Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

As I write this, we have a few hours before we leave for the airport, on Wednedsay afternoon. I haven’t packed anything yet, though things are set out around the place, and I have done this enough times that I expect I won’t forget anything important. 

It helps that the ten-day forecast for the UK still shows glorious summer weather, which means I can cut down on the number of warm layers I would have expected to take. We have been hearing about rain and thunderstorms in Virginia where the Gen X teachers’ gathering is happening in a couple of weeks, and are being encouraged to bring rain wear, but that’s a given for a trip to England at any time of year.

The last class on the Bodhisattva Vows was somewhat blighted by my having a poor internet connection. I dropped off completely for a few minutes at the beginning, and had to connect via my phone while my wi-fi worked itself out. I suspect people didn’t get to hear a percentage of what I said, though on the recording, the closed captioning seemed to catch it. In any case, we had another good discussion, and I felt very satisfied with how it had gone overall.

Since then I have been rushing around a fair amount making sure loose ends are taken care of. I had a last minute request for a very simple wedding on Monday afternoon, which was a lovely distraction from that. 

The weather finally cheered up  here, the wind easing somewhat, and the temperatures rising – to about the same numbers that we will have in England once we arrive. On Sunday morning I took a quick ride even before eating breakfast, which I rarely do. There were some early risers heading to Bay-to-Breakers in a variety of costumes; most of the people I saw first seemed to be making use of Waymo vehicles’ indifference to time; the later ones waiting at bus stops. 

I had worried that the afternoon roam would be impacted by the race; a few people did struggle to get across town, but as we visited several gardens in the Mission, we were pretty isolated from any chaos.

Fingers crossed that our journey across the Atlantic is less incident-filled than the last one. We are excited to be on another adventure, tempered only by the fact that we will miss Georgie, who will be staying here with a dog-sitter.