Pi Day and the Night Before

Pi reminds us that the universe is what it is,

that it doesn't subscribe to our ideas

of mathematical convenience.

Manil Suri

 The New York Times

I don't know much about mathematics other than the usual math facts that I learned a thousand years ago. I don't even much care about mathematics which I'm sure stems from that early learning, when girls like me were thought to be "bad at math." I appreciate its importance, though, and for a moment, every now and then, I get it. Understanding math, even its most sophisticated abstractions, is sort of like feeling fish swimming around your brain and then, every now and then, grabbing one even for a moment before it slips from your grasp and swims on.

My sister and niece are visiting us this weekend from their home in St. Louis. Yesterday, they joined us for SUP Friday in Redondo Beach, and afterward, we went to a beach shack and ate some lunch before heading home.

That's a picture of a guy with a man bun towing his tow-headed little boy on a mini-surfboard. #IloveCalifornia

Later, we drove up to Griffith Park Observatory and watched the sun set. 

Then we sat in the car up there for an hour playing silly car games while we waited for it to get completely dark. Tomorrow is the Los Angeles Marathon, and the route is from downtown to the sea. To mark the route, the city arranged for enormous lights at each mile, and last night they lit them for the first time. Hundreds of people were up at the observatory to see them lit, and while it wasn't as dramatic as we'd thought, there's still something very cool about seeing the famous skyline, the snow-topped mountains in the distance, the ocean far to the west and this enormous city lit up below you.

None of my photos really came out, but here's one from the Los Angeles Times:

photographer: Robert Gauthier

Mindfulness

With cousins in  Florida, sometime in the late 1960s

The sense of being far away is not something to overcome but to respect and include in loving awareness. This is the way to work with our difficulties, to include them and learn from them. Feelings that seem like adversaries can become our allies when they’re included, and mindfulness offers us nobility and joy as we open to what is present completely.

In fact, there can be something more authentic in the times you feel something’s missing than when you feel satisfied. The more deeply you practice, the more you realize how much there is to learn. Even the self that would judge your experience is not a problem to be fixed, but to be held with compassion as part of the path.

This is a way to keep loving awareness in the center of your life, even when it feels far away. Remember, where you are now is the perfect place to practice. 

Trudy Goodman

Founder and Guiding Teacher of Insight LA

from The Perfect Place to Practice

 

Sophie and Me in Blue

When I was a small Catholic girl like most small Catholic girls I was enamored of the saints. I knelt in church (and sat and stood and sat and kneeled and stood and sat and kneeled) and stood and saw spots or tiny lights and then I'd blink, sweat would bead, roll down the nape of my neck, the priest's voice a drone, I think I'm going to faint, I'd think and blink, my hands smooth and brown on the pew in front of me. Helen who carried the cross will be my name, I said when I was twelve. Twelve! I'd kneel then and think of the saints. Yesterday afternoon, I was drifting, I was angry, I was drifting and angry about the day, the day after the show about weed and seizures, the day that began, again, with seizures. I was angry about my cousin, my age, dying of cancer far away, a cousin who I loved in my childhood, who loved to read like me, who wrote me letters sealed with a kiss. Her name is Maria. I drove my car to the bank in the little village just down from the church where I used to go (to stand, to kneel, to sit, to stand, to kneel) and I was angry when I got out of the car and walked, a beautiful day, it's always, always a beautiful day, and four beautiful people sat in front of a restaurant and spoke what was that? Italian? Yes, Italian. Italian rolling off their tongues like saints. Jesus Christ, I thought, this town is impossible. I walked into the bank and then out and the Italians were getting up from their table and walking, walking in front of me, two women and two men, all beautiful, the Italian still rolling off their tongues like saints, one woman had a band of smooth brown skin, naked above her ass, and I was still drifting, angry, when I got into my car and drove back home. At a stoplight, I looked over into the car next to me, a woman in full Muslim garb, her head covered, sat at the wheel, her daughter in the back seat covered as well. The light was still red and I was still angry, and the daughter was young but not young enough to sit in a booster seat. She looked ridiculous in the booster seat, stupid in her veil. Take off your bullshit cloak of modesty, I might have hissed, your daughter is too big for that car seat. The light turned green, I looked away, I drove away. When I got home I sat with Sophie, I stood with Sophie, I stood and sat and kneeled. I blinked, a bead of sweat rolled down the nape of my neck and down my back, I was wearing a blue dress. I am not a saint.

