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Autumn Heat

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Martine at Chace Park in the Marina

Predictably, we are in the middle of an autumn heat wave. No, I did not go to Chace Park today. This time of year, the wind blows hot air from the desert; so there is little to be gained waiting for sea breezes that are not likely to cool my brow.

Martine went downtown by herself to partake of the high-toned atmosphere around Union Station and the Civic Center. (Am I being ironic? To be sure I am being ironic.)

Tomorrow I may go downtown, though I may bail if the temp gets too high, like 95° degrees Fahrenheit (35° Celsius) or above. That walk from the Metro Rail 7th Street Station to the Central Library would be prohibitively hot. I will check the temp tomorrow morning before making my decision.

I have become very dependent on the weekly Mindful Meditation sessions at the Central Library. Then, too, there are those seven floors of books that draw me in.

Meditation Lite

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Not the Picture in Everyone’s Mind

Picture in your mind a person engaged in meditation. Based on Google Images, that picture is usually of some earth mother with long flowing hair sitting cross-legged in the lotus position, with the hands outstretched over the knees making some frou-frou sign.

If I had to look like that when meditating, I wouldn’t be able to meditate at all. I have had my left hip replaced some quarter of a century ago, and I cannot sit comfortably in that position.

When Martine and I showed up today for the Mindful Meditation session at the Central Library, we just had to meditate while sitting in a chair, preferably with our eyes closed as we concentrated on our breathing to clear our minds. Looking around at the people attending, we none of us looked like earth mothers—just the usual assortment of people looking for a few minutes of peace in their lives.

The Mindfulness Education Center at UCLA which conducts these Thursday meditations has an effective procedure for guiding people through the minefield of stress and an overactive mind.

Curiously, their website shows an image of an earth mother in the prototypical lotus posture. Go figure.

Dropping Off to Sleep

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Before I retired, I had difficulty falling asleep. That was primarily because, in all my jobs, my bosses were megalomaniacs who were experts at fomenting stress in their work force.

Then something interesting happened. It suddenly became cheap and easy to go downtown. The opening of the Expo Line (now the E-train) from Santa Monica to the L.A. Financial District. I wasted no time in getting a senior citizen TAP card, which meant I could whiz downtown in 45 minutes for a mere 35¢ each way.

One Thursday, I went to the Central Library at 5th & Spring Streets. I noticed that there was a free half hour mindful meditation session at 12:30 PM in one of the two meeting rooms. I attended and suddenly things seemed to change for the better in my life. I was still working, but it was apparent that the accounting firm would close at year’s end.

It suddenly became easier to fall asleep. Martine usually fell asleep around 11:00 PM, and I followed a little more than an hour later. I still chewed a 3 mg Melatonin tablet, but I started to fall asleep by using mindful meditation. I started off with three deep breaths, followed it up with an inventory of my body, from the blepharitis in my eyes to my tendency to develop ingrown toenails. Next, I would concentrate on my breaths and incorporating the outside sounds of traffic and aircraft.

Usually, I would be out within 30 minutes. Sometimes it would take longer; sometimes, shorter. I had difficulty only if I had a long drive ahead the next morning, which wasn’t often.

The key: With mindful meditation, I have a way of neutralizing stress.

Bending Time and Space

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It was not until I retired at the end of 2017 that I had any control over my life. First it was my parents, who exercised a mostly benign control over my life. That then shaded into my work life, where for over forty years I felt stressed working for a couple of egomaniacal bosses.

Suddenly, at the beginning of 2018 I was finally able to do what I wanted. Mostly, that entailed extra time for reading and catching up on hundreds of classic movies I had always wanted to see. It would have been perfect if I were able to travel more, but that requires money; and money is always in short supply when one is on a fixed income.

Just before retirement, I started going to the mindful meditation sessions at the L.A. Central Library. Every Thursday—except during the Covid epidemic—there was a free 30-minute mindful meditation session guided by a trained member of UCLA’s mindfulness education center.

I suddenly felt space opening up in my life. Even when I was waiting in the doctor’s office or stuck at a long traffic light, I no longer felt stressed. During these interstices in my life, I would use the time to relax totally while still being attentive to my surroundings. (Compare this to those poor souls who try to relax with a smart phone in their hands.) And I didn’t even hat to sit in some uncomfortable lotus posture.

Previously, I had been prey to insomnia. Now as soon as I slip under the covers, I take three deep breaths, inventory how relaxed I feel from the top of my head down to my toes, and slowly think about my breathing as I drop off to sleep.

