The thoughts sometimes gang up on each other, yeh? I catch myself in the midst of one even as another is waiting offstage, tapping a toe. So many analogies can be drawn: the next wave in the ocean when I’m still tumbling from the last one.
I live near the Rio Grande, a handy river from wherever you
look. Come, drift with me awhile. Hook your arm through mine or maybe catch
onto the rope of my innertube… where you going in such a hurry anyway?
I had two monkeys worth of weeks lately – let your
imagination punctuate that. A double trip to Hillsboro, my former neighborhood,
close-knit & off-road. Dipping in & out of that energy was enervating
to Spirit. Each foot of height in the road lifts all of me together.
An Aside: My client is an 89-year-old woman celebrating 90 this weekend. The family gave her the “easy job” of selecting the photos for the family collage. But, 89 is 89 & more inclined to sitting with a good radio program…than to sort through thousands of photos. Now I ask you, ‘was that fair’?
You know, there is a story around everyone, like the tail of
a comet passing by. As I learn these, I can tell them well. I’ve written years
ago about writing Truth. I have a habit of telling people, go look at my blog,
& then if anything happens with them I want to document, guess whut [sic].
Well, those eddies spun me away from the stream! Are we still threaded together? There is, of course, always more.
The longer story I love to jaw with friends disappears at times. I am acquiring a reputation as being curt, abrupt with some; especially in a business transaction. But business has blurred in practice, hasn’t it? When not otherwise actively engaged, I turn into “Officer Carol”, my Libran balance kicked in the shins by the singular impoliteness of a worker on her phone in lieu of hired duty.
These situations rush by me now differently because they no
longer rush. Circumstances & situations have slowed down to a manageable
pace. I am practicing hard to embody mindfulness – also far past due.
It’s arrived with an entourage as well as a flourish.
So, I’ve designed a line of postcards. Plain white, 4 x 6,
unusual fonts, thoughts from mine own mind in writing for all to see. I
am calling these “Subtitles” since they are the part of the interaction which
runs a stealth program under that mindfulness. Diversions. “Somethings Shiny”
to use the proper pluralization.
Déja vu … My life in two words.
Do Angels have Tattoos?.
My roommate said red rocks are just sunburned.
I need to invite in the audience for this line of cards;
most traffic here is after the memory evoked in a photo & we have umpteen
terrific photogs in town. My cards are spare, kinda Art Deco pieces, each one a
standalone for sending a friend, making a bookmark, propping on the bedlamp…
How much will you pay for a relevant thought?
Meanwhile, I’ll start sending them to my friends all over.
How many pictures of them will be taken before they arrive – & after? I can
only think in these terms since I believe this line to be captivating &
mostly funny.
Well.
Hey, thanks – this is my fork right here … see ya next time.
Downriver, right?
This essay is about discovering mindfulness. Oh, not in the Tibetan way.
I am reading a book called “Belladonna” by Anne Bishop. It is the second in a trilogy – but I have missed the first one, as usual. Second books of series build the plot, layer the pot: the villain darkens, the heroes & heroines journey to find their best weapons & refine them. In the book, what the characters think manifests in the landscape. For example, anger will come up somewhere as rocks & stones. Next comes clearing the garden of rocks & stones.
I am following the word “mindfulness” around in my head. Like connective tissue, it wraps every thought & idea. How can I just be coming to Realization with this? The word has visited before, like a butterfly, noticeable, distinct, unique. But it seems it has never lighted for long: a quick appearance, a fanning of wings (tasting my energy) & off to the next.
Today it is hanging on a bit, winking in & out at me. This is not a ‘gratis’, or pro bono appearance. I must pay for it with my attention.
I was able to bring my focus back
to what I was doing in the when of doing
it. Wow! This is a huge shift for me. Putting one foot in front of another while
consciously feeling what each movement accomplished in my body as it was being
made.
I wonder, is the sea conscious of every wave? Of course. This is the Sea of Consciousness. I notice an old joke: The old man fish swims by two younger ones & says, “Enjoy the water!” The youngers pause for a moment to ask each other, “What’s water?”
