Professor Jim Austin, author of the monumental survey of brain science research as it relates to Zen and I have had a small correspondence going on for years. He doesn’t actually approve of the internet and I have long since misplaced my quill and parchment, so our communication has over these years been on the sparse side. But I’ve always loved the connection.
Then, as things happen, he sent a note saying he was going to be in Providence and wondered, if, well, perhaps I had time for a cuppa…
I cleared my calendar for a couple of hours.
We met at the Amtrak.
And as he had already had a tour of the church which had before my time here actually been the site of his daughter’s wedding, instead we took off for Swan Point cemetery, one of those great monumental sites developed in the nineteenth century following in the wake of Mt Auburn…
One of my youthful indiscretions was a fondness for the horror of H. P. Lovecraft who was buried at Swan Point.
I had a map.
We wandered through the area.
We got lost.
We got lost again.
Never found the old ghoul’s last resting place, so that’s still on my to do list.
But a great time with an old scholar whom I admire, talking a little Zen gossip, a bit more serious stuff, lots of stopping and noticing, and in general just enjoying the warmth of friendship and wet feet on a damp day taking a walk in a graveyard…
One of those lovely things…
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