For Janice

Posted Yesterday, under children, compassion, health care, kindness, love, Uncategorized
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I persuaded a friend to steer me to a Juneteenth celebration in north Minneapolis. My first children’s book had been published a couple of weeks before, the weather was actually warm, and I was on a roll.

Roy and I had just arrived when I saw a lovely woman and a little boy coming toward us. She walked up and hugged Roy, and they began to chat. I was only five years out of Chicago, where people didn’t hug without a good reason. If there had been something between Roy and her I thought I would’ve known about it. I was glad for him and hoped that this was just Minnesota nice and didn’t mean anything serious.

I thought all that because I’d fallen in love. I fell in love readily back then, with all sorts of women for all sorts of reasons, nearly all of them superficial. This one was different. I’m calling it falling in love, but it was more than that. I recognized her. Roy introduced us and her voice was lovely, too. Bam.

I was a children’s book editor, and she was an artist who wanted to illustrate children’s books. Pow. We exchanged numbers so she could bring her portfolio to my office the next week to be considered for an assignment. She left soon after for a previous commitment and promised to call me for an appointment.

Roy then told me that she had made the painting over the sofa in his living room, the picture I had asked about. Boing.

She showed me her book the next week, and I promised to get her work. We exchanged business cards, and on hers she wrote “Call me anytime.” For two months I looked at that every day on my cork board at work, knowing that calling her wasn’t gonna be like calling anybody else, and I didn’t until mid-August, when I threw a party so I could invite her. She smelled like coconut that evening. I let her use my favorite mug, and she sat on my bed. A month later I asked her to marry me (music swells). That was the summer of 1990.

After twenty-one years of marriage, two more sons, and twenty-odd children’s books, the love of my life is living with stage-four breast cancer and doing her best not to make me a widower, and that’s where you come in. She’s currently at a cancer clinic in Arizona and can’t afford to stay long enough to make the most difference. Please, help at www.giveforward.com/forjanice. Now. Or not.

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New age girls

Posted 5 days ago, under video
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In the shade

Posted 2 weeks ago, under appreciation, happiness, judgment, perspective, Uncategorized
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I used to think one of the oddest things about Chico was the way people would park their cars way across a parking lot to get it under a sorry little parking-lot tree for a scrap of shade. That was before I’d experienced a car that’d been sitting for more than ninety seconds in a July sun in Chico, and of course now I do the same thing, estimating the change in the sun’s position so as not to end up in full sun before I leave.

I was shocked that someone would go to that much trouble for a little shade. In Minnesota looking for a spot in the shade would be unseemly, self-indulgent, and a little selfish, too, because you’d be hogging a spot that somebody more deserving could have.

Last summer I found a good spot in a parking lot, in deep shade and certain to stay that way for the duration of my errand. I was happy as I walked to the store until I saw another spot nearer to the store and just as shady. It was also close to a cart corral, in case I thought of enough stuff to buy to warrant that extra convenience for my shopping pleasure. I hadn’t parked near a cart corral, except no cart corral could possibly be more than thirty yards away anyway.

I had a perfectly good parking spot a few steps away, and I wasn’t planning to spend enough money to need a cart. Still, when I saw that other spot cool and inviting one slot away from the cart corral, I thought, “Shit! I could have parked there! If I hadn’t grabbed the first one I saw, I could be right there in the shade almost next to the cart corral! I blew it again!” That’s not a direct quote—except “Shit!”—but that’s the gist of it. I actually thought about going back to my car and driving to the new spot.

I was upset, disappointed in myself, and despairing of ever doing anything right for about 7.3 seconds, down from six months twenty years ago. Right after that I burst out laughing. Not all my loony thoughts make me laugh like that, and I especially appreciate the ones that do. I appreciate all my thoughts eventually, and some take longer than others.

The thoughts that take the longest to appreciate are the ones I’ve had so much that I don’t recognize them as thoughts and, instead, I believe them. Beliefs are very sneaky.

