Tinkerty-tonk

The sun popped up over Durham this morning, all hot and bright and showing off, and the gibbous moon was still hanging over Chadsford Hall with a smile on her face and a "Back at'cha!" on her lips. 

For some reason, a bit of trivia surfaced in my head. You know how these trivia do surface and the surfacing that arose was that the full moon of December has been known as the Cold Moon, the Yule Moon, the Snow Moon, and the Peach Moon by various members of my ancestors. 

Peach Moon? The thought causes one to pause and scratch the chin, or so it was with me.

Driving through the park--Research Triangle Park, not Duke Forest, not Hope Valley, and not the Cary Auto Park--I was listening to 70's-on-7, not that I chose it but because Ms. Wonder had been in my car on yestereve. I, of course, listen to 80's-on-8 but you know how it is when two people of proud constitution differ in opinion--governments have been known to put the cat out when it happens.

My morning had begun with that uncomfortable feeling I sometimes get that I am expected somewhere and yet there isn't a jot of a clue about where I'm supposed to be. You know the feeling I'm sure. Napoleon, I'm told felt the same when his courier brought the word that Nelson had sailed into Cairo harbor and burned the French fleet. Wouldn't surprise me to learn that Catherine the Great had the feeling just before removing her husband from the throne. 

"Poopsie," I said, "I feel as though I'm supposed to be somewhere today."

"Where?" she said.

"Ah, that's the 64-thousand-dollar question, isn't it? I confess I don't know."

"You'll have to explain that 64-dollar question but not right now. I need to be somewhere soon. Besides, you're probably experiencing a hangover from the manic day you had yesterday."

"Manic?" I said and I put a little topspin on it because I didn't like her choice of words. You wouldn't like them either if you lived in my head.

"I just mean that your day was hectic. It must have been annoying."

"Not really. About normal I'd say."

"If you do have an appointment, I'm sure you'll think of it in time," she said.

"But that's the problem," I said. "I have to get ready for the day as though I have an appointment even if I don't. Otherwise, when I remember where I'm supposed to be, I won't have time to get ready."

"It will be fine," she said. "I've got to hurry to get to the office. We're expecting a delegation from South Africa this morning and I want to make sure we have African coffee rather than Costa Rican."

"Ms. Wonder," I said because we Genomes strive to be useful at all times, "if you visited China would you want a hamburger for lunch rather than Szechuan stir-fry?"

"Gotta run," she said. "Bye."

Now, as you well know, I always look to this Wonder Woman for comfort and advice, and this lack of the rally-round spirit had left me off-balance. I quickly dressed for my appointment, if any, casual and loose to accommodate the morning qigong but clean and neat as required by the Mom code.  

I took Wind Horse out of the stable and hied for the open road but the mind was still looking under the mental carpet for the mislaid appointment. 

Default mode is the name I've heard for this zone where the lazy mind gets lost.This default mode often turns to the negative poles and, if you have a limbic system like mine, Reason may even step down from her throne. Thrones do not remain vacant for long and when Reason departs, Chaos moves in. 

Chaos is the realm of Princess Amy and she was in rare form this morning telling me a story unfit for human consumption and although Bobby Bloom was singing Montego Bay on the radio, I was caught up in the unsavory story. It was like the 5:00 news. 

Still, when Amy got to the part of her story that caused my spine to vibrate like the strings of a mandolin, my state of mind, as Shakespeare might have put it, like a little kingdom suffered the nature of an insurrection. 

I quickly assessed the danger, broke free from Amy's glamor, and told her to shut her pie hole.

Before you tut-tut, let me point out that vinegar, despite popular opinion to the contrary, often gives more satisfying results than honey when dealing with pests. It's true! Wonder will attest to it. And it was just at the moment I was telling Amy what to do with her phantasma or hideous dream that I broke out of default mode and heard Bobby Bloom singing,

"Oh, what a beautiful morning

Oh, what a beautiful day

And I got a beautiful feeling

Everything's going my way."

I was drawn into the feeling. I sang along with Mr. Bloom and if I sang a little too loudly, what of it? With a Peach Moon smiling in the sky and the morning sun in a chirpy mood, I felt that the lark must surely be on the wing and all was right with the world. 

As for my worries, they were nothing more than the idle wind and I gave them a wet smack and a miss. Tinkerty-tonk about sums up the whole affair. I do hope that appointment wasn't my weekly session with Susan Studebaker. 

You Are Enough

"You've heard it said that you can't please everyone," I said. Well, I'm here to tell you that you can't please anyone but yourself if that."

"Are you talking to me," asked the woman about to sit at the table next to ours.

"He's practicing for the little speech he's giving later today," said Lupe in response to the question.

"Oh," said the woman and sat down at the table apparently deciding that I was no real threat.

Now you're probably wondering what's going to happen next because you know as well as I that this Lupe, mature beyond her years full to the brim with particle physics and differential equations, is about as stable as a hot quark.

And you'd be right to wonder. With a manner that's usually reserved for BFFs, she leaned over to the woman and said, "You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody."

The woman, let's call her Solveigh because she had the look of someone who regularly spends weeks without seeing the sun.

"Excuse me?" said Solveigh. 

"Maya Angelou," said Lupe.

Solveigh turned her eyes to mine as though asking for assistance.

"Sorry," I said. "I'm a stranger here myself."

Solveigh turned to look at Lupe again. Now I was confused. I would think that once would be enough but apparently she's one of the devotees of Rumi and willing to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

"If you look to others for validation, then you already have one foot on the banana skin," said Lupe and I'm sure she meant it to be an explanation.

Solveigh stood, picked up her latte, and headed for the door. Lupe watched her walk away.

