Super-Dooper COVID Confusion

Don't even start with that mess in D.C., I got bigger fish to fry. The rocks in my head are rumbling, the sand in my toes non-existent. I dove in the Gulfstream waters not long ago, but it hardly felt like my land.

Was it your land? The twirl and swirl of the undefinable present. Marvin said it Make him wanna holler, but that was just a subtitle from a song 40 years ago. Did anyone ever get those 40 acres, let alone a mule? Can't know for sure, but this Christmas I got no shoes, only thermal socks.

Back to the present perfect. Because it is only what's there that matters. But IF it's so important, how come we constantly look away? This is the times they are a changin', but that was 50 years back by now. You can't grab hold of that gold watch, the time bomb to the back nine is given to those we throw out on their ass. Don't let the door hit you and all that.

The movie theaters are still closed, I think, but there is always film at 11. We make do out of doo-doo, and collecting all the sticks and stones we can find just reminds me of the Silence of the Lambs. Hop, skip, and a jump and don't even pretend you don't understand. I'm talking to you! Can the cotton come out of your ears and make my pillow softer? 

I lay my head down at night in gratitude, windows locked and steaming. My hound howls not only at sirens, but at the kids making noise after midnight (when we're gonna let it all hang out). I'm asleep and hoping to stay that way until dawn's early light.

And that's the point--wake up! The dream you call your own is just shoplifted from the nearest convenience store. If it's a chain store, the manager is off the hook. If it’s an independent, look at the floor, it needs sweeping. We will get by and use touchless payment: any way you look at it it's true.

We're all COVID-confused and counting. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, and don't forget Detroit. 

There and Back with Boone

I think there are beavers living in the stream on the golf course near my house. My critter-crazy hound dog, Boone, jabs his nose in  the muddy bank, foraging for the semi-aquatic rodents. It's a desire for forcing action, and maybe more. He's most alive when chasing, most focused in pursuit.

He pants with purpose, wild-eyed, joyful. His scanning intensity locks on a lone squirrel 40 yards north. Now he bolts full throttle and almost gets it before treeing. Loud and angry chirps from above, Boone barks below.  After a bit, we continue.  

The walk itself, for me, is the embrace of slowing time. An empty off-season golf course, long fairways squishy with snow melt, soaked greens. Slosh never sounded so good under cloudy winter skies. 

And it's a hopeful kind of quiet. Last year come and gone, time for renewing vistas. My breathing is relaxed, morning air is crisp. I take an inside turn and look forward. This year the pandemic will wane, normal will be different, hugs and handshakes not far behind. Better days.

Atop a ridge, I circle the full 360. My sense of being there is deep, like being tightly held by someone who loves you (and you love back). The sky closes in, bare branches wave. I remember that phrase, "When you walk, just walk." Sounds about right to me. 

Boone, for the moment, is still. His brown eyes study me, then the woods. I study the woods too. The walk back to the car is not a straight path. We'll cut through those trees to the south, and cross over the stream just beyond that.  

The Every Time Moment

Constant, Roaring, Unstoppable. My inadequate attempts to describe Great Falls of Tinkers Creek in Bedford's Viaduct Park. Gushing and such just don't cut it. I left the path during a visit and scrambled to the bottom, 10 yards from the constant-flowing curtain of water, swirling pools, splashes & splatters.

It was roaring loud like great music on a road trip and and I tilted back in wonder and smiled. Paused to take pics and video (steady-as-she-pans captain!). Felt the foggy mist, bathed in the afternoon light, celebrated the closeness. It isn't a huge falls, doesn't fancy itself so. This unstoppable volume of energy has no need to brag.

Glad I made time to visit, reveling in this every-time moment, the kind that stamps a beauty mark on your heart. These moments have a right there-ness: close by, accessible, worth sharing. 

Reminded me of the father-son trip with my Noah to Niagara Falls a few years ago and the exchange we had with a little old lady and her son. We were standing at the rail awe-ing along with everybody else when we heard this wizened woman shouting in a Slavic-sounding tongue, tears spilling on her cheeks. Her eyes locked on the falls in front of us, she was letting everybody know what was what. 

I asked her son to translate and he summarized. She was saying she'd never seen anything that so touched her heart, she was crying because it was so beautiful. She was also lamenting how so many in the world didn't have much water, and here was a inexhaustible-seeming supply. The bitter sweetness of life.

I turned to Noah, making sure he was getting the message. We stood there, together, and heeded the call to embrace the no-doubt-about-it truth of the moment.  

 

Sometimes a little bit of nothing is a pretty good something

I've been riding the COVID Coaster, full of peaks and plunges. Here's a recent ride. 

7:06--wake up, grumble that it's cloudy and cold.  

7:11--ask my darling, generous, and supportive wife when the hell the coffee was made, cause it tastes like crap. 

7:22--sarcastically note there is still a pandemic interfering with how I want to live MY LIFE!

7:29--harrumph that I should just go back to bed (even though my pillow pissed me off last night with its insolent lack of support). 

Holy ungratefulness Batman! 

Here's just some of what I overlooked: it was sunny and warm not long ago; my wife got out of bed early on a Monday morning and made coffee for us; the pandemic affects us all, and there is really NO comparison between how I've been touched by it and the suffering of so many; and I'm truly fortunate to have a super comfortable bed in a warm and loving home. 