I notice my attention favors the future. What has been happening in my wake? Have I been knocking folk about like tenpins as I pass – the rush to achieve my future overwhelming my present? Have I been bathing others in a warmer flow where they may take a deeper breath? Is my landscape sandy beach with prickly sawgrass, or towering misted mountains with meadows afoot?
As to manifestation…a short tale: there is an aggressive boxer on the next block up. This morning, his maybe eleven-year-old master held his collar as I passed. I thanked him, telling him the dog had threatened me in the past to the point where I turned around to take the next block over. He apologized.
I neglected to tell him this dog also jumps the back fence to threaten my way down the alley.
As I walked the alley home, I
mused on whether Boxer would be “out back” & he was. [Location of Thoughts?] He leaped the fence growling & in stiff-legged
advance. I used my MOAV** on him, faced
him, walked at him on loose legs with a stiff back, shoulders up, handweights
bristling. Boxer backed off, but too
reluctantly, this time, more ready to engage than when I threatened him off
before.
I will not walk in the alley on that block anymore. Why resist?
I was lit up with anger, ready to wrangle, on DEEEfense. “Dog, just walk this way & see where these handweights line up on your short-ear, square head.”
I understood what I was bringing to myself as I formed the thoughts. Is the dog to blame?
I was able to let it go by the end of the block, a scant 40’. I feel tingling again as I write of this, yet I know it is of no profit in this when. I cannot live today doused in a simmering growl. I choose to let it go & re-breathe my day.
I think this might be Mindfulness on approach. Gaining? Landing? Thank you, Butterfly. Please, would you stay for just another moment? I remember now: it’s the only one I have.
I woke at 1:30 a.m. I often wake during the middle of the night if I’ve not had enough physical activity during the day, but more if I have something pending, when Mind wants to work out that event, that idea, that problem. I try not to wake up to worry, tho that happens occasionally.
In this instance, I woke because I am giving a talk soon on
public speaking. It was Time to design the workshop, scribe my thoughts on how
to handle this exchange with others. I anticipate my audience will be friends,
acquaintances & strangers – some will know my style of storytelling; others
will be unfamiliar to my ways.
I first learned I love to speak in front of others in the fire circle at Girl Scout Camp. My co-leader & I brought the troop to summer camp – the culminating reason of our cookie-selling success. The highlight of a weekend campout was always the Fire Ring, during which we sang songs, acted out skits, practiced fire safety & prepared s’mores. The minute the Song Leader opened the circle & the silly songs began, I was entranced. I remember turning to my co-leader & breathing, “I want to be that person!” So I set about learning every ditty I could, all their complicated motions & how to laugh at myself & with others. It was wonderful for me!
And now I continue to teach the topic of speaking in front of
groups, leaving behind most of the silliness, but none of the humor.
After designing the workshop’s talking points, which will
become the handout for the class, I walked outside to enjoy the total
stillness.
The sun rises over our beloved Caballo Mountains with a slow
flourish, illuminating every growing plant, every sentient rock, awakening the
songs of birds as it spreads life & warmth to the desert. Although I’d
never really thought about the moon
in this way, of course it rises in the same way & amazingly, in the same
place where the sun will later replace it.
I leaned my back on my car to watch…my first thought, “Oh,
this’ll take too long to stand out here for this.” But I’d no sooner finished thinking
this than the horn of the half-moon glowed above the familiar mountain crest.
The rest followed within a minute – what I thought would take too long was
accomplished in three long breaths. I felt dizzy; the earth was turning I knew,
but this fast? I felt it a good thing I had the car to support me. I felt the
night air, cool but welcoming, through thin silk pajamas. I know sunlight on my
skin (I still love to be recipient to its rays, to tan with oils as I sit, eyes
closed, feeling Vitamin D coursing into me. I am a sun-worshipper to no small
degree, almost welcoming the wrinkles & the dryness accompanying this
habit.)
The moon knew its path, had obviously climbed this particular
mountain many times before. I could feel the sleepy wakefulness shared among
all the life out there as it made a way to that starring position overhead.
Even knowing all I know about the moon from more esoteric fascinations, there
is nothing like being “out in it” to appreciate how an entire planet can so
lightly make itself known so swiftly, silently, thoroughly.
The workshop will be a success. I’ve no worries on that
score. Later in the morning I will prepare a handout from my notes poured out,
accompanied by honeyed coffee. I wrote these notes quickly & carefully –
I’m famous for profound & totally unreadable midnight thoughts – so I erred
on the side of penmanship.
When I give my talk, the moon will rise again, outside &
behind my eyes. I will watch faces light in understanding, smile back at the
learning, enjoy the idea that one day they will be in front of a group
delivering their knowledge to waiting ears.
So do the macro & microcosms entwine & blend. So does
a little dream of one day holding many minds in mine develop & manifest. I
no longer fear holding the attention of many who may be looking for flaws in me
– I surely have plenty to share among them. But tho grounded from silliness to
strategic information, that thread of humor runs through it all,
lightening & lighting both.
I am calling the talk “Making Yourself Comfortable.” The
thoughts will continue to arise; may they be as smooth & homey & as
mystical as the moon finding a place to shine the sky.
And, if the audience wants a follow-up to this introduction,
I still know all the moves to “The Donut Song”
Well, I walked around the corner & I walked around the block, And I walked right into a donut shop, And I picked up a donut fresh from the grease, And I handed the lady a five-cent piece.Well, she looked at the nickel & she looked at me, And she said “This isn’t gonna work, you see, There’s a hole in the nickel & it goes right through. So I said, “there’s a hole in the donut, too!” Thanks for the donut, so long! (Sing to tune of “Turkey In the Straw)
Come, sit awhile in my stony yard, remember with me. Here, in New Mexico, where grass is a rare commodity, one dares not venture outdoors barefoot. But I don’t worry about my feet when my face craves the sunshine. I look up & close my eyes to its caress. I feel my mouth curving into a smile, even as my heart expands under its rays.
I have read in some blogs that the sun is actually an entity named “Ed.” Well, Ed & I have had a lifelong affair. I treasure sunshine like I treasure love. I crave it in the same way, with a similar longing & a powerful responsive opening of every cell to take it in. The sunshine here is like oranges, clearing the palate, a breath of gold, a blessing of warmth in which to sit &, in simplicity, To Be.
When I was little, when church was the biggest commitment of this day, I woke to an Easter basket of plastic-color straw & chocolate. Ah! Chocolate for breakfast! In a household where treats were always fruit, chocolate for breakfast was an unheard-of peak experience.
We dressed in our best for Easter… white gloves, hats, black patent leather shoes. We were given a dollar for the collection plate (the usual Sunday contribution being 50 cents, at least 25 of which went for a sugar cookie at the bakery en route.) I was in choir, we sang in clear-child voices, singing the glory of God, powered by Hershey’s Kisses.
(I lived in Hershey, PA at one time, The 6 a.m. exercise class smelled of hot chocolate, the afternoons of Reese’s Peanut Butter Bars, the nights of syrup. But that was later, far beyond childhood by the sea.)
I still believe in resurrection after years of insurrection, misdirection & sporadic, sometimes unsteady, affection…
I still believe!
We walked to church, unless it was one of those lingering winters when there was still bits of snow on the ground, I recall my first pair of heels – little bump-buds far unlike the shoes I’d wear later in life. And if the shoes were new & there was snow, I had to fight to wear them (Mom throwing up her arms over her head, (Pazienza!), but New Shoes! even with bobby-sox holding them on – looking a bit patched together, all dressed-up for the Lord. I was shivering, but set for Spring underneath the heavy coat, the ear-flapped hat. The church would be warm in the rafters of the choir box – we were songbirds coaxing in a season of change.
Years moved along, crisp & uncompromising. When I was a child, my Mom prepared huge dinners that started with salad (ensalada), that coursed through soup, buttered Italian bread, pasta & turkey. Sometimes ham appeared on the table, of which I was less fond than a turkey drumstick. Sometimes relatives drove the long distance from up near Philadelphia to the seashore. Relatives were a kind of blessing – they meant crisp dollar bills to buy ice cream with or hoard in tiniest slot of the rolltop desk. They also meant pinched cheeks (Que Bella!) hugs from folks with hearty garlicked breath or smelling of cigarettes, in scratchy woolens & practical footwear. They meant much chattering in Italian, waving of arms & hands in conversation which could take out water glasses on the table or Easter decorations walking to it. They were filled with chesty laughter, family reunion, exclamations, questions, (How old are you now? What grade are you in? Look at how much you’ve grown – this a nuanced, side-eyed comment since I never made it into quite fitting the clothes I was wearing, always pushing my glasses back on my nose with a finger I’ve learned not to use in traffic.)
My Mom had us living at the seashore – a commonplace to us – but a rare & wonderful ride for the others. Ah! Salt Air! Names morphed into exotic pronunciations (Carol drew into Carrrro-lena) as the jokes & comments around the table flowed from language to language.
The adults would make knowing remarks, heads nodding, all gossip & glamor. At some point the oft-repeated “Go out & play!” would herald the talk’s real beginning into the state of the world, the old neighbors, who had died & who still lived – names I heard only on holidays, only in the context of the visits; people I would never meet or know. I would hear the conversations on my way out the door, the voices lowering only to rise again in loud laughter. A jug of wine would be on the table when I got back from my bike ride or climbing the tree in Mrs. Cannon’s yard, or the hideout behind the yew bush clutching a handful of candy to be devoured in sticky bliss.
However, I have never, ever, liked jellybeans, so all mine were roughly pawed out of my basket by my brother, as I watched ferociously to assure he took none of the hollow-core bunnies. And those marshmallow chicks were challenging to nibble all the sugar off of without devouring any of their white fluff.
My hair, done in sausage curls for face-time with God, would straggle & eventually be pulled (with much force) into braids that made my eyes Chinese. Still, I would come home sandy, or with twigs & greenery tangled into it, the rubber bands of control loosening or lost…for all of my good-girl ways, I was a fierce, feral child who favored trotting over walking, who wore a clothesline belt tied tightly around my narrow waist.
I would never change my childhood, although it was fraught with fear & what is now called stress (Catholic School & nuns), My part-time mother – the ocean – never changed, never gave up on me, smiling her waves every time she touched my toes. My bike never wobbled once I was up to speed, pedaling madly. I sailed the bumps of the boardwalk like a mobile Queen, thin legs churning, braids streaming behind. I explored for shells, I stole candybars from the corner store, I saved pennies, cherished new sneakers. devoured books about horses (The Black Stallion!), wrote poems & stories generously plagiarized from these.
I grew up in the sun: I so love it still. I climbed dunes, scratched from sawgrass, sported mosquito bites all over, danced on beaches, suffered unholy disciplines from “holy” women…
I am the me I am because of it all. I did pretty okay, yeh?
So I thank the universe for Ed, for sand, for the kind of bubbling energy stoked by a sugared childhood. I thank my Mother & my family, I thank my distant, divorced-with-a-new-family Dad, for pinching Aunts, for tobacco’d Uncles with Aqua-Velva cheeks, waving crisp dollars – “Here, honey, go buy some ice cream!” I thank my comfort of home-made pasta, for the sweat my mother wiped from her hot-kitchen brows with the dishtowel plugged into her apron.
I am alive: I am Spring: I am holy. I am still a Carol, singing the glory of God!
My friend went into Silence at a retreat recently. I did, too, in a way. Somewhat in honor of her spiritual commitment; somewhat in just that she is someone with whom I correspond every day & for two days, there was no word. It was okay. I guess I am just being conscious now, perhaps because of the silence.
I have no close-up relations. I used the last of my minutes talking with my daughter of everyday lives, hers & mine. “How are you, Mom?” she asked. I’d just awakened from a nap, the prescience of a phone about to ring bringing me to wakefulness. “I’m a little depressed right now,” I replied. “What’s up?” “Oh, just an old sadness returning, an emptiness in an unexpected place; but I’ll get over it.” And we talked.
My lover said he would meet me in a week. A week doesn’t seem so long & faraway, does it? But as they say, time is relative, devious, grinding away at the clock in a relentless circle. I am still more than 24 hours from seeing him. There isn’t much of me left.
