More SIGNS OF VIOLENCE. Walking the half block along 13th Ave. from Gaylord to the office, I spottted detritus at the foot of one of the smaller ash trees in the narrow parking strip before Connie’s house. There were dribs and drabs of black plastic, some shards of glass. „Hm,“ I thought, „car accident remains.“ Then I noticed bits of bark. A couple of feet up the trunk was a basketball-sized gash, where a vehicle had crashed into the tree, the yellow wound stripped of bark. Near the sidealk lay a large piece of bark, nearly the size of the gash.

So discomfitting, to see the tender, yellow gash of wood. Something one should never see. As awkward to integrate as a crimson wound of blood.

The impact did not cause the tree to list. It is too large. But will it survive this wound make to its protective skin?

Last night’s seminar at Hindman / Sanchez about HOA operations and Boards of Directors („Success Basics for Board Members“) proved to be quite valuable. Mostly as a validation that much of what I’d figured out about EB operations was accurate. The fiduciary responsibilities are serious, the directive to know Governing Documents is unquestionable. The EB must operate according to these doc’s, as well as state and federal laws.

Turns out that there are various books explaining HOA structure and functioning. I wish I’d known this months ago.

Between morning clients today, I walked to 12th Ave. Dietrich’s to have coffee and read. Turns out it’s closer to the office that St. Mark’s. Somehow it had always seemed farther away than that. Ah, the vagueries of unexamined perception!

St. Mark’s is definitely not a morning place to be, what with the noxious complaining of Tina and Heather attacking one’s ears mercilessly. Dietrich’s is pleasant. Light, upkept, clean.

A fellow at the bar next to my table, enngaged in a brief conversation with the barista about siblings. He is 21 years older than his youngest sib. The barista admitted the same gap exists between herself and her sister.

I was reading Cernuda’s poetry. When first I sat down, at the bar were two hispanos speaking espanol. At moments I felt myself to be in Madrid, reading and hearing Spanish in a café!

Alvin wants to go to owners‘ doors on Saturday and encourage „neutrals“ to attend the meeting or give us proxies. It’s a step for me, to put myself out there in such a fashion. It feels right to practice the role of Busker in such a way.

Regarding LEFT SHOULDER PAIN, I now realize that I need to stretch the msucles, push them mindfully into pain, so that they don’t tighten up more and atrophy. The pattern of pain had become patterns of limitation, with me avoiding pain-inducing movements. The physical pain, I realize, was causing me to carry out Zaiga’s Rightist agenda, whereby I was not to use my sinister side.

It’s a combination of massaging and stretching the ropy muscles. Staying with the Pain. Pysically as well as emotionally.

Yes, staying with Pain. Mindfully heeding it, but not fearing it. Working with and through it. To stretch and not allow my range of motion to decrease.

Interacting with it mindfully, I experience the muscle pain differently. It doesn’t seem so painful. The pain is not inchoate, nor is it blindly fear producing. It is info to work with, not something Bad.