Kloncke

Hola cariñ@s! Last night we of the Faithful Fools (my work/home community center in SF) returned from the annual 2-week trip to our sister group in Nicaragua. Thus ends the Kloncke 2-year anniversary retrospective series, which I hope wasn’t too boring and redundant!

From the moment we hit the landing runway at 5pm, seems like I haven’t stopped to rest. (Evidenced in part by the fact that I’m still wearing the same clothes I was wearing last night). Doesn’t feel too hectic or neurotic, just a fast-moving stream of strange, luminous moments.

• Seeing a show at a bar last night, the lead singer of which was my partner’s ex-girlfriend from high school (I think that among the attendees of this little concert, we had something like a hexagon of exes going on…).
• Practicing Thich Nhat Hanh’s guides for loving conflict resolution via 2am text message.
• Due to a BART subway delay, running late to a Fools zen sitting for which it was especially important to be punctual (and reflecting on cultural and mental meanings around lateness).
• Assembling an outfit from my closet for a friend who lives on the streets and got kicked out of a showering facility literally mid-stream. At that very moment she happened to run into another friend of the Fools, who called me and brought over the naked girl, wrapped in a sheet, her wet hair still warm as she sat down in our living room.

I could go on. But it’s getting late, and I’m beyond exhausted. So in a bit of a non sequitur, I’ll leave you with a shard of a poem that blew me away recently, and has stayed with me over the past two weeks. It was the second line, in particular, that made something inside me sit bolt upright. Wonder what you think.

Those with dualistic perception regard suffering as happiness,
Like they who lick the honey from a razor’s edge.

By Nyoshul Khenpo, quoted in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche.