This morning even before the sun got up (that slacker) I was qigong-ing like the dickens, doing the crane and I don't mean to boast, playing the ukulele. I know!
You are, of course, aware of what the Zen Buddhists say about chopping wood--that you should just whack the stuff and don't make a Broadway production of it. Just pay attention to the chopping.
According to these Zen practitioners, we should never under any circumstances play the ukulele while performing qigong. And yet, there I was underneath a spreading magnolia, bending and swaying and strumming. You're anxious to hear all about it, I'm sure, but like so many of my stories, it's a long one and for God's sake I don't intend to go into it all now. Just the gist, if that's the word.
Arriving at Native Grounds in the bright and fair of yester-morn, I found the room full of the usual corpses staring into space and presumably waiting for something to stir them to life. Little hope, of course, because nothing ever happens in the morning. Every Durhamite knows that if you want something diverting and invigorating, you've got to have the magic hour that follows the purples and amethysts and golds of the evening sky.
I eyed this rabble with disapproval, resenting the universal calm that enveloped the horde at a time when, thanks to that little almond-eyed Princess Amy, I felt like one of those heroes in a Greek tragedy pursued by the Furies.
Ankling toward the bar, I noticed the headlines on the Observer lamenting the latest abomination of the North Carolina legislature and I felt Princess Amy hotting up in the darkest recesses of my mind. She was getting rowdy. I hurried toward the bar hoping that a steaming cup of Jah's Mercy would restore my sangfroid. It was not to be.
"Where have you been?" said Amy Normal, part-time barista and Backup Mistress of the Greater South Durham Night, for it was she filling the space behind the Order Here sign. "I haven't seen you in days."
"Oh?" I said. The comeback, I am fully aware, was lacking the usual Genome flair but don't forget those Furies who, even now, were creeping ever closer like a gang of Aunts.
"It's no good saying, 'Oh' with that tone of voice as though you don't give a damn," she said. "Consider the stars." She embellished the last remark by lifting a hand upward, as though we could see stars from inside the coffee shop.
"The stars?" I said, ratcheting up the Genome spirit in an attempt to get the emotional feet back on solid ground. "Is that a reference to, Look how the floor of heaven is thick inlaid with patens of bright gold? Because if it is, I want no part of it."
"I do not mean whatever it was you said, and what the hell are patens anyway? Shakespeare?"
"You have me in deep waters there," I admitted, "I'll ask Ms. Wonder when I see her this evening and report back tomorrow morning." I hoped this diversionary tactic would steer us safely away from Shakespeare. This A. Normal is a quirky bird and loves to get knee-deep into the Bard.
"Oh no," she said, "you don't get out of it that easy. I know where you've been."
"Oh?" I said.
"Stop saying Oh! What's happened to you anyway? You had so much promise in your youth and I wanted nothing more than your happiness. But what a waste you've turned out to be. You come in here giving me orders and expecting me to do just as you ask and then when the slightest temptation comes along, you cheat on our relationship and have coffee at some cheap, tawdry hole in the wall."
"Do we have a relationship?" I said.
"That's the question I ask myself," she said. "Looking up at the stars, I know quite well that, for all they care, I can go to hell, but on earth, indifference is the least we have to fear from man or beast. Auden."
Once more with the star motif and, to be honest, I had no clue as to why she called me Auden. Someone you may know, possibly, but I've never had the pleasure, I'm afraid. I began to worry for her sanity if any.
Fortunately for you and probably just as well for me, the rest of our conversation is a blur but when I regained consciousness, I was sitting at a table with the remnants of the Secret Nine.
Sister Mary was saying something about a ukulele. When she placed the period at the end of the sentence, she gazed slowly around the table and each person, in turn, made some sort of reply to her statement. I searched the database for something meaningful but when her eyes came to rest on mine, I had only one thought.
"You don't mean a ukulele," I said hoping against hope because deep in my heart I knew I'd heard correctly. Still, it doesn't hurt to try.
"I do too," she said. "I loved that ukulele. Took it with me when I ran away from home at the age of five."
"Might it have been a cocker spaniel?" I said. "I loved a cocker spaniel when I was a kid and once took him with me when I ran away from home."
"No, I do not mean a cocker spaniel," she said. "Were you successful in running away? My parents found me on the neighbor's stoop by following the sound of my strumming."
"As I recall," I said, "my mother intervened when she found me packing a honey-cured ham for the trip."
"Too bad," she said. "Well, better luck next time. Anyway, Island Irv was just telling us about a ukulele video he saw on Youtube and his story reminded me of the Hawaiian music I heard in a hotel in St. Petersburg."
"IZ?" I said.
"Is what?" said Mary.
"No, I mean Israel," I said. I was about to add, 'Israel Kamakawiwo'ole,' but Mary interrupted again.
"Not Israel," said Mary, "Russia--we were in St. Petersburg."
"But why Hawaiian music in Russia?" I said.
"Why not?" said Mary, who is one of the more accepting and tolerant members of the Nine. If Russian hotels play Hawaiian music, let them do it until their eyes bubble, is her attitude.
And there, if your mind hasn't wandered, you have the story. It's the bare bones but I think it's enough to be getting on with and now you will understand why I thought of ukuleles while practicing the Five Animal Frolics in the dark this morning.
I suppose one must give Amy her due because when it comes to selecting distracting thoughts, no one else comes close. I refer, of course, to Princess Amy, the Queen of the Limbic System, and not Amy Normal, Backup Mistress of the Greater SoDu.