I have read six books, eaten many meals, fulfilled my volunteer obligations, answered emails, acted “normal,” hosted Open Mic with my stand-up comedy routine – jokes about churches this time. I did a little job in Hillsboro, picking up chinaberries from sidewalk cracks…seated on a yellow plastic bucket that sagged ever so gently, depositing me flat on my back & laughing.
I washed into & pulled myself out of a tidal cold, drinking more water than I ever have before. I wrote off a disappointing friend & wondered what to do with the card when it was returned to me as a wrong address. I wonder if that means we are still friends. She, too, let me down in a show of non-support, collapsing under my expectations, depositing me flat, but unsmiling.
I feel as though I am at the center of a map compass, all around me dials spin, decisions are made, lives are lived. I offer ideas to others seeking input & they sink below the radar quickly – all my questions unanswered, all my ways to set things straight set aside for no apparent reason. I am left once more with silence. Why did they ask me to help?
My body longs for a cigarette, it’s been weeks now since I last smoked & in my mind & heart I’ve quit… But I have said often that addiction is a comforting habit, familiar & ritualistic, a place where it isn’t just so alone anymore.
I buy hats made of feathers & wrap these around my plant holders. I walk the flea market, finding a perfectly-fitting blue ring with daisies in a wreath, a frowning half-moon pendant. Acquisitions like this are cheaper all around than smokes. But no one sees them & the gap they fill yawns once more after swallowing them whole.
I understand the deep feeling that causes one to walk off into the desert, to lie down until snakes slip close for body heat. I understand the wakeful wind pushing me into foolish choices, like a moonstruck cat. I sit, stolid, like a pole in a pier, holding up wood & fishermen while an ocean salts my feet.
Sometimes, there is only one thing to do: that is to endure.
I arrived at the Grill for lunch with a just-returned friend – two girls about to dish on food & lovers. I made a u-turn for a great parking place, trying to avoid the black dog & her white-spotted friend, obviously just escaped from their yard. The pair lolloped up the street, stopping to sniff the dirt-rain-laden air. I honked my little clown-horn to get their attention. I emerged from the car calling to Blackie, thinking to get a collar address. White ran on, into the town’s main drag, as Black paused & turned towards my call. Relieved, I reached out a hand & then heard the loud, solid crunch. White never got across Date Street.
My hand rose to my mouth, trying to hold back my screams, “No!” echoing across the pausing traffic. Cars scattered, pulled over. A girl ran up the near side – I thought her a jogger until I saw her little red car pulled over a block away. I staggered to the street, still bent over in horrified grief, still screaming, still holding the raw shock & horror back, as if one hand over my face could overcome the suddenness of a life ending. I stopped to hold onto a railing. People gathered, leaned over the dog, spoke together only a moment as the girl & a man picked up the sagging body & hurried to the red car. I walked into the street with hands up, holding the traffic for the moment they needed to cross, to carry White past me. I hollered “Did you get an address from the collar?” A man yelled back “Yes.” Justin pulled up in the Animal Control van right in front of me, blocking my view. The black & white police car stopped across the street, conferred with Justin & left.
My friend emerged from the restaurant, “Carol! What happened?!” I stood a little straighter, turned to her, “A dog,” I said. She covered her face said, “No, I can’t,” as she walked to me, searching my eyes.
We touched arms & she (a dog owner herself) walked back into the restaurant head down. I thought, “Lunch? Now?” And yet…
We ordered wonton soup & salad, a rice n chicken bowl. We portioned out the food. We talked about her lover leaving & mine arriving, about the echoes & throughways of life & quick, merciful death. The death of her relationship, the life about to arrive with this spring rain.
I didn’t feel the angels so close until I sat to write this. But their wings hold me in hover. Whispers surround me. I am calm, eyes liquid. I was there to Witness only. I was there to scream so loudly that Black spun on her tail & winged home, ears flying. From the window, over our soup, I saw Justin turn up 8th, heading toward the house where death had flown over, following the dogs. Where two of my gentle friends had started walking immediately upon finding the address on the collar, to offer awful news & dear comfort in person.
