Mashed tomorrows and gravy

mashed-potato“What day is tomorrow?” my daughter asks. She’s three years old and I couldn’t be more pleased that she has learned the days of the week.

It seems precocious, and more evidence of what I hope will be an accelerated future.

“Wednesday,” I say.

“No, what day is tomorrow?” she asks again.

“Today is Tuesday, so tomorrow is Wednesday.”

“But when is it tomorrow?”

I’m no longer sure what she is asking.

“It goes Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,” she ticks them off. “But when is it Tomorrow?”

When is that day called “Tomorrow” that factors so eternally in our plans and schemes? I gape at her clear-eyed misperception, at her supremely intelligent confusion. How many times have I lost her in the mists of my ramblings about that never-to-come day?

Everything, it must seem to her, is going to happen Tomorrow. And for good reason: it’s where we adults live most of the time, straddling the yucky puddle of the here and now, teetering on our tippy toes to affix one foot on a better future. One we think we can control. It simply can’t be done, and so we keep toppling over, face first into our good intentions. We complain that our lives are out of balance, and wish we could one day learn how to live in the moment.

I hear a lot about living in the moment. I hear about how and why and when and how hard it is to live in the moment. The truth is, there is not a single person alive who is living anywhere but the moment. It’s just not the moment we have in mind. The moment we aspire to live in is a different kind of moment, a better kind. A moment of solitude, perhaps, of quiet satisfaction, of thrilling accomplishment or satisfying retribution, of deep confidence and unshakable certainty, with children asleep and ducks lined up and ships come in and an extra spoonful of gravy on top. That’s the moment we are waiting to relish.

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Things you can do when you are home alone


1. Rent a movie without special effects. And watch it.
2. Borrow a fat book. And read it.
3. Not make breakfast. Not make lunch. And not eat it.
4. Talk to no one but yourself. And write it.
5. Miss them.

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Still blowing smoke

Thank you to all who have asked about us here in Los Angeles. Everyone who has said a prayer, offered a place, a shrug, a sigh. Some of you know our little town, our mother mountain, which is downslope of the beast. Conditions seem to be turning today, no better day than this. I posted this piece on Shambhala SunSpace because of the marvelous teaching that comes ready made in the smell of smoke. The fire is massive, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you can smell it too.

“Diligently practice the Way as though putting a fire out on top of your head.”

There is engaging language in my spiritual tradition, in the old writing and the poetic phrases. It’s easy to take the language as inspiration or as metaphor, inclined as we are to analyze everything for deep meaning and exalted purpose. This is what religious scholars do, what intellectuals do, and it’s obvious why. We can almost never believe that things are simple or straightforward, that they are what they are. What do we use our brains for if not figuring things out? Everything has to mean something else.

I’ve heard a phrase more or less like the one above many times and thought it conveyed urgency and desperation. It does. But then I saw with my own eyes this week the startling science of extinguishing fires. How you put out a fire is exactly how you should practice. How you put out a fire on the ground is exactly how you put out the fire on your head – your insane, compulsively anxious, fearful ego mind.

Like you, I wish practice was merely a matter of writing this post, or reading a book, or making a list, or thinking positive thoughts, or losing five pounds. But I’ve seen the firefighters, and how they practice. They do not waste a moment to theory, philosophy, inspiration or appearances. This is what I learned with my own eyes:

Read the rest and leave a comment on “The Laundry Line”
my blog at Shambhala SunSpace

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An immodest proposal

For reforming healthcare in the United States, preventing the angry and overprivileged from being a burden to their children or country and making them beneficial to the public.

1. Pass healthcare reform.
2. Outlaw televised town halls.
3. Cut out television.

4. Read quietly.

5. Remove refrigerator lightbulbs.

6. Better yet, curtail residential electricity between 9 p.m.-5 a.m.

7. Go to bed when it gets dark.

8. Raise gasoline taxes and fund a National Sidewalk Act.

9. Pound salt, hit the bricks or take a hike.

10. Don’t believe anyone who says they can see Russia from Alaska.

11. Eat like the French. Or rather, don’t eat like the French don’t eat.
12. Regulate cupholders.

13. Forget the drive-thru.

14. Ban antibacterial soap.

15. Floss.

16. Rebrand, reposition, repurpose and relaunch beets, cabbage, chard and sardines.

17. Hand wash cold. Line dry. Cool iron when needed.

18. Trust me, this only happens in Hollywood.

19. Pry this computer from my cold, dead hands.

20. Laugh. It’s the only medicine you can afford, and it may be the only one that actually works.

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The giving is easy


You can enter her giveaway, you can enter my giveaway, or you can enter both, and if you win something you can’t use, why then you can give it away. Easy!

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Why oh why

Why I practice. Why I write. Why oh why.

A givealong: what moms (still) do

From time to time I’m lucky enough to receive things from other moms who make things. These are things they might want me to try for myself or to pass on. Their work always reminds me how vast and universal motherhood is. How intimate and ordinary. How much we share in just a word or a blink. How the whole of life is told in a note, a sign or the twirl of a spoon.

So play along with me here. What follows is a list of things that mothers (still) do. Some have links to posts that have caught my eye recently. Others don’t. Claim a word or two for yourself, leave a comment with a link, if you like, or none if you don’t, offer more to the list that I don’t have here, and I’ll enter you for a prize of your choosing. The prizes are shown below.