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Reggie Watts

Posted 2 weeks ago, under video
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Surveillance

Posted 3 weeks ago, under Uncategorized
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I keep tabs on my family. I like knowing where they are, how they’re doing. Knowing their whereabouts was easy when the boys were little, and still feasible until impromptu sleepovers and overnight trips with the fellas eased my wants to the side. Now I hardly know where anybody is.

When my oldest used to visit his best friend as a tyke, he would walk the block between our houses with his buddy’s big sister watching from her corner and me watching his back from ours. He went to Central America last spring, and I thought I could hear his ties to me humming from the strain the whole time he was gone. Then my wife and I left for the Pacific Northwest before he got back, and our youngest went to Minnesota while we were gone, and I went to a meditation course before he got back, and by Labor Day I lived with two young men, not adults mind you, but two guys who clearly didn’t need a daddy. Nobody said that, but I’d hardly seen them for months, and they had survived on their own, thus demonstrating my uselessness. That’s the story I made up.

I’d forgotten about the great discovery I made long ago that the one true path to happiness with little boys on a playground was not to look while they courted disaster with steel and concrete. It felt at first like neglect to ignore a toddler. What kind of father lets his son risk injury or death? A realistic father.

The alternative to informed neglect isn’t constant vigilance, which I’d gotten used to—it’s constant motion, because I had to go with him, matching him whim for whim or I couldn’t help anyway. I’ve spent many a party going up and down stairs with a little boy. I could be vigilant with a highball in the dining room, but if he takes a header off the top step, I’m within grabbing distance or I’m null and void. If I can’t get there in time to make a difference, I don’t want to know what’s going on.

Now I’m always too far away to help, whether I know his approximate location or not. In an emergency, I can’t get there in time to be useful, so they’re actually on their own and have been for a long time.

I rest in the knowledge that I’ve warped them as much as I could, and those various biases and reactions I’ve managed to plant, mostly inadvertently I suppose, will be useful in adversity or not, and I trust them to know the difference.

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Quotations

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When you can look at yourself the same way you do a sunset, or a puppy, you are seeing clearly.   Seth

Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a covenant between equals.   Gregory Boyle (1954-  )

Rather than continuing to seek the truth, simply let go of your views.   Siddhartha Gotama (c. 566-480 BCE)

Not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.   The Fourteenth Dalai Lama (1935–  )

Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.   Chinese proverb

Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile I caught hell for.   Earl Warren (1891–1974)

Observing without evaluating is the highest form of human intelligence.   Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986)

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.   Plato (427–347 BCE)

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.   Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860)

If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.   Yiddish proverb

Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths.   Etty Hillesum (1914–1943)

We can’t plan life. All we can do is be available for it.   Lauryn Hill (1975–  )

The spiritual path is simply the journey of living our lives. Everyone is on a spiritual path; most people just don’t know it.   Marianne Williamson (1952–  )

The truth will set you free, but not until it is finished with you.   David Foster Wallace (1962–2008)

A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner.   English proverb

This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.   Mary Oliver (1935–  )

From the ego’s point of view, spiritual progress is “one insult after another.”   Lama Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche (1939–1987)

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.   Niels Bohr (1885–1962)

Do not search for the truth; only cease to cherish opinions.   Seng-Ts’an (?–606)

Stillness is the language God speaks. Everything else is a bad translation.   Anonymous

Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.   Meister Eckhart (c. 1260–1327)

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Dissolution

Posted , under aging, death, mindfulness, Uncategorized
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Everything is cool, there’s nothing to worry about, and it ain’t ever gonna be over. Everything passes away. Eventually your molecules and things will do something else, become something else.

There’s apparently a Buddhist practice that involves a prospective monk spending some weeks or months with a decaying corpse, as a reminder of the transience of all forms, presumably including his. I can see how hanging out with a decaying corpse could teach me things I maybe couldn’t learn any other way, and as it happens I am hanging out with a decaying pre-corpse—my body. I’m not dying any faster than necessary. It’s just that my contemplation of anicca in Pali, anissa in Sanskrit, focuses on the body as the most immediate evidence of the impermanence of all things, all forms, so I’m probably paying more attention to my body than I have since I learned to masturbate.

