Mere Being - 026 - November - Zen Center, Being Cold

Moving! It's a lot! It continues to be a lot!

Me: Nat Bennett. You: reading Mere Being, a monthly newsletter that I write instead of being on Facebook.

We've been here about a month. I paid the mortgage for the first time this morning. The house is still not fully set up. My office is a mess. Books and photography paraphenalia all over the floor.

I found out about Half Horse Half Man yesterday and I am currently listening to it on repeat.

I've been going to the Minnesota Zen Center. In San Francisco I lived a couple of blocks away from the San Francisco Zen Center and I told myself, I'm going to go all the time. I went once. The Minnesota Zen Center is part of the same lineage. It was founded be a priest who had served at the San Francisco Zen Center. And it's a little further away from the SF Zen Center but through the magic of the Mustang it's not actually that far away. So I've been going once a week.

It's an interesting way to meet people. Lots of people who have moved, usually from somewhere else in the midwest, or who have moved back home. Lots of people who have moved here to be closer to friends.

I suspect our neighbors think we're a bit crazy. We gave out quails eggs on Halloween. We've been barbecuing in the snow. We drive a convertible Mustang. We moved here from San Francisco in October.

I've started going outside in shirtsleeves. It's 16 degrees Fahrenheit. I don't go out very long but a temperature that registered as "miserable" a few months ago now registers as "refreshing." 40 degrees feels downright warm.

When I'm outside, anyway. When I'm inside, 66 degrees is still miserable. I have a space heater next to my desk in my office.

The dog is delighted. He loves the cold. He loves snow. He's tolerating his snow boots. He loves having people to visit almost every day. He enjoys having a patch of yard. He doesn't consider a walk complete until he's patrolled the back yard.

Did you know that lakes freeze? The lake in the park is freezing now.

I was worried that the kitchen was going to be too small, but instead it seems that everything is arranged correctly to be easy to access. It helps that the sink is excellent. It has two sides, and little racks at the bottom that raise dishes or a sponge off the bottom. A technical solution to the social problem that I can't be stopped from leaving the sponge on the bottom of the sink. Now it dries out anyway.

Sunrise is about 7:30 now, and sunset is 4:30. Nine hours of daylight. We've started getting the Christmas lights up, which helps a lot.

I've been thinking about Wallace Stevens a lot. Specifically, The Snow Man:

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

More soon.