At the age of eighty, I’ve never felt happier. I know very well that I am in the endgame of my life. Hard times lie ahead, but I feel stronger and more able to weather them.

Attaining Isness

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The Los Angeles Central Library at 5th and Flower Streets

Four years after the Covid lockdown put it on hold, seemingly permanently, the Central Library has restarted the guided mindful meditations on Thursday afternoons at 12:30. The meditations are conducted under the auspices of UCLA Health’s Mindfulness Education Center.

Today I attended for the third straight week and hope to continue. I find that the guided meditations ground me. Instead of endlessly planning the future or being swept up by my unfulfilled desires, I ground myself in the present. There is time for planning and for desires, but it helps first to immerse yourself in what I call the “isness” of your being.

This form of meditation is not connected with any religion or even any culture. It is presented solely as a discipline to free your mind from endless distractions. There is no required lotus position or any other position. You merely have to sit or lie down comfortably.

If you want to get a feel for what this is like, you can select one of the following prerecorded guided meditations from your computer, or select from a list from the UCLA Mindful website:

Many a times when, while trying to sleep, my mind is swirling around with plans for the next day or frustrations or unfulfilled desires, I’ve found the practice of meditation helps me drift off to sleep.

Holy Sidewalks

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Is This Hole an Illusion? Or an Allusion?

Today being Thursday, I rode the Metro downtown, went to the Central Library, and attended the weekly half-hour mindful meditation session held there. Group leader John Kneedler quoted the following poem by Portia Nelson:

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters

I

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I fall in.
I am lost … I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes me forever to find a way out.

II

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place
but, it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

III

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in … it’s a habit.
my eyes are open
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

IV

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

V

I walk down another street.

I know this poem is all over the Internet, but it’s the first time I encountered it; and I love the way it summarizes so many people. Including myself.

Adventures in the Here and Now

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Los Angeles Central Library

As I have written in another post, I usually travel downtown on Thursdays to visit the Central Library on 5th Street between Hope and Flower. I like to show up at opening time (10 am) and reading for about two hours. Then I scan the stacks for books I want to read, check them out, and go to Conference Room A for the weekly Mindful Meditation session guided by John Kneedler, an instructor for the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC).

The whole point of mindful meditation is to learn how to live in the here and now. Most of the time, one’s thoughts are all over the place. Take this classic example from Aldous Huxley’s Those Barren Leaves, in which Miss Thriplow tries to concentrate on the nature of God:

God is a spirit, she said to herself, a spirit, a spirit. She tried to picture something huge and empty, but alive. A huge flat expanse of sand, for example, and over it a huge blank dome of sky; and above the sand everything should be tremulous and shimmering with heat—an emptiness that was yet alive. A spirit, an all-pervading spirit. God is a spirit. Three camels appeared on the horizon of the sandy plain and went lolloping along in an absurd ungainly fashion from left to right. Miss Thriplow made an effort and dismissed them. God is a spirit, she said aloud. But of all animals camels are really almost the queerest; when one thinks of their frightfully supercilious faces, with their protruding under lips like the last Hapsburg kings of Spain… No, no; God is a spirit, all-pervading, everywhere. All the universes are made one in him. Layer upon layer… A Neapolitan ice floated up out of the darkness. She had never liked Neapolitan ices since that time, at the Franco-British exhibition, when she had eaten one and then taken a ride on Sir Hiram Maxim’s Captive Flying Machines. Round and round and round. Lord, how she had been sick, afterwards, in the Blue Grotto of Capri! ‘Sixpence each, ladies and gentlemen, only sixpence each for a trip to the celebrated Blue Grotto of Capri, the celebrated Blue Grotto, ladies and gentlemen….’ How sick! It must have been most awkward for the grown-ups…. But God is a spirit. All the universes are one in the spirit. Mind and matter in all their manifestations–all one in the spirit. All one—she and the stars and the mountains and the trees and the animals and the blank spaces between the stars and… and the fish, the fish in the Aquarium at Monaco…. And what fish! What extravagant fantasies! But no more extravagant or fantastic, really, than the painted and jewelled old women outside. It might make a very good episode in a book—a couple of those old women looking through the glass at the fishes. Very beautifully and discreetly described; and the fundamental similarity between the creatures on either side of the glass would just be delicately implied—not stated, oh, not stated; that would be too coarse, that would spoil everything, but just implied, by the description, so that the intelligent reader could take the hint. And then in the Casino… Miss Thriplow brusquely interrupted herself. God is a spirit. Yes. Where was she? All things are one, ah yes, yes. All, all, all, she repeated. But to arrive at the realization of their oneness one must climb up into the spirit. The body separates, the spirit unites. One must give up the body, the self; one must lose one’s life to gain it. Lose one’s life, empty oneself of the separating Me. She clasped her hands tightly together, tighter, tighter, as though she were squeezing out her individual life between them. If she could squeeze it all out, make herself quite empty, then the other life would come rushing in to take its place.