An upside of death is that I won’t have to buy and wear clothes any more—I’m very tired of buying and wearing clothes—and still I can’t bear to part with a 20-year-old T-shirt from a nonprofit magazine I once edited. Stuff ought to be easier to get rid of, it being transient whether I keep it or not, but when I see that old shirt I remember wild-eyed discussions with our art director about the logo, and my son sleeping in a car seat in my office while I read manuscripts on Saturday mornings while my wife slept in, and how the publisher became my favorite geezer. I’m not detached enough to get rid of that shirt, and whoever manages to survive me is just gonna have to lump it. That’s one T-shirt’s story, and I have many, many more. I’d hate to have to go through my stuff after I’m gone. I hope that’s not required. I don’t like leaving a mess for my family to deal with, but that’s the only thing likely to happen.

My mother wanted a conventional funeral and burial, and when she died I had her cremated. Her ashes are still in my closet. I’m gonna make some specific bequests of my books to people I think will appreciate them, but I don’t expect to have any effect on anything once I’m dead. Not many people will care about my typography titles. Mysteries, a few; style guides, fewer.

As it happens, my fretting about what a mess I’ll leave when I buy the farm is also impermanent, and when I take three or six or 20 deep slow breaths all is well right now.

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Deduction

Posted December 22, 2011, under happiness, love, lust, sex, Uncategorized
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I love mystery stories, and I’ve read a bunch, especially the British style, including all of Doyle, Christie, Sayers, and Carr. I tend to apply my own version of Holmes’s and others’ methods to life.

I was recently reflecting on profound insights when I heard our stove give the three-beep announcement that the desired temperature has been reached. Who was about to use the oven? Who was at home and likely to cook? Since I knew who had likely fired up the oven, I used my intimate knowledge of him—it was obviously a him—to deduce what would go in the oven, namely leftover pizza.

My deductions usually go unverified, but I was curious about this one and I traipsed into the kitchen to check my work. Actually, my wife was roasting yams, but other than that I nailed it.

Sometimes I deduce from a distance what’s going on with people I don’t even know, one of my specialties. A friend of mine lives next door to a pair of young women whose lives I have examined from his side of the fence. I saw a local musician riding a bicycle with one of the women once, and I figured he was the new man in her life. I was happy for her because he seemed like a nice young fellow, and I decided he would be good for her. I had seen some of the guys she’d brought home, and this new young man was a big improvement according to me.

He was seen taking out the garbage a couple of days later, and I thought all was well. Later he was heard singing in their back yard about the wonderfulness of a butt hole of which he was fond, and I naturally thought the orifice was hers, unless it was an old song that predated their relationship. I preferred thinking of it as hers for various reasons, and I visited my friend more than ever, somewhat straining our relationship, in order to monitor the progress of what I took to be a fresh romance.

Then he was there no more, and it’s been months since she’s been seen with anyone in particular. I suspect that my friend hasn’t been diligent in keeping an eye on the subject, but I can’t be there all the time so I have to rely on my minions.

I don’t need minions when the hussy across the street has the young guy who does yard work for her over in the evening and he’s still parked in her driveway, so to speak, the next morning. That’s no mystery. Some jobs take all night.

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Organized Konfusion

Posted December 18, 2011, under video
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Ram Dass pats me on the head.

Posted December 16, 2011, under aging, appreciation, compassion, health, love, perspective, Uncategorized
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I was at an Occupy Maui general assembly meeting. Marianne Williamson was scheduled to speak later, and I had a good place to stand. The meeting began and people continued to arrive. I was enjoying myself.

The weather was brisk, and my ego was happy about it because I had expected lower temperatures and was dressed warmly. There were several people shivering, and I was simultaneously smug and compassionate, quite a combination I tell you what.

