VL?

This morning I got up at 5:00 a.m. and went to zazen, for the second Tuesday in a row. Dark and cold was the morning, but I put on a long-sleeved silk undershirt and a wool sweater and I was all right. My legs turned into wood to such an extent that I had to move before the bell, but aside from that I was reasonably calm, repeating as a mantra Psalm 62:1: "For God alone my soul in silence waits; from God comes my salvation." Afterward, Y. took care to greet me and welcome me back, and actually smiled, which was the first warmth I've ever seen him show anybody. Maybe he's finally settling in.

I came home to see that my next door neighbor's house had been vandalized, in a very strange way. Someone had painted "VL" on the bricks in white paint, using not spray paint but a brush; and worse, had dumped not just one but two whole cans of white paint onto the sidewalk. It was strange because the "VL" had been done in block letters, and didn't look anything like the typical gang-related grafitti seen all over the Mission District. Little of the paint, which was splashed in thick white streams over the sidewalk, got onto the sidewalk in front of my house, but the mess in front of the house next door was extreme. And of course people had already started tracking the paint up and down the sidewalk.

I rang the doorbell, and the tenant who answered said that it had happened last night around 9:00 pm. She had no idea what it was all about. My theory is that it might have to do with the new guy living in the in-law apartment in the basement. He blocked our driveway on Sunday night, so he must be a ne'er-do-well.