A whirlwind tour. Yes, exactly. Despite adding in more and more “relaxing” activities, I can’t seem to shake the stress. That said, the stress is less on a day when I take all these breaks. In fact, what a funny choice I have to make: do less outside of work and spend my life energy mostly on work, or work really hard to get the work done and then cram in my own personal activities.  Right. The obvious choice seems to be the latter. And in fact as a fallback if I get less work done as a result of all these scheduled breaks, then that may be okay, as long as I can support my family…

Sunshine on Grand Ave.  Just looking around had me stumped for a minute.  There’s a billboard in Spanish with the same exact billboard again right below it.  Some significant part of Oakland goes through this corridor. But most of it doesn’t stop, and then again the pace is so much more easy than say Harrison a few blocks away. Nobody parades down Harrison: on Grand you feel the slow curve around part of the city.  Not the city core, just part of the city. Maybe that section is the magic future of Oakland, the revival beyond the city core, which connects the city core to Temescal/Rockridge and Berkeley.

And still they parade. What new page of my life and Oakland’s life is about to be opened?  Where do I miss my best chances, or am I making them as we speak?  Missed opportunities are just equivalent opportunities not yet taken.  So what do I take next? I feel myself choosing a different path and I wonder how far removed it will be from what I imagine. Step by step I move forward into something that feels like it has the discipline of a physician combined with the open spaces of the artist. Hmmm. What open spaces does a struggling artist really have?  And of course I’m not serving human health in the way of a physician. Shall I compare myself with an attorney?  A businessman?  A monk?

One more minute. They parade, the sun progresses, work begins to call. And I go.

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