Just as I was getting the hang of the hand signals the assembly used to communicate silently with the facilitator of the meeting and each other, there was movement at the edge of the crowd that rippled toward the front and stopped just off my left elbow, and there in a wheelchair sat Ram Dass. I expected to see him a few days later at another event. I even had his book Be Love Now, although I didn’t think the stroke he’d had in 1997 would let him sign it. I didn’t have it with me, but I don’t think he’s signing anything these days.

It’s not my nature to say, “Holy shite, that’s Ram Dass!” so I merely thought to myself, “Holy shite, that’s Ram Dass!” If you don’t know who Ram Dass is, try “Holy shite, that’s Germaine Greer!” or “Holy shite, that’s Julius Erving!”

Although I’m not one to impose on another, I understand now why we approach people we recognize but don’t really know, or at least why I did. I couldn’t not say something to Ram Dass. Nobody had introduced us, and I had no obvious reason to barge in on him like that, but my ego wanted me to be able to tell my grandchildren about the time I talked to Ram Dass.

Ram Dass has a big head, and that’s not a metaphor. He’s a big man, well over six feet standing I’d guess, but he was just sitting there with his big head alongside my elbow, smiling. He looked frail and kind of crumpled up, and while Williamson was talking about and to the Occupy movement I was trying to think of what to say to Ram Dass.

“What did you say to Ram Dass, Sir?” My grandchildren will call me “Sir.”

I’ll say, “Children, I leaned over, and I said in his ear, ‘I love you.’”

“What did Ram Dass say?”

“He said, ‘I can’t hear you. Try my other ear.’”

So I said, “I love you!” in his other ear, and that’s when he laughed and tried to hug me and ended up patting me on the head. We meant it, too.

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Clean as a whistle

Posted December 8, 2011, under Uncategorized
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My wife and I just got back from a cleanse, the idea being that living where and as we do in the midst of sundry poisons, a good wash and brush-up was a good idea. We were right.

The place we went, the Temple of Peace, calls itself a “cleansing spa and spiritual retreat,” a sensible combination, as it turns out. The ten-day cleanse comprised several approaches to eliminating physical and mental toxins. There was a spa with a dry sauna, a steam room, a hot tub, and an outdoor shower, and cold plasma and enriched oxygen therapies for specific conditions.

We also did a couple of kirtans, a séance with noises and odd voices in the dark, an 11-11-11 celebration, and three eclectic church services, none of which were directly related to the cleanse and which we just attracted while we were there.

Mostly, though, we had daily colonics. Every morning I got to stick a tube in my butt and poop for an hour and a half—major bliss. When I first heard about colonics, I thought them a mild form of torture to be endured only under the direst of circumstances, but not anymore. It was a very gentle process and a fast way to detoxify.

Growing up in the fifties, I suppose I was as squeamish about feces as most Americans. Now I think that squeamishness about feces is squeamishness about life, and that’s no help at all.

Every morning my innards were soaked and flushed while I listened to a wide range of spiritual and inspirational audio. What a good idea! Relaxation and inspiration without guilt—I’d just be lying there anyway—a big deal for me. I want all the encouragement and loving reminders I can get. You probably don’t need that kind of stuff.

The latter half included a liver cleanse, which I won’t try to describe and will say simply that it was startlingly educational, and my days of not even knowing where my liver is, much less what it does and how it’s getting along there, are over. I love my liver, and I don’t care who knows it.

I love my colon, too. I was aware of my colon, because I know a guy who once had colon cancer, and a pal of mine had a colonoscopy last year and told me all about it. Now I have a whole new relationship to my colon: If I fend off the media, it’ll do the rest. I’ll live with that. I’m going to think my way through my body, loving all of it—especially the flab.

