Yesterday I found myself in the flat directly below mine. It rents for $400/month more than mine does, but is smaller, darker and closer to the noisy street. That San Francisco rents could have risen that much during the one year since I moved was more than a little disconcerting. I did, however, discover something more comforting as well: there is more than one floor plan that seems suited for our building's units, and although I won't be finding a flat much more quiet very soon, I can at least rearrange this one. And maybe I will.

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I have a new sign affixed above my computer on my desk. It reads, in all capital letters, "ABUNDANCE," my current most precious reminder.

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I have been back for well over a week, but until now was not able to update this page. I was immobilized. And, although the perceptual errors which blinded me were of my own making, their effects were genuine, visceral and robust.

I tend towards theories at these times, and my latest theory had to do with traveling. The better my trip, I reasoned, the harder the transition upon return home.

In this case, I had an almost-perfect almost-week back east, filled in part with reunions, in part with introductions, all positive, and most importantly, the positivity was effortless, which surprised even myself.

But when I returned to this cluttered, dark, hotel-treated home, despite warm (ableit fleeting) welcomes and happy rabbit and cat, the most salient taste in my mouth soon became that which I lack.

It's hard, after all, to spend so much time with two big furry dogs, one co-op owned-apartment, lives with live-ins and free time without noticing that none of those things are things I have here. I have different things, of course, and I have something even more rare - - a career all my own in something that I enjoy the process, rather than just the result - - but for a week those things may well never have existed, given my failure to see them at all.

So, I sketched a hypothesis, and although things got worse before they got better, this theory of travel helped restore my vision, yet again.

But it still has some returning to do.

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That's where abundance comes in. Too often I forget that this world has abundance, of people and opportunity, and challenge and success, of new things and returning things, of finding things lost and discovering the unimagined. One person's success does not bode less for another; rather, I tell myself, the opposite.

Maybe I'm wrong; maybe these are the karmic debts one card reader prophesized I would be destined to pay; but for now I look up, above my desk, and the only sign I see is just one word.

Abundance.

with thanks to heather.

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thanks, Top25.org

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thanks, COMOFLOW

today