“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.”  — Buddha.

Happy Labor Day, I hope we can all find some peace over the weekend. We gave very few plans.

I’ll try to celebrate work this weekend, mine, and the hard work of others that makes our world go round. But I know it is a very hard weekend for many people.

Today, we’ll go to the Vermont Farmer’s Market and buy some of Emily Gold’s delicious fruit tarts to bring dinner on a friend’s screened-in porch. We’re bringing dessert and a bottle of wine.

This is a dinner pandemic style. We will all sit on the porch, eight to ten feet apart, have some pizza and salad, and fruit tarts. Our friends have a beautiful house and a porch in the woods.

We’ve known them for a long time; it is easy and refreshing to be with them.  They knew me before the madness, before Maria. And they stuck with me all these years—much love between us.

I’m taking the weekend off from my bike. I’m getting some lessons early in the week, and my knee will be less sore by then. I’m glad I got my first spill over with.

Eckhart Tolle wrote that “you find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level.” This has been true for me. I stopped lying to myself, or to anyone else.

I didn’t find peace by moving or arguing or worrying. I found peace by facing the truth about myself and learning who I really am. I can’t control the world, just my own heart, and soul.

This weekend I will meditate, walk in the wood with Maria,  read and think and swim in the quiet. And write on the blog, of course, and take some photos.

That is always restful for me. Sonia Ricotti: “Surrender to what is, let go of what was, have faith in what will be.”

I wish all of you peace and compassion; we need it, lots of stress and fear in the air. I’m going to take some deep breaths and settle and love my wife and my dogs and give my restless soul some quiet and contemplation.