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Abraham-Hicks

Posted December 5, 2011, under consciousness, expectation, love, oneness, perspective, Uncategorized, video
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Byron Katie

Posted November 6, 2011, under appreciation, compassion, forgiveness, happiness, judgment, love, tolerance, video
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Protest

Posted November 3, 2011, under Chicago, Chico, police, public schools, Uncategorized
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I participated in only one civil rights event, a march on the board of education in Chicago. We were protesting Willis wagons, trailers used as shoddy, portable, “temporary” classrooms in poor neighborhoods and named after the superintendent who pushed them. I’ve been to other rallies and affairs for various issues, but that time through The Loop with a thousand other people was the only time we were surrounded by government goons and on television.

I’d’ve been more involved in the movement, but I knew I wasn’t about to turn the other cheek all the time. I wasn’t ready for that much nonviolence, so I would just get in the way and end up in jail. I could do my bit by staying in school and going to work. That’s what I told myself. Almost a half century later I don’t think of violence as a viable response to much of anything, and I’ve been lucky enough to outgrow it. I’m grateful for the grace.

Although I tend to avoid crowds bigger than a medium house party—which is why the earlier I get to the Saturday farmers’ market (omitting the apostrophe implies that the market referred to is where farmers may be purchased. Is a strawberry market staffed by strawberries?) the better I like it—I went to a Noon Saturday Occupy Chico rally in the plaza, and I’ve got to say it was pretty wonderful.

The crowd was diverse in terms of race, income, gender, age, sartorial judgment, and planetary origin. My people. The vibe was good, too. No commercials, no cops, which I’ll get back to. I was there with my flags, which I should explain.

A couple of months ago I bought my first United States flag. I got it at ARC for a fin and four bits so I could reclaim Old Glory from the bullies and yahoos and then combine it with Tibetan prayer flags, which pleases me on many levels.

The Occupy Chico movement exists “to build a democratic movement where the underlying interests of all people and living things are promoted.” That’s what I read on a brochure. I’m for that, although I’d like to know what “democratic” means and what “promoted” means and would I be expected to promote the interests of the slugs in my garden? I’ll go over to the plaza and ask.

We walked slowly through downtown Chico with an unfortunate bullhorn and not a cop in sight. If it wouldn’t muss my hair I’d tip my hat to the Chico police department. Really. I think they’re ready for nonviolent communication, maybe even mindfulness.

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Conversation

Posted October 31, 2011, under video
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Movement

Posted October 27, 2011, under Chico, democracy, government, health care, Uncategorized, United States
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The Occupy movement is changing the country. Wow. I love the anarchy. We’re so used to authoritarianism that many of us can’t imagine doing things any other way. Occupy Chico is showing us an alternative. Go down to the plaza and talk to the people there. Don’t just think about it, and don’t believe what you read about it. See for yourself.

A lot of people want fundamental change in the way the United States is run, and there’s not yet much agreement on what those changes ought to be, let alone consensus. There are schemes to improve the financial system and increase oversight of the oil industry and offer health care for everybody and slow down global warming and whatnot, and they’re piecemeal and trivial. Laws come into being the only way they can from politicians with no stake in the laws they enact.

Although I seldom agree with rich people, as a start I can find no holes in Warren Buffett’s proposed Congressional Reform Act of 2011. I’ve said much the same myself, as follows.

Congressional Reform Act of 2011

1. No Tenure/No Pension.
A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no  pay when they are out of office.

2. Congress (past, present, & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.

3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen.  Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The founding fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.

Amen.

A friend of mine says that the only thing that’ll make a lasting positive difference for most people is public executions of the rich, one a week, maybe two during the holidays, until things get good enough for the rest of us. That’s a bit harsh, but only a little. Meanwhile, go down to the plaza.

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The life of the Buddha

Posted October 25, 2011, under video
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Safety

Posted October 20, 2011, under Uncategorized
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I recently got a piece of mail from the Health & Safety Association of Sacramento, California, and over the window it said “OFFICIAL SENATE BILL NOTICE, Response Request date within 5 days.” Also on the front of the envelope was “RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED” under an official-looking round logo with an eagle and stars and a warning that anyone who interferes with this letter could go to prison.

