16th St. 9 ball

Well, that was weird. After dropping of my daughter at school I got stuck on 16th St. behind a car with Vermont plates that read "9 ball," which was, in turn, stuck behind the trash truck. It didn't turn out that badly though, 9 ball pulled over and I squeaked by the truck after folding the rear view mirror in. We here in Brooklyn have a unique opportunity to learn to keep calm in tight spaces. It reminds me of the Buddhist practice called Tonglen, in which meditators imagine they breath in the ills of the world, anger, anxiety, depression, all suffocating things, etc., and breath out bliss, freedom, light and spaciousness.

There's a strange interplay betweent loose and tight in the air today. I woke up at 5:30 so happy to stay in bed, and kept waking up in a state of anxiety only to realize I had more...time....Then finally I was dreaming of a bee crawling very quickly in the direction of my alarm clock, getting to it just as it actually started buzzing.

And with that, a photo of a tadpole we saw Sunday that's developing in a tank over at the Boathouse in Prospect Park. I think one of the reasons it's so satisfying to observe tiny critters in water is because it amplifies our sense of space for some reason, which can bring either great relief or terror depending on your state of mind, relative agoraphobia or claustrophobia.