Conversation on a Rainy Day

It’s been raining a lot in San Francisco. That’s what John (not his real name), a neighborhood fixture, and I talked about the other day. Seems like weather is the default topic of conversation when you don’t know someone that well. So anyway, I asked him how he was doing with all the wetness and he said, “OK”.

It’s easy to get depressed and cranky when it’s so gray and drizzly out. I’ll be the first to admit that riding the bus full of soggy people with dripping umbrellas and backpacks make the MUNI experience even less pleasant than normal.

Usually I like the rain. Water is precious and California has been a bit dry lately. In Connecticut, where I come from it seemed to rain every weekend in the spring, summer and fall, so I kinda like the fact that in California there is an actual ‘rain season.’ Makes planning camping trips so much easier. But still, how many dreary, sunless days can a person take?

So here we were, talking about the weather. All the rain was really getting to him and he was pretty miserable. His solution - using the day to go “inside himself & take stock.” He took a break from the news; nothing he could do about that. He couldn’t do anything about the weather either. Gradually he began accepting what he couldn’t change without anger or despair. He seemed genuinely uncomplaining and relatively peaceful. And it struck me, as it so often does when I talk to John, that he was living in the moment and this was a form of meditation.

What does it mean to live in the moment, to accept life with equanimity, to be grateful? What is it to be content? How can we make effective changes in our lives? One way is to stop, notice and ask. What do you want? What could be easier? What could be? These pauses, these time-outs are useful tools yet seem so counter-intuitive in our work-driven, multi-tasking society.

It’s easy to get caught up in busyness. This ever happen to you? You’re exhausted, you fall into your bed and your head hits the pillow, but instead of going to sleep you’re ruminating. You find yourself trying to change the past or fix the future. How do you find balance in the midst of all this “doing?”

How would it be to take little breaks throughout the day and just sit and notice- without judgment? In Trager we call this pausing. And qigong uses noticing and intent. These principles are easily applied to your daily life. Think of it as a mini vacation. You don’t have to sit for hours, or quit your job and join a monastery. Just take a breath every now and then and follow it. See where it goes. In and out, just follow your breath.

One more thing, John is homeless. Being homeless forces you to live in the moment. A lot of people in the neighborhood stop to talk to John. He always has a smile, even when he’s in a bad mood. Thank you John for this reminder to notice, to allow, the permission just to be. Sometimes I think he is a Buddha.