Cugini and stuff

How the day whiled

There was make-your-own-sub-sandwich lunch time:

and there was play Monopoly time

There was a long walk on the beach with my father, under stormy skies:

There were pelicans doing synchronized acrobatics in the sky:

There was a surprise for those of turning forty years old (my little sister, Jennifer) and those of us turning 50 years old (yours truly)

Then there was sunset on the beach --

There was the usual high drama, too, but I'll leave you with the illusion of perfection. Usually, it's the fine line between them where most of family relationships lie, and our family is like most, I imagine, in that respect.

Rainy day rambling

It's been raining, on and off, for a couple of days now. Actually, it's not really rain -- full-on rain -- but more like a sprinkling, and the air is hot and sticky and I'm reminded of the east coast and I just don't like it. I'm not fond of rain, really, ever, but I especially don't like rain in July in Los Angeles. Sophie doesn't either. She had at least five big, big seizures yesterday when she came home from summer school, and I'm going to blame it on the rain and humidity. Reader, if you have a child or young adult with epilepsy, do you see changes in seizure activity with weather?

On another note, one of my favorite cousins is visiting (that's her, above), so we've been busy talking and catching up. My cousin is intense, so we're sort of exhausting one another with conversation, but it's the good kind of exhaustion, the stimulating kind. She's a bit older than me, and when I was a child and she was a teenager I idolized her as a radical hippie who didn't shave her legs and wore maxi dresses. She might have even worn flowers in her hair. She wore out all the grown-ups, I seem to remember, with her hippyness, but even then I imagined her as my people. Now I'm all grown up, and we have so much in common. If you can believe it, she's considering the purchase of a van/recreational vehicle to wander the country and visit friends and relatives. I told her that I might call her to come by and pick me up one of these days, take me away.

I don't have much else to tell ya'll about. I'm finishing three different books -- Country Girl by Edna O'Brien and Transatlantic by Colum McCann are both great reads, one a memoir of the Irish writer and the other a brilliant novel by an Irish writer. To balance things out, I've begun Madame Bovary by Flaubert and translated by the great Lydia Davis. I read it in college in French and remember only the labor and agony of it all, but my god it's incredible reading now. I'm not sure if it's the thirty years that have passed and the cumulative life experience or the actual brilliant translation, but wow.

Read this incredible article in The Village Voice.

Afternoon Coffee with Cugina Elizabeth and a Giveaway!

Please sit down and let me pour you a cup of coffee and introduce you to one of my many cousins from the Italian side of the family. His name is Michele Aquino, and he recently wrote a book titled The Coffee Book Project, influenced by a recent trip through the Peace Corps in Nicaragua and his experiences there. Michele says:

The Coffee Book Project is all about reading, learning, and sharing! While I was living on a coffee farm in Central America, I started letting the local kids borrow children's books and I was inspired by how excited they were to have books to read. This little illustrated book aims to teach coffee drinkers a bit more about the on-the-farm steps involved in coffee processing while generating some funds to support literacy and creativity in rural coffee producing villages.

The book is small but quite beautiful, charmingly illustrated, and very interesting and informative. If you purchase one, a significant portion of the proceeds goes toward increasing literacy efforts in Nicaragua. The money will be donated as books for children in impoverished villages where books are a rarity. You can read more about the project at the website. Barista Magazine has a nice article, too.

Please consider purchasing The Coffee Book Project online.

And the first three people to comment here about how they like their coffee get a free copy from me, Cugina Elizabeth. I'll randomly select two more for a free copy as well -- just make sure you leave your email!