this weekend: biked 60 miles, baked bread, made granola, entertained, was honest and clear.

i'm keeping an aikido grip on my springtime emotions--firm but flexible, trying to guide the energy rather than struggling with it. looking for a book to read on the subway i grabbed something tresler lent me so long ago i forget why. it's a book on the survival mindset. the author tells stories of people (often him) who have been in survival-or-death situations, what their brains did at the critical moment and how that led them to survive or not. it's unsentimental in a way that is comforting to me, and the text is sprinkled surprisingly with excerpts from the tao te ching and the i ching. so i'm contemplating how to apply the lessons from these outrageously extreme anecdotes to my own small activities. they're mostly old and familiar lessons that i pull out every now and then to hold up against myself and practice. don't panic. don't cut corners, especially when you're in a hurry. in any given situation you will see what you want to see before seeing what is actually there. be compassionate.

it's slow going, but reading about stories where people made the same stupid mistakes i do on a grander scale and died for it not only puts my personal drama in perspective but also allows me to feel grateful for the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them.

these lessons crystallize while i'm engaged in activities that require concentration and cannot be rushed--the hours making granola and mixing up the bread on sunday, or tonight, picking tiny chips of glass out of my tires with a knifepoint before they can work themselves the whole way through and pierce my tubes.