"Too bad," I said. "I sensed that she has an interesting story to tell."

Lupe didn't reply.

"Don't you agree?" I asked.

"Well," said the godneice in a deeply thoughtful way, "you know what they say. You can measure the location or the momentum, but you can't measure both."

"Is this about quantum physics?" I asked.

"Isn't everything?" she said.

"Very true," I said. "Life comes hard and fast, especially when you're not paying attention."

National Coffee Day

So apparently September 29th is National Coffee Day, a day that means a lot to me as so many of the treasures in my life are directly related to and, in many cases, due to the consumption of infusions of that little, dark, bean. The infusions that I call Jah's Sweet Mercy because that's what it is, of course.

Not only has my life been blessed with the gifts redolent in a steaming cup of bohea, but many of the great men and women of history fueled their success on the shoulders of coffee. I'm certain of it. Probably,

I mean to say people like Catherine the Great couldn't have accomplished so much in so little time without the help of caffeine (and you shouldn't believe half those stories). 

I'm sure that I remember reading somewhere that Napoleon spoke highly of the beverage while exiled on that little island and for my part, I find it incredible that Alexander was able to get out of Macedonia without the stuff.

So you can readily understand that when I learned this morning that I had missed the celebration, I decided to celebrate by imbibing an extra cup or two, which is the only decent thing to do, so if you haven't already, do the right thing and stop by your favorite caffeine slinger's stand and enjoy a cup of bean.

Go Bean Traders!

This post was first published on October 1, 2012! I know! I've updated it on Sep 27, 2023! I know! Who'da thunk? I've added this postscript because this year September 29 will be the date of the Full Super Moon, the third one this year if my reckoning is correct. Just more reason to drink a cup of the steaming. Enjoy!

George Takei Believes in Me

Life comes hard and fast and if we aren't prepared, we can be overwhelmed by it. But it doesn't have to be that way. Fierce living keeps me free of the tyranny of emotional overload and I'm convinced that it will work for anyone. 

Sharing my personal life with the general public is not a little scary. Still, this morning I feel much better about it because I've been reading George Takei's blog. That's right. George Takei navigated the Starship Enterprise to destinations where no one had been before. And he didn't stop there.

Mr. Takei continues to chart new paths. George believes in the power of people to change the world. I'm convinced he believes that I can reach my goals if I just set a course and don't waver.

Several years ago I met a man who understood the pain and hopelessness that filled my life at the time. He suggested a different way of living, one that had completely transformed his life. I told him that I was afraid to try. Afraid that I would fail and be left hopeless. 

"You don't have to believe that it will work for you," said this man who I would later recognize as one of the winners in the game of life, "you only need to believe that I believe it works for me."

He explained that his life had changed so dramatically and all for the better because he followed a specific set of guidelines. If I followed those same guidelines, he said, then I would experience the same results that transformed his life. 

I followed his suggestions because I believed in him and it worked! Today I am free of the limitations of yesterday and I'd like to be an instrument of healing for others who suffer emotionally the way I have.

The most curious thing about the path I'm on is that when I do my best to help others, I reap the same benefits. It's a way of life that only works if you share it with others.

That's why I share the events of my life with others--to help them and to help me. It's sometimes funny and it's sometimes embarrassing. It's always a little scary for me, but hey! I believe in George Takei and he believes that I can do this so I keep doing it.

I know! George Takei believes in me! Life is good!

Controlled Spontaneity

When this old world is getting me down and people are just too much to deal with, I go for a walk along the path in Brunswick Forest--the path that surrounds the lake. That's what I did this morning. It's what I do every morning if it isn't pouring.

It's quiet and peaceful there. Azaleas and forsythia are blooming in the open spaces underneath the trees. Geese and ducks are guarding their nesting places in the shallows along the shores. Time slows down there and I can easily find a moment to hide in--a moment outside of time. The moment that Einstein missed in his equations.

The voices of crows, visions of egrets in flight, the warmth of morning sunshine on my skin, these and more fill my senses, heaped up, pressed down, and overflowing.

I learned in the zendo at the Zen Center in West Houston that any action coming out of a mindful state of consciousness was governed by controlled spontaneity. Like poetry, jazz, or kung fu, it's not something that you plan and rehearse; it's simply something you do.

Wynton Marsalis said that in jazz music, every moment is in crisis and you must bring all you have to bear on that crisis in the moment. Just like the poet, martial artist, and musician, there is no past or future, everything is right there in that moment. Life happens right now!

I was there in that moment as I walked the mindful path. But unlike the accomplished musician, my mood disorder sometimes allows bits of the other to slip into the moment. For me, it was noise from a nearby construction site, the whine of gasoline-powered leaf blowers, and the roar of 18-wheelers on the highway. Not a little anxiety was pressed down into my chest and ignored in my futile attempt to remain mindful.

When I crossed the street in the middle of the pedestrian walkway, the guy in the loud sports car approached me, in the middle of the walkway, at an uncomfortably high speed. 

"Off with his head!" screamed Amy from the emotion-control center of my brain. But I had the benefit of a mindful meditative walk on my side and I remained calm. 

Just like the poet, the martial artist, and the jazz musician, everything was in that moment. My action, resulting from the Zen state of mind, was one of controlled spontaneity. Fierce qigong! The finger happens!

It may seem a small matter to you; hardly worth writing a blog post about. But to me, it's a big deal and important for me to document it. Each time I read this post (and I do re-read them often) I'll be reminded that sometimes I am able to stay in control--sort of. I wonder what would have happened if the guy in the sports car had stopped.

But he didn't, did he? And that makes all the difference.