Many people avoid trying to concentrate their minds because they are too harsh with themselves. The mind resists being in the here and now: During today’s session, I thought of where I would eat lunch, what book I would read next, whether Martine would stage another departure. I kept coming back to the simple inhalation and exhalation of my breath. So I am nowhere near perfect. But I keep trying.

 

“This Must Be Thursday”

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The Richard Riordan Central Library in Downtown Los Angeles

The entire quote is from Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: “This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.” And that’s the way I felt when I was working full time in an accounting office. I never did get along very well with my boss (nobody could), so when he cut me back to two days a week, I saw that as an opportunity. I said, “Okay, I’ll work on Tuesdays and Fridays.” Those were days when our late tax manager worked, so my boss couldn’t use me as a highly unqualified tax manager, which he was not above doing.

One Thursday in June 2016, I took the Expo Line downtown and hung out at the Central Library on Fifth Street. Just by chance, I noticed that there was a regular Mindful Meditation session conducted by the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC), and I attended.  And I’ve been attending ever since. I read for a couple of hours in the Literature and Fiction Department on the top floor, and usually check out a couple of books. Then I go to Meeting Room A on the ground floor where the sessions are held.

In more ways than one, the Central Library has become a part of my life. I feel energized by these meditation sessions. Afterwards, I go for lunch either to the Grand Central Market on Hill Street, Little Tokyo, Chinatown, or Olvera Street. Then I take the Big Blue Bus R10 freeway flier back home.

So now I can say I get the hang of Thursdays. It’s one of my favorite days of the week. That leaves Mondays and Wednesdays for doctors’ appointments and miscellaneous explorations of this gigantic city of which I am becoming more of a part as time passes.

 

Itchy Eyelids of Death

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It’s A Horrible Feeling!

It’s A Horrible Feeling!

Every once in a while, I get this allergic condition where my eyelids get inflamed and itch like the devil. The temptation is to rub them. That’s works for a few nanoseconds, but the itching and tearing come back with redoubled force. The only thing that seems to work is a prescription drug called Pred-Forte, which is a steroid that my ophthalmologist is reluctant to prescribe to me because … because … well I practically live on steroids.

I have no pituitary gland (I’ll tell you more about that some day), and therefore I must take all my hormones—which are normally controlled by the pituitary—externally. And, well, taking too many steroids long term has numerous baleful effects, some of which I’ve already experienced: osteoarthritis leading to a hip replacement, cataracts, and thinning of the skin—to name just a few.

Today, I went to the free weekly Mindful Meditation session at the Los Angeles Central Library. What I concentrated on was my eyelids. That worked for a while, then on the way back from downtown, in a moment of forgetfulness, I rubbed my eyes. Damn!

During these sieges, I wake up with my eyelids stuck together; and I have to pry them open with the help of my fingers.

This condition has a lot to do with the frequent atmospheric changes caused by the series of rainstorms we have had over the past few months. It won’t last forever, but while it lasts it will be a major annoyance.

 

The Avila Adobe

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In the Middle of Olvera Street, L.A.’s Oldest Still-Existing House

In the Middle of Olvera Street, L.A.’s Oldest Still-Existing House

In my semi-retirement, I’ve taken to going downtown at least once a week and doing some exploring. Today, I started out at the Central Library reading Claude Izner’s In the Shadows of Paris, set in the City of Lights back in the 1890s.

I picked out a volume of Charles Bukowski’s letters in the literature section and checked it out, making my way to Meeting Room A at 12:30 for something completely different: A guided session on meditation by Giselle Jones. It was super-relaxing. I will look out for other meditation events at the Library.

Then it was on to Dash Bus B to Olvera Street. I had a hankering for some more of Cielito Lindo’s taquitos and chile rellenos. Yum! They were even better than last time.

Finally, I paid a visit to the oldest surviving house in Los Angeles: The Avila Adobe. Although L.A. was first settled in 1781, all the houses were destroyed by the ravages of time, except for the Avila Adobe, which was built in 1818 by Francisco Avila, one of the city’s earliest alcaldes (mayors). The house was an oasis of calm amid the frantic crowds looking to buy souvenirs.

From there, it was a short walk to the bus stop for the Santa Monica Big Blue Bus #R10 to return home.