Look how much that's going to cost!

I was watching the last part of the recent film "Beowolf," with my clients at the halfway house. It's a clever high-tech hybrid of real actors and computer animation, and tells the story of King Beowolf and his travails. The climactic scene is him battling his son-cum-dragon, who is rampaging across the country burning villages and so forth. He goes after Beowolf's concubine and wife, who are standing on a stone walkway between two high towers. Of course, the dragon burns chunks out, bites other chunks, all but destroying the construction. Earlier, he burned a wood bridge across a chasm.

So where does my mind go? To think, who's going to repair that? What a waste of workmanship! All the drama is nice and all, but in the long term, some poor group of schmucks are going to have to do a lot of heaving and hauling to get the bridge up, the walkway reconstructed. Probably some will get injured or fall. The kingdom's coffers are going to be drained for the construction, and resources that otherwise could have built infrastructure have to go for these repairs.

Oh, how easy it is to destroy, how difficult to build...

A weekend in review

Well, I had quiet a variegated weekend. Texturally nuanced, as it were. A topography of tonalities.

Friday morning started early, waking up to sit at 6:30, and then being in the Inner Sunset to meet a new colleague, who contacted me about her MBCT group. (I'm currently running a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Depression class, and she saw a posting of mine.) We had a chilly cup of coffee (decaf for me) at the coffee wallah on 9th and Irving--chilly because the fickle San Francisco weather turned from sunny to demonstratively overcast within a half hour, and the only seats available were outside. We chatted about our classes, and especially about the what has had to happen inside in order for us to show up as teachers outside.

Then I got on the lawnmower scooter, Heather's original Honda that now is held together by prayer and red duct tape, and rode off to the beach were I was to meet my friend Robert at the Seal Rock Inn, our usual haunt. Robert and I met at my old counseling intern site, and struck up a friendship there which has stuck. We get together every 4-6 weeks to do what his current and my ex supervisor calls "nondual ping pong," which involves a few hours of smacking nondual ideas and experiences back and forth, laced with psychotherapy and personal history. It's always very rich and warm.

Then from there, I rode home along the park and got home a little before Heather, and when she arrived, off we went for our every-other-Friday therapy appointment with Philip, our beloved couples therapist. We had a good session, as we're both learning to be nicer to each other. I think that's the real upshot of couples work, and relationship in general: be nice, be kind, and don't hit. If you lived that out purely in your relationships, you'd be doing pretty damn well.

And next? Off to the scooter store to buy me a helmet, which I was ready to do but the very nice manager guy insisted he order a different model so I could compare before buying. SF Moto is a great place, really friendly and competent, from the grease monkeys in the back to the owner who still works the sales floor. That's where we bought our Sym, which is a great freeway ready scooter.

Then shopping at Rainbow, our venerable whole-foods worker owned coop under the highway on the edge of the Mission district. We have been going over our food budget the last two months, but we managed to keep the expenses fairly low with this shopping run. Yeah, budget!

And we'll probably be spending less, at least for a bit, as I've taken up my mother-in-law's diet, called Fast Five, which basically is eating within a five hour period, and fasting the rest of the day. I've been doing this for the last four days or so, and am fairly amazed at how steady my energy is, how my body is feeling somehow, um, snappier, and that I've already lost a pound. I'm not sure if I'll want to make a lifestyle out of it, but since I've wanted to drop 5-8 pounds, this seems like a good way to do it. I simply feel better when I feel leaner. And I remember my grandfather saying how he chose a target weight, and when he saw himself edging over it, would simply fast to keep on the mark. That sounds like a good plan, especially since I'm seeing how the hunger is negligible and easily manageable (probably because I'm used to retreats where you don't eat after the noon meal).

Let's see, so then we went home and I did my evening meditation, in the afternoon because I had a presentation at CIIS in the evening. The ex-dean of students invited me last month to present on my clinical work, as an alumni at the 40th anniversary celebration. The day before, I had been musing topics and thought I might look on the website and see how I was listed. Lo and behold, I'd somehow been assigned to talk about MBCT.

I'd scribbled up some notes, but with certain of these presentations, it feels like you just kind of set the intention to show up, and then the thing shapes itself. So last minute, I decided to do a particular exercise from the MBCT (the "mindfulness of raisins" bit) and then just sketch the protocol and ask for questions.

