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Not a good day, although the Chinese visitors were a gift from heaven and yesterday was wonderful, talking to them (more on that later), and even the duck was OK.
But today was the day when all the bad things from the semester really came to a head, all the problems finding their way to my office, and even worse an hour long meeting with some people who were very unhappy about a decision I had made, and I knew I wouldn't change my mind but felt that I had to hear them out--at great length, and with a lot of forbearance on my side for what I perceived as a really self-centered view of the world. And then going to office parties held by people with whom my last interaction was an angry phone call on their part, again in my view not provoked by my actions (but who knows). Again forbearance. And in both cases not wanting forbearance to become hypocrisy, trying to be pleasant but not change where I stood. Not my idea of Christmas.
So to top it off I go to work out at the gym and the woman behind me keeps chatting. Of course there is only so much forbearance to go around, and she was last in line. So I sshhed her, and then spent the rest of the workout feeling selfish and egotistical (aside: this kind of interaction doesn't happen in yoga classes, at least not so far).
Be now not feeling good about anyone else or myself, grumpily stopping in the cold to put gas in the car. You know how there are just certain wires and roofs where pigeons congregate? Well, the cover over the gasoline pumps was one of those places. You may be imagining a final disaster--and a Paris pigeon did that to me once--but these were different. I was standing there watching the $$ mount up and grumping away, and heard a sort of rushing clatter. I looked up to see about fifty pigeons wheeling off the roof just overhead. It was just deep twilight and the sky was a wonderful deep indigo, and the pigeon's white and silver lit from below just glowed. And they kept circling and landing and rising again, until I finally got the message.
Dust of Snow (Robert Frost)
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
But today was the day when all the bad things from the semester really came to a head, all the problems finding their way to my office, and even worse an hour long meeting with some people who were very unhappy about a decision I had made, and I knew I wouldn't change my mind but felt that I had to hear them out--at great length, and with a lot of forbearance on my side for what I perceived as a really self-centered view of the world. And then going to office parties held by people with whom my last interaction was an angry phone call on their part, again in my view not provoked by my actions (but who knows). Again forbearance. And in both cases not wanting forbearance to become hypocrisy, trying to be pleasant but not change where I stood. Not my idea of Christmas.
So to top it off I go to work out at the gym and the woman behind me keeps chatting. Of course there is only so much forbearance to go around, and she was last in line. So I sshhed her, and then spent the rest of the workout feeling selfish and egotistical (aside: this kind of interaction doesn't happen in yoga classes, at least not so far).
Be now not feeling good about anyone else or myself, grumpily stopping in the cold to put gas in the car. You know how there are just certain wires and roofs where pigeons congregate? Well, the cover over the gasoline pumps was one of those places. You may be imagining a final disaster--and a Paris pigeon did that to me once--but these were different. I was standing there watching the $$ mount up and grumping away, and heard a sort of rushing clatter. I looked up to see about fifty pigeons wheeling off the roof just overhead. It was just deep twilight and the sky was a wonderful deep indigo, and the pigeon's white and silver lit from below just glowed. And they kept circling and landing and rising again, until I finally got the message.
Dust of Snow (Robert Frost)
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
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