Routines and Bonnie

I have only a small amount of days left in Asia.   I could live here and in other ways, it will be good to get home.  I am at the point of …can I make the mouthwash last until I go back or should I buy a small bottle.  There are four more scheduled swim classes and I am still hopeful of getting the stroke and breath together.  Or not.

I have to finalize Kim’s wedding gift.  Start to separate what will return on the slow boat and what will travel with me.  Get polish for the floor I have scraped up with my chair. Etc. 

Three Phat massages, six acupuncture treatments, a teeth cleaning, a haircut, a pedicure, a week of qi kong with Rod, two concerts.. and poof.  Leslie leaves today, Donna, Judy and Page this Thursday and Cheryl next Thursday and Bonny leaves CM the following Friday for three nights in BKK and then home.

Of course I have purchased books, which will slow boat home along with my drawing material, pens and pencils and meditation clothes.   I want to get my suitcase down to pretty light so it will not be hard to get to the NYC motel and back for my last leg of the trip.

The one book I brought and which I am reading slowly and with the presence of being is Joan Tollefson's book, Bare-Bones Meditation.  I will be on retreat in Springwater under her direction later in March.

I have continued to have contact with Lily and we have fascinating conversations about life, what we are seeing and learning, and what we are reading.  She is into Oliver Sack and I continue to enjoy the Ted Talks…   I leave her feeling like I just had a shower and I leave some others as if I need one.

In observing myself from different perspectives.  What annoys me or makes me feel the nails on the blackboard.   I can’t fix anyone but I can avoid the company of some.  The biggest thing that I see as a comparison from people who have elected to live here and the travelers, the expaits that I have been walking all appear to be lighter, less judgemental, having some self-awareness, and interest in things outside themselves.  They have great diversity in their interest and friends.   The groups are more black, white, men, women, younger and older etc. 

One quote from the book… “you are always looking for diamonds in the mud, but actually the mud is very interesting”.  After hours with one traveler, I finally figures out that which she says she is on a spiritual path, she is unsettled until she puts people, places and things into boxes.   When we went to a favorite restaurant and I ordered the same thing I did the last time, she commented, oh – you always order the same thing…   and I fell into the pooh hole and said , no I only order that here.   When I go to Brusters – I order Chocolate Raspberry Truffle and when I go to Tom Wahl – I order Chocolate Almond.  Her need to put things in place, or as she says, “know their story” is a silly as my need to explain myself.   Who cares or why do I care that she get’s me. 

I have another person who no matter what I do.. how I say it.. or shout it.. I will be Bonnie -  even my spell check wants to fix it.  So… she will pass out of my life this week and I can then wait for the next person to do the same.

The bottom line is I want to be heard and take at face value for who I am.   I am a learner who is on a quest to be only a traveler in my now space trying to live without judgment.  The important thing is that I start to know myself and take every moment like the present moment without a story, past or future