And then there is the literary aspect. Hospital is deeply boring. I stared out the windows of Alta Bates on Ashby north of Telegraph at the landscape in the cold winter mornings and watch the day unfold below me.
Most people have no idea how close they are to the edge. I loved meditating there. By some fluke, I was alone in a double room and took the bed by the window. Cool dawn light was always the best, knowing breakfast was a few freeze dried eggs, silcone beacon and fake orange juice with dry toast away. AB had good coffee.
The sun swept over us inmates like the Rime of the Ancient Mariner... in all the stillness of it. It wasn't like Hemingway's The Gambler, the Nun and the Radio. It was its own place.