Doing nothing

I brought my lunch today--two simple sandwiches--and ate half of it hurried at my desk. That was quite unsatisfying, so for second lunch I dumped everything in a bag and took it out to a bench on the shore of lagoon. When I first got the crutches, my hope was that moving more slowly would give me more time to appreciate what I was passing. But I find the opposite is true since I'm so often looking at the ground so as not to stumble. (I never thought I would say I'm happy to live in a town that so damn flat, but for the last couple weeks I've been overjoyed.)

I'm terrible at sitting still outside. There's good reason why my Buddhist name is "monkey mind". If I see something interesting, I want to go nearer. Watching for the moonrise last week, I suggested to monshu that we go out on the breakwater and watch the sunset instead. It's something I wouldn't've thought twice about doing a little while back; this time I let him talk me out of it.

Sorry, this wasn't suppose to devolve into self-pity. The point was that today I did find some time to sit tranquilly in the sun and take in the sights of the lagoon. I hadn't noticed how far along the willows are; there aren't any locusts to speak of on campus, so the trees that are turning are mostly overachieving sugar maples. Some of the grasses are already turning brown, but the goldenrod is still in full bloom. And the mallards were milling about; no one to toss crumbs to them over the railing.

My one real success when it comes to meditation has been staring at the Lake. At my old apartment, I was capable of doing it for a couple hours at a stretch. Now the only reminder of this is the minute out of my morning commute when the shuttle passes between the shore and the cemetery. Well, that and the half minute or less it takes to pass Loyola Park. Whatever I'm doing--usually texting or reading--I turn my full attention to the water. I've thought of keeping some sort of log here of the changes from day to day: the presence or absence of whitecaps, the colour of the water, the configuration of the ice in winter, etc. But that would change a moment of quiet contemplation into another excuse for analysis.

So, can I manage ten minutes of day by the lagoon? Seems to me it would be worth making the effort.