There is a first nations tradition that holds when an animal is taken from life, his spirit continues on while the body remains. I understood that White was still headed for that inviting, open street across Date, that he had been caught up by angels running suddenly alongside, calling his name in joy & familiarity; that the rain for him had stopped & a bridge opened before him, so he ran faster, straight up & over into the loving Light awaiting.
‘Verily I say to you, if ye may not be turned and become as the children, ye may not enter into the reign of the heavens’ Matthew 18:3
I am brought to this thought of a light gray morning. As the photos used to be: light gray. I have been wandering around in my heart, picking up the shards, visible in the receding tides of time, This one is a relationship I had with another, that one a relationship I had with myself. All are fragments blown apart by emotions too powerful to maintain solidity.
Now I have a different take on emotions – now I can keep them at a bit of distance like that old cartoon of holding off the fighter, one hand on her forehead, other hand lifted to cover a yawn. It’s much more comfortable here than it was being that warrior, sweating, bleeding, grunting with effort. I have less of my heart to protect. It is more visible, viable, vibrant, vagrant… That other heart? The one I kept cutting myself on the sharp edges of? Yeh, it’s pieced out on the desert floor by size & color, by name & emotion. I finger these one by one. I remember.
When I was a child, I was still of more than one mind. There was the me responding to the nuns in school, the me wearing the face I only showed to my Mother, the me riding headlong, free, grinning, straight into the ocean breeze, bumping along the boardwalk on my bicycle “Blue Boy.”
That me features most in aspect of who I am today, I’m happy to say!
There was the me in my mirrors, the face framed in braids, the me reflected back from the pages of whatever book I was reading; whatever copybook I was writing in. Perhaps these are not so different from the me reflected in today’s computer screen.
Of course the adults to whom Matthew delivered his message were confounded, looking at one another, judging him crazy for these verbal impossibilities delivered in the name of a Savior already dim in experiential memory (unless you met Him up close & personal.) I’ll bet you the children understood only too well what Matthew meant. Childhood is a “oh me! oh my!” special place where many experiences are new & shiny, bearing no fingerprints save those the child herself puts upon them.
I think she woke up with me this morning. Last night I went to bed, stiff as a piece of wood, my low back sending up a dirge of refusal to bend; I walked up the stairs from one heating pad to another, wondering if I’d be functional in the a.m. But there is this of the miraculous about me: I wake whole every morning. Wherever I travel in the night in my lightbody, my physical body is back on patrol upon waking.
I love the experiences which stay totally new. I love when a layer of my life-built cocoon is stripped away by an experience & I am returned to another me…when I’ve been able to sift through those edged remnants to find one shard fitting into another perfectly. It is a restoration of me I never expect – the eternal surprise of discovery which reduces me to that wide-eyed innocence I once so readily (& so easily) manifested.
From this place, I can grow again & in the manner in which I wish to do so. I need not adopt the comfortable patterns of well-traveled reactions. I can see once again that I am at the beginning of an event. I choose to participate wholly, in a way I’ve never done before, or at least not in my recent history.
Which leads me to ask aloud; “Is history ever recent?”
But here I am, born again of a gray morning, sitting between mountain ranges unacquainted with oceans for uncounted years. Once this desert was the ocean floor. Once I lived beside the sea & begged the ocean to be my mother, Now I peer out the window & beg the mountain to be my father.
Who can love this ragged, paunchy, punchy me? Who would ever be tender with this old bird, treating her like the perpatetic little chick she once was, dashing from seed to seed, colliding with life yellow as a yolk? I may have found someone who regards me so. My sense of wonder is renewed & fulfilled. It matters little if anything will come to fruition from the relationship. It isn’t yet history. In this now, I can be safe as the child protected only by her own senses, living in the most present of moments, dreaming, dreaming. Nothing matters but the dream; the rest will care for itself upon emerging.
Right now is that edge to surf & I can’t pull my attention away,
I am returning to blessing by virtue of being blessed by another; returning to wholeness just as I am. I take one last look at the pieces all about; I understand deeply that this very dream may also join them at some time.
Right now, I am forgiven of being an adult in the childhood of being in love. Right now I can be in my Kingdom of Heaven; surrendered to a King.
Riding the Light 