Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

In the Genjo Koan, Dogen wrote, “Do not call winter the beginning of spring, nor summer the end of spring.” I don’t know what he would have made of it if he lived in San Francisco. A few weeks ago, there were cold winds, and pictures posted of snow on the ridge at Tassajara. This week we are in a heatwave, and since we are ahead of the Equinox still, we haven’t officially begun spring – if I were at Tassajara now, I could imagine doing what we did when it was 80 degrees in March: running off to the creek after lunch and jumping in, after a morning stifling in robes.

I still have my warm layers out from the recent chilly weather, and at the same time have been digging out my shorts and lightest shirts (I had a pair of shorts that I had forgotten about, which was nice to discover). The ease of warmth is settling my body, and the joy of a twilight walk in balmy conditions has illuminated our evenings.

Last weekend, when I had nothing on my calendar, was productive enough to be satisfying at least. For one thing, I was able to complete the last few steps for getting my old road bike back on the road. It has been a long a tortuous journey of more than six years from a part of the frame braking (I can still picture the scene, even if I was a bit vague on the date until I looked it up); finding someone who would weld a new piece on; offering the work to someone on Instagram who was looking for a bike project, only to find they weren’t really interested in an old bike; sourcing parts myself and trying to figure out why some pieces didn’t go together; and then finally getting all the bits back on, installing new cables and getting the gears and brakes to work. To be honest the gears are a little slippery right now, which might have something to do with the cables being new, or the shifter cogs being old. But I have been using it this week in place of my fixed gear, and that bike has gone on Craigslist (let me know if you happen to be interested – right now there are a couple of interested parties, though I think one of them is our old friend Scam Likely).