Still confused about why I write this blog, and in this specific way :) still writing… Below are three things from my current day-to-day outside of work that felt worth reflecting on aloud.
Sketching at the coffee shop
I feel a real sense of guilt about the amount of money I spend to work out of a coffee shop. It’s easier to get to than the office though (a short downhill walk versus a prohibitively crowded bus ride) and involves more and better social interaction—at the office, I would end up working alone in a large room, seldom meeting my actual teammates, but at the coffee shop, I chat with the baristas or other regulars or just people-watch and –sketch ha!
I’m conflicted about caffeine intake (there’s history, as you can probably tell) and whether coffee is ultimately for me, but when I do partake, it’s delicious coffee in a ceramic mug for me—with due respect to the late Anthony Bourdain, I must disagree with his take.
Anyhow, what has come with the coffee shop visits has been great: a physiological impetus to get outside in the morning without too much rationalization, which gives me a mental switch into work—I say that I leave my home but come back to my ‘office’, even though it’s the same address. It’s also led to more exploring the neighborhood on foot, more running errands on the walk back, but perhaps most important, more sketching, more journaling, more just enjoying pen on paper on a small table for a small pause.
Snow Leopard Sisters
I was lucky to attend a special screening of Snow Leopard Sisters at the Asian Art Museum, followed by Q&A, with questions answered by the documentary film’s protagonists and cinematographer, along with the executive director from the conservancy that’s supporting their current campaign.
The movie, which premiered at SXSW this year, is about a lady, Tshiring Lhamu Lama, a conservationist who, along with a young apprentice, Tenzin Bhuti Gurung, worked to study and address a decline in the snow leopard population in her home region of Dolpo, Nepal.
Of course, every story about of victory appears to the one-track-minded designer as some sort of design fable. Tshiring’s compassion and thoughtful consideration towards the wild animals she is dedicated to protecting, but equally, towards the herders who retaliate to protect their own livestock (on which they depend for their livelihoods) is remarkable. Dare I say, a true systems thinker. Her passion and strength of will is awe-striking; we were transfixed as we saw her carry her one-month old son through snow-laden passes. The film was a real pleasure to watch. It took me back to when, as a kid, I’d dream of living around animals and couldn’t get enough of wildlife TV shows and encyclopedia forays about wild cats.
YUZ SF talks
YUZ stands for Young Urban Zen, a weekly meeting at the SF Zen Center where meditators across experience levels between the ages of 20 and 40 practice together and discuss their meditation practice. After a break, owing to illness and travel, I’ve started attending practice talks in-person again; while I do get to listen back as part of my volunteer role—uploading talk recordings to the podcast—there’s something special about book-ending the talk, sitting in the Buddha Hall, with a short sit and conversation with other audience members.
One way seeking mind talk, given by Tim Wicks, was particularly inspiring. Tim has experience with Vipassana and Zen, both, and—with a captivating honesty—recounted his journey with his practice, as someone who started out as a fine artist and an atheist “hostile to any kind of spiritual practice at all”. Much like interview podcasts/ anecdotes/ biographical texts that shine a light on the creative process and the evolution of artists’ practices, I enjoy listening to way seeking mind talks. I love how Tim situates his own story inside the context of history—beginning roughly in the late 90s, in London, and then, the Bay Area; he calls the Bay Area “a kind of spiritual shopping mall” which is quite right, innit.
To conclude, I will paste below the poem with which Tim concluded the talk.
Love After Love
– Derek Walcott
The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread, Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.