The single sheet inside said “Notice of Senate Bill 183,” Residential Building Safety. “California Senate Bill 183 signed into law May 2010, requires the mandatory installation of Carbon Monoxide Detectors in ALL homes by July 1st 2011.” It seems that the California legislature and the governor decided that carbon monoxide poisoning is something we should all be afraid of, so they made it against the law not to have a carbon monoxide detector. It sounds to me like a way to sell more plastic and save the insurance companies a few payouts. For politicians, a gouge lite.

The Health and Safety Association says that “SB 183 will help put an end to the senseless deaths and injuries Californians suffer due to accidental carbon monoxide poisoning.” Presumably the number of deliberate carbon monoxide poisonings will remain steady.

The people who are afraid of accidental carbon monoxide poisoning can buy a detector if they want, but forcing everybody in the state to buy, install, and maintain a carbon monoxide detector is helpful only to the corporations that make detectors and the insurance industry. I don’t know anybody who died from accidental carbon monoxide poisoning, and I’m not afraid of it. Where’s the epidemic? The herd is gonna be culled one way or another.

The notice from the Health and Safety Association was pretending to be an official warning from an official organization and offered me an opportunity to pay the Carbon Monoxide Detector Fee (sic) of $76.00 by the end of the month and in turn receive a Carbon Monoxide Detector that is approved by the State Fire Marshall (also sic).

The Health and Safety Association fesses up at the bottom with “This product or service has not been approved, or endorsed by any government agency, and this offer is not being made by an agency of the government” and “This is a solicitation; you are under no obligation to pay the amount stated, unless you accept this offer.”

If I were as goofy as the Health and Safety Association thinks I am, I supposed I’d’ve tried to find 76 dollars to buy something else I don’t need in order to avoid a fine or imprisonment, although carbon monoxide detectors are 15 dollars online. Maybe that extra 61 dollars would create jobs and hasten the economy’s recovery. Tough.

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Thich Nhat Hahn

Posted October 17, 2011, under video
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Adornment

Posted October 13, 2011, under appreciation, art, lust, materialism, Uncategorized
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I once thought ear piercing was bad, like circumcision and scarification. I couldn’t imagine making a hole in my ear from which to hang a bauble, and I kept my parts unpierced until I was sixty. I changed my mind then for two reasons.

My body was obviously sliding into dissolution, and preserving it was clearly impossible. By not defending the ever-changing status quo, I could get a little hoop earring like the one Morgan Freeman wore in a movie once, and the extra hole in my body wouldn’t decrease my value because I didn’t have any. The other reason is that a friend’s eight-year-old daughter had just gotten her ears pierced with great aplomb, and I thought I should be able to do as well.

My left ear’s piercing stung like the dickens, but I came to like earrings so much that a couple of months later I had the right ear done. I now have eleven pairs of earrings and a couple of singles, cheap thrills I once missed out on for no good reason.

I’ve been to a barber seven or eight times in forty years. The rest of the time I cut my own hair, and it never got longer than the half inch or so dictated by the blade guides that came with the clippers I was using. I wanted it short enough to look the same whether I brushed it or not. This year I stopped cutting it. I have steadily far fewer functioning follicles, and now I let the survivors determine their own fate. I wash them and lube them occasionally as encouragement, and some of them have produced hairs up to six inches, although people still recognize me.

I went through a manicure phase that involved nail buffers and orange sticks and cuticle softener and some stuff I’ve forgotten, but I drew the line right after clear nail polish and tended to stick to buffing and let it go at that. A couple of months ago I saw a guy with toenail polish the color of old silver, and I could imagine doing that myself, though perhaps not in old silver.

My wife’s nail-polish color, Amber Ablaze, is stunning with my skin color, so I tried it first on my big toes and then my thumbs. Nice. Fruity and nice. Amber Ablaze says “woman” to me even on my own thumb. Though a split second later I realize I’m looking at the same old hand, for an instant I’m twenty-five and some chickie is giving me the glad eye. Conditioning can be fun. Earrings, long hair, and nail polish—I’m seducing myself.

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