connection

I’m walking more. In fact, I’m doing almost nothing but walking. I’m sure there are reasons, but mostly it’s just me following my feet and my heart. In some order. Here as a solo act in San Luis Obispo. A short, rolling eight blocks to the loveliest of downtowns. The sun-splashed flowing creek. The two-room Museum of Art. Phoenix Books, Barnes and Noble. Post office, credit union, library.

I’ve also noticed I’m not connecting very much, most noticeably in places/spaces of long-time connection: those meetings I go to; the Zen Koan rooms on Zoom. Hearing many words and not experiencing much emotional resonating. I suppose this could be something of concern, like there’s something wrong, but that’s not my sense. It’s just something that is now in my life – like a new zip code, new Medicare coverage, Cal Poly students everywhere you turn. It doesn’t have anything to do with compassion, which my heart is brimming with, or joy, as I’m still here, in a most beautiful place. And now I ride trains. I’m just not connecting so much where I’ve always connected.

I will say, as a disclaimer to the above paragraph, I am connecting wildly with random people in my new geographical milieu – baristas at the Starbucks I walk to daily; staff at T-Mobile, where I’ve been a lot; museum volunteer; employees in gift and card shops and art galleries; the young conductor on the Pacific Surfliner who came to find me as we pulled into Santa Barbara to ask how much I enjoyed my first ride on a train. “There were lots of brown pelicans today,” he said.

I don’t know what to make of all of this. I do know sometimes my knees hurt and my feet get hot and tired. And that there are lots and lots of brown pelicans to see outside a train’s windows.