Talk about crazy train! But how are we supposed to stay on the grateful side of the tracks?! By choosing to drink from the never ending spring of gratitude. 

I've taken to reading (and studying) a famous book in the past few years. In it there is a call to stop putting yourself in the center of the universe. To get over ourselves and to look for what we can contribute to a given situation, not get from it. To be and act with gratitude.

Recently I flagged down a passing municipal service truck and asked them about the city plowing snow from certain nearby sidewalks. They said yea it was them and I said thanks, it makes it easier my older arthritic dog to walk. They visibly startled (probably because they get more complaints than anything). Then they smiled wide. 

I tell you this only to share what people I love and trust have encouraged me to do. The key is a desire to dedicate time and attention to the practices of kindness and affirmation. And to realize the power of human connection can make a pretty good something out of a little bit of nothing.  

These Things Are Known

Are you kidding me? Every dog nose that the first walk of the day is the best ever, until the next one. Just like every real musician knows that the only note more important than this one is the next. Every hungry devil knows that fresh Diablo Sauce stings, and every trite-slinging writer excuses his or her tripe as necessary, at least this time. And this 59 year old father knows his son lives his own journey, even detours and dead ends.

In the late afternoon gifted photographers know light is the bomb-diggity magic, as much as ice cream truck drivers know their magic poofs into being when they pull over to delight kids. Every weed-whacking yay-hoo ought to know about noise pollution, and everybody knows kindness trumps harshness, but we aren't perfect. 

For all the every-time you do it, even as "this time" will be the last, so will the did-it-anyway times be a chance for redemption. Every chicken pot pie knows it's cooked when it bubbles. And every body of water thirsts for embracing bodies, sort of like every mountain longs to be climbed.

In the age of the image, every word knows its time is coming (or has past). Every social media touts itself as king, but every post to Instagram isn't close to equal. Every slow cooked pork roast knows it's delicious, vegetarians notwithstanding. Every dense and fecund Sugar Maple-filled woods need the falling leaves, even with no one there to catch them.

And for certain every heart knows it's big enough to love everything, even as our minds may forget, or tell us it's not so. 

These things, and more, are known.

Twenty eight things I heard on my walk this morning and four reminders.

The first snap to sound was a blue plastic Heinen's grocery bag high up in a oak tree. I enjoyed it's flapping, whapping vibrato sound and thought for a second I might like one up in my  tree. But that's weird and probably would get annoying.

Then I heard an Orthodox Jew in a black hat and black suit phone-walking, "It's the first not the second street where you turn." He scuffed away.

Hearing a bird barrage--cartoon tweets, trills, almost-whistles, Ca-Ca-ing crows, abbreviated chirps--reminded me of how I don't know very many bird names. Next a jet flying overhead that I couldn't see because of cloud cover.

Soon a white passenger van accelerated quickly then coasted. A girl opening a car door shouting, "Hurry up!" toward a house, another girl in curlers bursting through the front door, "All right, all right!" More birds. A once shiny silver now mostly rusty sports coupe misfiring around a corner.

After that a small tan pickup with red plastic over one tail light trying hard to start (I almost heard the guy inside whispering, C'mon!, C'mon!), six cars clacking over a certain crack in the road, my dog's collar jangling and his big nose sniffing just an inch above the ground. Shortly thereafter the sound of his nails scraping on the sidewalk, reminding me that they need cut. A young-sounding dog barking in the distance.

My own nose sniffling, throat clearing, breathing. The sound of my hand across my brow, reminding me that my skin is dry and I ought to use lotion. Somewhere off to my left a siren (probably ambulance, not police). Finally a garage door opening and the creak of neglected hinges.

Inside my house it was quiet, and that reminded me that outside can be noisy.

Amazon announces delivery of all of Real Life to your door.

In a surprising, yet unsurprising, unparalleled, yet inevitable societal development, Amazon said today that they are now delivering all of Real Life right to your door. Industry experts, who preferred to remain anonymous, said this means that emotions, spirituality and social engagement will now arrive in the familiar brown box, just like your favorite re-order of paper towels or re-purchased electronic must-haves. 

Amazon spokesperson Edvard Munch (no relation to the 20th century Norwegian painter) giggled as he declared that this means that all people at every level of desire will soon enjoy the convenience of not having to remember, think, or plan about the past, present or future. Munch went on to scream, "We're happy to announce this market-cornering action, and hope its value becomes clear as more and more people stay in their homes, texting and Instagramming on smartphones securely snuggled in 20% off retail phone cases."

Amazon's CEO Seller X coughed twice, cleared his throat and whispered that fear & anxiety are the first emotions slated to be offered with Real Life service, with wistfulness soon to follow. Spiritual states of Grace will be available by March, with dreams and wishes able to be ordered and delivered sometime next summer.

The third phase of roll out will provide social media posts, pictures, quips, news clips and funny videos for your use, all customized to resemble your former social activities (without having to actually do anything).

Reaction to the news by a variety of Cultural Studies professors at small and wildly expensive private colleges uniformly denounced the Real Life delivery system, one of them boldly declaring, "We will whine & bitch about this until it's time to go to get new corduroy pants--at an actual store!"

Performance artist extraordinaire Marina Abramovic quickly decided to sit at a small table in front of every person in the world's door, one by one, silently waiting for something or other.

White House spokesperson A. Hole could not be reached for comment, but outgoing President Clowny Lump immediately tweeted, "Bally-who, slim jim, coo-coo cachoo."