keelung, taiwan
took a me day. walked in flip-flop sandals. forgot how much i liked bare feet against the weather. the skin of my toes pointed toward the cloudy sky. no wet shoes, no wet socks. the shallow puddles on the sidewalk or the road splashing harmlessly and then drying in the air.
of course, new shoes will scrape against new parts of your foot. after seeking a stopwatch and failing, 15 minutes there and back, part of the top arch of my left foot is rubbed raw and red. skin needs callouses against the wear of travel.
i want a stopwatch for meditation. i am using a flip-timer on my phone, but there’s something off about the process. the screen has to stay on, and for 20 minutes it wears out the phone battery, makes the processor hum and the phone itself warm. a stopwatch cures this. there are none to buy. not in sporting goods stores or electronics stores or even watch stores. they don’t exist. we will order one online. i will wear it around my neck. i have not forgotten a meditation yet. two per day since i first signed on, signed up, to tune out and drop in. every one is different.
the gym was brutal. foam rolling is hellish. almost three hours to move through some stretching and six machines as well. my form is terrible, all my limbs like tree trunks seeking the sun over the cusp of a mountain. the tea-flavored protein shake at the end was good. all my fascia is screaming today. what else was i trying to buy?
a phone holder for a bicycle. i put my life in danger pedaling, trying to hold my phone and navigate at the same time through dark streets, sometimes drunk. bike phone holders are rare, and it turns out, when you find them – expensive! i will test it soon. set screws you have to take out and put in. it’s supposed to be a more permanent affair. i feel like i’ll be spending more time setting up the stand than actually biking. and yet, i will be safe, and the voice of the phone will guide me. this is the purpose.
following sadhguru is wild. and seth godin. and light watkins. and thom knoles. already i forget the name of a group today. they live on the ground of crematoriums, and embrace the impure, and follow shiva the destroyer as a perfect entity, and so find moksha through the equivalence of good and bad, while also giving service to the community as ascetics. wild. “beyond the terrible”.
less than two weeks more here. another week on a couch. then a month somewhere stable that i can get to banqiao easy, then the tai chi competition, then korea, then back for five weeks, then to the monastery for a month, then the calendar is blank. i’d like to learn chinese. not like a short program, but one that skips through time and gives me less worry about being a resident here. extend the timeline until the himalayas approach like a misty beacon.
i went out for another walk, traded the new sandals for the shoes and socks. newer shoes, newer socks. footfalls were like walking on clouds, seeking the stopwatch again in new places. i found a chicken sandwich on light, crusty bread.
my feet were so snug under the table.
