there is a place

I woke this morning badly broke and wildly grateful to still be here. Where nearly all my best friends are long gone.

I read earlier this line from Zen master Dogen – “When you know the place where you are, practice begins.” This feels profound to me, and familiar. This place right here now – 75, alive, broke, free, coupled, walking on the planet, periodically broken and duck-taped.

The hand-drawn sign on the wall in the community building up in Encinitas – “It’s not them.” And when it’s not them, all that’s left is the place where I am. That place of practice.

Hallelujah.