Looking up and back

I am lying on the floor of my office looking up at the small, square ceiling wondering if the room is ten by ten or twelve by twelve. It is afternoon and the window is open. The shade is half down and outside pigeons are arriving and departing like small, squeaky airplanes. They come to graze, bathe, to nap in the dirt. When they suddenly all take off together it is in a nerve racking rickety flap. They are too big for the space but I need them. Otherwise, this room is too small.

Last night I did a search on one of my former names and found a couple of articles I wrote back in '78 when I was in ISKCON. This was during the height of my fanatic phase and I was a staff writer and assistant editor for a fledgling, mostly in-house journal. To my great surprise, the articles were posted by a former acquaintance who, in those days, was more proud that he could spit through his teeth and temporarily blind a foe than read or write. In my own way, I wasn't doing any better. The articles are stiff and embarrassing and ribbed by a boilerplate philosophy through which I barely squinted at the world.