Sing
Doubt
Believe
Discuss
Clean
Repair
Cook
Create
Decorate
Paint
Fill
Empty
Contain
Wonder
Write
Witness
Lie awake
Trust
Support
Play
Laugh
Laugh again
Giggle
Marvel
Ponder
Listen
Learn
See
Sew
Spy
Surf
Cry
Forgive
Work
Dream
Dance
Plant
Practice
Heal
Teach
Whisper
Scream
Snuggle
Wobble
Save
Wait
Wake up
Wish
Organize
Let go
Get wet
Astound

When you enter, please tell me what prize(s) you’re aiming for:

Blue Heron Cookbook – Nadia Natali’s simple family recipes from the wilds.

Wake Up & Go to Sleep – Sweet, silly, sleepy music for weary moms and teary babes by Francie Kelley.

Twirly, swirly party skirt – Reluctantly outgrown by Georgia, handmade for a princess of 6 or so.

Be sure you leave a way for me to reach you when you enter. I’ll choose the winners on September 1.

Good morning, good luck, good appetite and good night!
Congratulations to our winners: M, exileinkidville and Chookooloonks.

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Cleverness is serviceable

Cleverness is serviceable for everything, sufficient for nothing – Fortune cookie

I once got a fortune cookie that said that. Not exactly. This guy said it first. I was so impressed that I kept the slip of paper in my wallet for about 20 years. Eventually I cleaned out my wallet, it might please you to know, but you can see how dear these words are to me still. Needless to say, the fortune came true. It is the truest fortune I’ve ever seen. It is the truest fortune there is. It is everyone’s fortune.

What does it mean?

Surely you know. You’re smart and clever. Perhaps too smart and clever. Cleverness works, for a time. You can look “serviceable” up in the dictionary. You can figure some stuff out. You can get better at certain things. You can acquire knowledge and skills. You can work harder and longer. Figure out Twitter. Get a leg up on the next thing. You can do more, be better liked, with a bigger reputation. You can set a goal and maybe even reach it. And then another. And another.

But is it ever sufficient?

As long as you are in the realm of cleverness, it is not sufficient. By that I mean, as long as you are in the realm of judging yourself and your life as being one way or the other (good/no good, full/empty, success/fail, made/not made) it is not sufficient. How do you know? Because you will still feel insufficient. You will still feel as though there is something more, better, greater and more fulfilling for you to get. At the same time, it will seem as though there are a few charmed folks on the other side of the scale who already “got” it. But I promise you, whatever it looks like they “got,” they didn’t “get” nearly enough.

You can acquire many things through cleverness, but sufficiency is not one of them.

That being said, cleverness is serviceable for something truly wonderful and life altering. Cleverness will bring you to the last gasp of cleverness; to the end of judgment, greed and envy; to the brink of chronic dissatisfaction and despair. It will bring you to the starting point for sufficiency. A chance to be content with things as they are, the fortune you already possess, the potential for deep and radiating joy, and a life that goes far beyond anything you can engineer.

How do I know? It brought you here.

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Chapter and verse

Blah blah blah. Meditation is good for you. But I’m bad at it. It’s boring. Who has time for it? It’s hard to do. Too spiritual. Not relevant. Some day soon you’re going to have to stop reading about it.

But when?


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The road traveled

Spying the untouched package, realize this is the last doll.
Watching her take a bath, realize this is the last of childhood.
Counting the days until deadline, realize this is the last draft.
Lifting the carton from the shelf, realize this is the last Mint Chip.
Tasting the grounds in the cup, realize this is the last coffee.
Facing the shrinking summer, realize these are the last lilies.
Remembering everything, realize this is the last regret.
Nearing the horizon, realize this is the last stretch.
The color! The color!
This is the road traveled.
None traveled less, none traveled more.
Everyone travels the same, alone and yet never apart.
Hello, traveler.

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I want to run away from these people

Sometimes.
Just so you know.


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Yield the floor, take the sky

August feels like a lost month. Slow boiled, a pot left on the burner and forgotten until a quicksilver memory sends you back to find it pitch darkened and empty.

And so my daughter, my sweet little, is 10. It is different at 10, you know. That extra digit on one side. The roundedness of zero. The empty whole of it.

“I don’t want to grow up,” she sighs on every day but her birthday today, when she didn’t say it. She doesn’t need to say it. It is the lyric we all live our lives by, and now she does too. The going is always gone.

Once I would have called it bittersweet. But I don’t taste too much the bitter any more. It benefits us both that her mother is ancient, so long and well-lived. I’ve lived forever! A hundred years or more, and the last hundred years were the best 10 years of my life.

I don’t want to grow up either. I don’t want to expend a minute of energy nursing myself: my make believe dreams and unrealized aspirations, the tug, the rift, the tides. I don’t want to become anyone else, or even more of myself. I’ve yielded that floor, scuffed and rutted.

Instead, I’ll take the sky. That sky!

Happy birthday baby girl. The world is yours.

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Robbed of meaning

I seem to recall that Maezumi Roshi said something like, “People misunderstand Zen because it is so plain.” Maybe he didn’t say it. My memory doesn’t always serve me because memory doesn’t keep things plain and simple. Perhaps I remember it this way because it serves my purposes right now. That’s what memory usually does: whatever I want it to do.

Even if he didn’t say it quite like that, we can see right away that it is true. We can see how our effort to understand something makes it complicated, and therefore, more easily misunderstood. Why, how, what does it mean? Explain it, debate it, defend it, describe it! The search for meaning robs our life of meaning.

Read the rest and leave a comment on “The Laundry Line”
my blog at Shambhala SunSpace

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