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Catching up...
Aug. 13th, 2006 04:18 pmIt's been a while, hasn't it? Sir goes to the Black Hat security conference every year, and this year we decided to combine it with a visit to his grandmother, who lives in Laguna Beach, just outside of L.A. Considering that she's 91, visiting more often than less is the best policy, and Laguna beach is quite pleasant, too.
My father came up a few days before we left in order to get into the routine of things around here, which was nice, although I have to say I prefer having him here in the colder weather - his voice is so soft it can be hard to hear him over the a/c. Still, the visit was quite pleasant, though it's getting kind of funny - it's as if the only time he comes up is to house sit, so we're not even around for most of it!
Las Vegas was dull as ditchwater. We stayed at Cesar's Palace, the location of the conference. It's a nice enough hotel, but of course it actually lacks a lot of in-room amenities, like a coffeemaker and fridge, to force you down into the casinos. Bah. The pool I had spent most of my time at has come under new management too, and it now costs 20$ just to enter, which doesn't cover any sort of services, just the priviledge of being by that particular pool. I couldn't spend much time at the other pools, since there was a serious lack of shade and I'm too fair to be out in the sun that much, so I spent most of my time in a bar with comfy chairs reading. That was pleasant enough, as I read Diane Ackerman's newest book on the brain (An Alchemy of Mind, done in the style of her natural histories, and excellent.) and a good study of the relationships of the Pre-Raphaelites, which ought have been subtitled Dante Gabriel Rosetti is a Jerk.
Old friends from Chicago arrived in Las Vegas by the middle of the week, and we spent a great deal of time catching up with them, and reminiscing about long gone mutual acquiantences. Those conversations gave me quite a few insights about changes I've undergone, subtle (or perhaps unsubtle to an outside observer, but like the shifting of tides to me.) shifts in how I react to the world and enact myself in it. I'm much more gently minded now, if that makes sense. Behaviours that would have been greeted with an 'oh, whatever' years ago now stop me dead in my tracks, shocked that 'people could act that way', whatever that means, and things that would have sent me into a violent rage stop me just as cold, but the idea of violence not even in my mind. (with exceptions, such as threatening Sir or myself. I'm not a pacifist, but I'm nowhere near as easy with violence as I used to be)
It's hard to put a real name to these changes, soft and quiet shifts over the course of years as they are, but remembering the way I was vs. the way I am the differences are stark, startling. I question them, question the rightness of such shifts, but only out of my habits of self doubt, as on a wordless level it feels good and right for me to have put away the easy violence of the past. Sir says it's the fruit of my having become a Buddhist, and I'm willing to buy that, but I also think it's the gentleness of my current life, with our seasonal shifts made so much more visible by the farmer's market, and the general goodness of our days. That's another thing that was brought home to me in a very real, solid way - I'm feel safe in saying my life is as perfect as a life can be. There are bumps in the road, Sir and I sometimes can't communicate, but we always work it out, the general frustrations of my joint disorder, the days where the clouds of a lack of self-worth hang heavy over me, but all in all there can be no denying things are good. Of course, a mind like mine, carrying its trunk of damage behind it greets this realization with fear, murmurs of not deserving it, knowing it can't last, etc., etc., but hey, that's what the practice is for, isn't it?
My father came up a few days before we left in order to get into the routine of things around here, which was nice, although I have to say I prefer having him here in the colder weather - his voice is so soft it can be hard to hear him over the a/c. Still, the visit was quite pleasant, though it's getting kind of funny - it's as if the only time he comes up is to house sit, so we're not even around for most of it!
Las Vegas was dull as ditchwater. We stayed at Cesar's Palace, the location of the conference. It's a nice enough hotel, but of course it actually lacks a lot of in-room amenities, like a coffeemaker and fridge, to force you down into the casinos. Bah. The pool I had spent most of my time at has come under new management too, and it now costs 20$ just to enter, which doesn't cover any sort of services, just the priviledge of being by that particular pool. I couldn't spend much time at the other pools, since there was a serious lack of shade and I'm too fair to be out in the sun that much, so I spent most of my time in a bar with comfy chairs reading. That was pleasant enough, as I read Diane Ackerman's newest book on the brain (An Alchemy of Mind, done in the style of her natural histories, and excellent.) and a good study of the relationships of the Pre-Raphaelites, which ought have been subtitled Dante Gabriel Rosetti is a Jerk.
Old friends from Chicago arrived in Las Vegas by the middle of the week, and we spent a great deal of time catching up with them, and reminiscing about long gone mutual acquiantences. Those conversations gave me quite a few insights about changes I've undergone, subtle (or perhaps unsubtle to an outside observer, but like the shifting of tides to me.) shifts in how I react to the world and enact myself in it. I'm much more gently minded now, if that makes sense. Behaviours that would have been greeted with an 'oh, whatever' years ago now stop me dead in my tracks, shocked that 'people could act that way', whatever that means, and things that would have sent me into a violent rage stop me just as cold, but the idea of violence not even in my mind. (with exceptions, such as threatening Sir or myself. I'm not a pacifist, but I'm nowhere near as easy with violence as I used to be)
It's hard to put a real name to these changes, soft and quiet shifts over the course of years as they are, but remembering the way I was vs. the way I am the differences are stark, startling. I question them, question the rightness of such shifts, but only out of my habits of self doubt, as on a wordless level it feels good and right for me to have put away the easy violence of the past. Sir says it's the fruit of my having become a Buddhist, and I'm willing to buy that, but I also think it's the gentleness of my current life, with our seasonal shifts made so much more visible by the farmer's market, and the general goodness of our days. That's another thing that was brought home to me in a very real, solid way - I'm feel safe in saying my life is as perfect as a life can be. There are bumps in the road, Sir and I sometimes can't communicate, but we always work it out, the general frustrations of my joint disorder, the days where the clouds of a lack of self-worth hang heavy over me, but all in all there can be no denying things are good. Of course, a mind like mine, carrying its trunk of damage behind it greets this realization with fear, murmurs of not deserving it, knowing it can't last, etc., etc., but hey, that's what the practice is for, isn't it?
