Afterstorm

We have returned to Portland, to our separate dwellings, washed clean by the storms, the eyes of our eyes emblazoned with images of a never-pacific sea.

This week I have been reading (and sometimes reading aloud, to Sue) Appalachian Zen, by Steve Kanji Ruhl, given to me by LaurieT. He grew up in Appalachia, as I did, hungry for knowledge, as I was. He describes it as I remember it. He lived in Northampton, Massachusetts, as I did, and he describes it as I remember it. He practices Zazen, as I do, and he describes it as I experience it. I read on.

He describes the ocean breathing: “Breakers luff and surge, explode against the headlands…. Percussive under-thump, splash on granite shelf-rock…. Breezes flow into deep hara of water, released. Sea breathing.”

His motto: “All is lost. Be of good cheer.”