Sunday, November 14, 2010

There is something to be said about experiencing life

I wanted to write in my blog today, but couldn't find something that I was processing. The weather is gorgeous: sunny and 80 degrees. I went to the Farmer's market. Chestnuts have finally arrived and I'm boiling them as I write this to make my favorite dish. So I thought to myself, maybe I'll just write about how nice it is to experience life without analyzing it. While most "normal" people do that, I have gone to the opposite extreme of overanalysizing everything. It seems that the car is always in the garage being worked on, and it never gets to go on a drive.

So this weekend I took the car out of the garage and have just been driving it around (literally and metaphorically.) Friday I was in San Francisco meeting colleagues for drinks. The sun was setting as I drove over the Golden Gate bridge, then along the Embarcadero. I didn't remember the last time I was in San Fransisco, even though I live only an hour away. Having drinks and chatting about "non-spiritual" topics was totally cool. I met a beautiful woman whom I worked with long distance, and she told me about her blog. It's funny and it's about being a single mom and raising two boys. How refreshing, I thought. I want to read it.

Then I left the San Fransisco bar and went to Marin to a samba lesson. The other students were advanced and the teachers taught many steps at once. My dancing partner and I are beginners. We couldn't get it. My first response was to go home, but my dancing partner wouldn't give up. After the lesson there was a dance party. Very nice older men asked me to dance, and were happy to show me the steps to the cha cha, fox trot, etc. What kindness and patience, I thought. Hmmm... Maybe this is part of being spiritual.

Saturday I was invited to a Cheers type bar in Sonoma by a girlfriend. A week ago she reconnected with her high school boyfriend. They hadn't seen each other in over thirty years and it was love at first sight (well, maybe not first sight since they were in love when they were teenagers.) I was invited to the bar to meet her new boyfriend. Well, I'm skeptical about fast relationships (or any relationships with the opposite sex for that matter) but I put aside my skepticism and went. I hadn't seen her in months and it was wonderful to see her so happy. They look good together. I can see it. And I enjoyed sitting outside for hours, shooting the breeze, eating a lot of good Greek food (the owners of the bar are Greek, so that was an added bonus), and meeting a bunch of other people.

Dancing, drinking, eating, chatting about superficial things, people falling in love. Maybe I've been too fast to let this world go. It's not that I've given up on transcending it. It's just that I'm here now, so I may as well enjoy it.
Well, I have to go check on my chestnuts...

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