote island, on an endless vacation.
After that I biked on Good Luck Road to the College Park Metro station. This is a mostly flat route ending with a big downhill swoop at the intersection with Kenilworth Ave. It is a thrill to go downhill on my road bike aka Pegasus. This section of Good Luck Road goes about four miles through peaceful, quiet residential neighborhoods of suburban Prince George’s County. I used to bike this route often when I was biking to the temple on a regular basis. I would tell myself, this is the kind of area I would love my child to grow up in, where he or she can play all afternoon with his or her friends without any worries.
I took the metro to Columbia Heights and spent a few hours working on mathematics at the Coffy Café. I love this seventies themed café and their delicious crepes. After that my friend Manuel and I went to see “Interstellar.” My head is still spinning from all the sublime philosophy, physics and cosmology discussed in that movie and I say that as a compliment. I am glad that such an enlightening movie is also so popular and well received. We spent a couple hours chatting away at Clyde’s in Gallery Place after that. There was a bit of a scare – someone stole my backpack with the computer in it while we were talking. Luckily when I went around looking for it I was able to find it. The thief had opened just one part of it, perhaps looking for a wallet and then discarding it. Nothing was missing, though. Life has a way of jolting you just as you are coasting along.
By the time I got back it was past one a.m. and by the time I went to sleep it was past three. So today I have been feeling quite groggy. I am getting older! Either that or I am getting too restless. Anyway I decided not to go to meditation tonight. I did not want to go with such a muddled mind during a special night of remembrance, during a time when our teacher Thich Nhat Hanh is ailing and in the hospital. According to the Plum Village website he is stable although still in critical condition after suffering cerebral hemorrhage. Writing these words has helped me calm down a little bit and I want to end it with a prayer for Thay to recover well and continue to guide us for many more years.

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