Stream of Conscious

My mind is hard at work much of the time, reliving the past, often with regrets and sadness, or planning for the future.  (Overall, my mind spends more the future than in the past.)  Our meditation teacher, Diana Winston, says wouldn't it be interesting if we had loudspeakers mounted on our foreheads, that broadcast all the thoughts going thru our minds. It would be chaotic to be in a group of people like that.  Here is a little of my stream of consciousness from this morning.

Nadine came out while I was having breakfast and reading the paper.  Because Nadine was born in Pittsburgh, I told her that Pittsburgh had won the Stanley Cup.  She thought it was given to an individual.  I explained it was given to the team that won the NHL title.  Pittsburgh has now won two years in a row.

Later, at the SOVA food pantry, I was telling this to a co-volunteer, Walter.  Walter told me that his ex-wife was from Pittsburgh.  Of course, from the Squirrel Hill neighborhood; that's were all the Jews lived then, and many still do.  I asked if they ever went back to Pittsburgh; they did not.

Nadine and I went back to Pittsburgh once, when our cousin Morgan graduated from Carnegie-Mellon.  It was the only time she ever went back; her family left Pittsburgh when Nadine was about five, shortly after WWII.  (Walter is about my age; he said that his ex-wife also left Pittsburgh when she was a little girl.)

While we were in Pittsburgh, we visited cousins on both sides of Nadine's family.  We went to dinner with some of her father's, Charlie's, family.  I sat next to Charlie's younger brother, Max, who was then in his eighties.  Max didn't look a lot like Charlie, but I remember that there was something very familiar feeling, as though Charlie was sitting there, in Max's seat.  Maybe Charlie and Max had some of the same aura about them; maybe it was the same old Pittsburgh accent; maybe something else.  There is so much of my experiences that is not thought, but just felt.  We know a lot, but much is hidden from the "knowing" part of our minds.