Heather was too fagged out to attend, so I rode the scooter down to that familiar building in SOMA, and presented myself in the lobby as a speaker. The genially harried table people couldn't find my name, so just gave me a name tag to write on, and I headed upstairs to my assigned digs. Come my start time, 5:30pm (I had a half hour), the alumni who was had missed her 5pm start time due to traffic, came in with the eccentric (ahem) psychotherapist from last year's nondual conference, the one who had almost physically attacked a presenter. One person came for my talk, so we two pairs retired to separate corners (after the organizer came in to give me a hug and wish me well, like we'd seen each other yesterday, though I had the dimmest of memories of her). My attendee and I started talking a bit before three folks from school or internship wandered in, wine glasses in had, to say an enthusiastic hi and to wish me well. Then as I turn back to my attendee, a wash of people drift in to hear about MBCT.

Now, when a speaker has 30 minutes to present, shouldn't you endeavor to get there on time? Anyway, I started over and did the raisin exercise, and then discussed how it went and why it was a good illustration of what the group's about. Then some questions, with me answering a tad clinically at times, and at the hour the next group entered and off we went.

It was really an enjoyable experience, not because of the outcome or my skill level--both can be tweaked--but because it reminded me (for the first time) of being on stage with my old band, Bi-Curious George. The sense of presence in the moment with the people, of partially making it up on the spot, and of endeavoring to guide the energy while fundamentally having no control over people's reactions or responses--pretty exhilarating like I remember from being on stage all those years ago. It's just so real. So, I want to do more of that, for it's own sake as well as for marketing purposes.

Then from there, I rode back home and woke Heather up so we could go to the first of a 12 series of swing classes at our YMCA. She was groggy, but since once you get her over her inertia she wakes up, I kind of gave her the first push and let the momentum carry her outdoors and to the Y down the street.

The class was fun, more fun than I expected, led by a Swedish woman who claims to have helped revive the Lindy Hop. Well, OK. But the steps were relatively easy, the classmates amiable, and I seemed to pick it up fairly easily. It will be fun to see how it develops.

And then we did a run on the treadmills before heading home and settling in, me reading a bit and then watching the fun and ridiculous Transformers. Which I think Heather said had a good portion of "car porn."

Saturday began more slowly than Friday, with me waking relatively late (9:30a) and sitting for an hour. The day was gorgeous, blue and clear, so I thought to call James and see if he wanted to go to Chrissie Field for a picnic. Robin couldn't make it, having a gig down south, but he and the Boychik could, so we arranged a time and then Heather and I noodled around till he came. Which he said was more or less on time, but I don't quite remember it that way.

Still, we made it to the beach, which after a few shivering minutes of wind and drifting sand, decided us to retreat to Golden Gate Park. Boychik, nee Benjamin, was in pretty good spirits, and when he sat on the grass in his beanie, he looked like a garden gnome.

GG Park was less windy, but not by much, so we huddled together eating sandwiches and chips while Boychik picked grass and repeatedly placed it in father's hand. Repeatedly, but without a seeming diminshment in interest. Early onset OCD? James thought that it might have been the first time he had sat on grass.

With Boychik's nap time looming, James took us home and we retired to our abode. I sat, then sans Heather (who was to get her fingerprints done for her new internship, and then was too tired to get out of the house) went to the gym for a good upper body workout and a long soak in the Jacuzzi. I just dipped my legs, and sat on the edge reading my MBCT group to prep for this morning's class (the second of eight). Regardless of what people might think, everyone is amiable there, no one really blinks at idiosyncrasies.

Then home to do some more preparation for the class, and as Heather was feeling a bit funkified, I retired to bed, to read a book on Buddhism's vector into American life, and then the first couple chapters of a book that's been on Heather's shelf forever, Good Omens, the story of the coming of the Antichrist, and the demon and angel who'd prefer that not happen. Like short grained brown rice, novels are something I never give enough attention to, and which, when imbibed, tell me how neglectful I've been.

And then this morning, I did the MBCT group and it went very well. My fear that I wouldn't be able to fill the time was demonstratively unfounded. We actually went over 10 minutes, and I could have gone another half hour. So that's good in terms of calibration for future sessions. Lots of good conversation happened, and reports on people's efforts and struggles--all normal and predictable, but poignant, seeing people work hard and what's quite difficult practice. And I seemed to even have some lucid things to say, and felt both supportive and appropriately focused in leading the class. I'm actually liking this role. Whodathunk.

And lastly, I drove down to Redwood City to work, and it's been quiet and relatively uneventful. I did try to do some CBT with my men's group in the evening, but it was beyond all but a few, so I'll have to ratchet the cognitive level back a bit to keep it meaningful to them. We decided though, perhaps as a break, to watch "Letters from Iwo Jima" for the next group. That's a good dude flick, yeah?