more floor

So this is an addendum to yesterday's post. Mouse was had said that if I am going to stare at the floor for so long, she wondered if it was at least a nice one.

That photo is a pretty great shot of it (I used it onece before here), and you can also see more photos of it here (the zen center website--just click and let the photos scroll through the slide show on the home page). One of the reasons I like that photo above though, is that it is taken from where I often end up sitting. It's not like we have assigned seats or anything, but the corner spots are usually easier for me to get up and down from (crutches, and all that).

So the floor. Lemme tell ya', I have a very interesting relationship with the floor of this place. You see, many years ago (beginning in 1994 for me, actually), long before the zen center purchased this building from it's previous owner, it was on long term lease to none other but my very own dance teacher and her partner.

This is the building that I learned to dance in. For years, every week, on Thursday nights, I sat on a mat (longer, full body) on this floor, doing the same warm-up series that I now teach (my teacher passed away in 1999 and I started co-teaching the class in 2000).

This is the floor where I danced my very first solo, and where I rehearsed my very first performances, and where I circle-danced on solstices and equinoxes with my fellow classmates. I have rolled around on this floor as a dancer, and when I practice meditation sometimes I swear I am merging with it once again. Heck, we're both made of cells, right? It's just a floor, and I'm just a person, and only because of how those cells ended up being organized, no??

I have a deep connection to the floor. To the whole space, really. When we would rehearse a dance piece, sometimes these geese from across the street would honk, and the geese still honk during meditation all these years later! And the windows, which are squares of various shades of opaque glass...the whole room shifts and changes and sun filters in. The kitchen and bathroom still have their classic tile, and the garden outside, even though tended to differently, still has some of the same features, especially the larger trees.

I love this place, and when it became a zen center and my teacher and her partner needed to relocate (because they couldn't manage to purchase the building when the owner sold it), I was shook up for a bit. It was quite the shift getting used to the new place. I now have the same deep love for our current space. But I never ever thought that I'd see the inside of the old space again.

And now, here I sit.
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Oh, and by the way....



Can you believe it's March?!