Zen stimulus plan


Get up when the alarm goes off. Make your bed without a second thought.

Walk your child to school. Notice the sky, the buds and the berries. Let the sunlight and fresh air dispel the mood of sullen reluctance.

Greet her teacher with a wide smile that imparts your trust and respect.

Walk the dog. The dog knows the way.

Say hello to your neighbor sweeping his sidewalk. He is nearly recovered from that terrible train collision. When he asks you for some good news, say, “Rain is in the forecast.”

Let him tell you about the groundcover seeds he’s about to plant. Laugh that between the two of you, you’ll keep the nursery in business this year.

Visit Jim’s blog and donate a couple of dollars to rebuild the far side of the world. Extend the domestic rescue and recovery to Mongolia, where English is still revered as the language of liberation, and learning it is an act of love.

Using what’s at hand, make dinner.

Drop by the grocery store for extra cheese from California, Wisconsin and Ohio.

When the checker asks if you found everything, say yes. Then ask her how her day is going, and mean it.

Clean up the kitchen without complaint, because one day soon you may need the rain gutters cleaned.

Day done, go to bed. Don’t waste a minute of this wondrous mind to self-criticism, worry or distraction.

Rest easy, knowing that tomorrow won’t bring any more than you can handle, or any less than you absolutely need.

Grace in acceptance


The first time to watch the Academy Awards is overwhelming for any young girl, especially an aspiring actress. We carried her crying to bed, her heart overcome with imaginary acceptance.

Mom, do you know what would be nice? If they gave the ones who came in second at least a medal.

The one who comes in first, of course, gets a shampoo bottle.

Possible dreams


Within hours of the birth, the complicated and life-threatening birth of my beautiful and brilliant daughter, a single word began whizzing across that high-speed thoroughfare between my ears. Back and forth along the byway that bisected my mother nature. As I simmered in the newness of motherhood and the inconceivable possibilities that lie ahead, convinced of the utter perfection and excellence of her future, the word on my mind was not now or possibility. I was grateful, but the word was not grateful. I loved her, but the word was not love. It wasn’t peace, or calm, or happiness. It wasn’t blessing or miracle. It wasn’t amazing or grace.

It was Stanford.

Ninth Annual Palo Alto Mothers Symposium
Stanford University
Palo Alto, California
Saturday, March 7
9:30 a.m.-noon

Momma Zen: Finding Peace and Patience in the Everyday
with Karen Maezen Miller

How or if or when my daughter gets there no longer matters. What matters is that you do, that we all, each of us, get to a place of peace and patience, by the very means we have at hand. Then, and only then, have we finally given our children lives to make their own.

“Year after year, this unique gathering of mothers generates a spirit of support and compassion that ripples out into our families and our community. We hope you will find refuge from the demands we all experience as mothers, sometimes enlivened and sometimes burdened by the magnitude and influence of this role. We invite you, for a morning, to take a break from all the rules, goals, consequences, and other criteria against which we measure ourselves; and to embrace the possibility that most of what you need to know about mothering is available within you and the present moment.” – The Mothers Symposium

The secret life of men


I don’t have anything to wear.
Does this make me look fat?
You hurt my feelings.
I hate my hair.
Does my breath smell?
Does waxing hurt?
My boss doesn’t like me.
I’m beginning to look like my dad.
It’s my natural color.
I borrowed your moisturizer.

The secret life of men is the secret life of us all. So there are no secrets.
Now, can you keep it a secret?

Aha moments



Hey mom, I have an idea to make money.

What’s that?

Let’s invent medicine that really works.

Why hasn’t anybody thought of that?

And that tastes good!

***

Mom, you know what worries me every time I fly?

What’s that?

You know when they say in the event of an emergency landing do not take your personal belongings?

I’ve heard that.

What if I’m carrying my American Girl doll?

We’d get you another one.

Just checking. That’s what Dad said too.

***

Mom, I’m worried about some of the kids in my class.

Why’s that?

Well, they are in third grade already.

Yes they are.

And if they don’t know anything by now how will they ever graduate from high school?

***

Mom, I feel sorry for God, you know why?

Why?

Because he has to create like a billion, million jillion fingerprints.

And she said


I’m so honored to meet you. I’m so sorry I’m late. I love your book. It has helped me so much. I can’t believe I’m here with you. I haven’t been a very good mom. I need this so much. I haven’t even finished reading it yet. I’ve tried to meditate on my own but I can’t do it. I tried other books but they were so complicated. I love to hear you speak. Will you write another one? Will you write about marriage? I hope so. My friend met you and she burst into tears. This is really helping me. You’ve helped so many women. How did you become so wise? There’s no one like you out there. Let me ask you a question. I’m going to come back. I’m going to come see you again. I can’t wait to read your next book. I love you. You don’t know how much you’re helping me. Thank you for being here for me.

And I said:

I’m not here for you; you’re here for me.

In honor of Mandy who came to the beginner’s retreat yesterday and showed me how to begin again.

And to you, who do the same for me every single time you come here. You cannot know how much you help me.

5 reasons to stay calm in turbulent times


It’s that time of the month. No, I don’t mean that time of the month. It’s the time of the month when the savings statements come. I hate to even get them, let alone bring them in from the mailbox, and when I do, I toss them aside hoping they will get lost, which is what we all probably do in these times, that is if we still have these times.

Eventually I compel myself to open them. I actually put it on my to-do list, “3. Open envelopes” and then one day, like today, I open them.

It’s a good practice, really, for facing life as it is. It’s just not a practice that I would pay this much money for.

So opening up the envelope where a certain bank tells me that I spent $50,000 of my IRA last year learning to face life as it is, out comes a glossy newsletter bearing the headline, “Five Reasons to Stay Calm During Turbulent Times.”

I don’t buy their reasons anymore, just like to don’t buy anything anymore, but there really are Five Reasons to Stay Calm During Turbulent Times, and this is what they are:

1. You don’t need a college fund. Your kids won’t even want to go to college. Because there won’t even be colleges. There won’t even be jobs. There will just be the Facebook 25 Things About Me meme. And everyone will be famous.

2. You don’t need to eat. It’s not good for you. Researchers have proven that a starvation diet is the best and only way to extend your lifespan, and the time to start is now, so you can look forward to being hungry forever.

3. Money is overrated. Indeed it is worthless. Money doesn’t buy happiness. Now are you happy?

4. You can’t take it with you. You can’t even go anywhere. Don’t believe those ads for low airfares. Click on them and you’ll find out it still costs $600 for a round-trip ticket to a place you don’t even want to go. Like your in-laws. So just stay put and start starving and be happy.

5. You don’t even have a time of the month anymore. What turbulence?

Your girlfriend is a priest


As much as it shocks me to realize it, sometimes as I cup my hand consolingly under someone’s elbow, I hear myself say, “I’m a priest.” And then I tell them something or other that they probably already know.

So here are some priestly items for now:

1. Never ask your husband if he remembered to feed the dog. He doesn’t like to be reminded that he always forgets to feed the dog. Just feed the dog no matter what.

2. Never ask your husband to pick up the dog poop, since you yourself are most likely responsible for it in the end analysis (See point 1). And face it, your husband doesn’t like to be reminded of that either.

3. Never buy underwear in the 75 percent off, free shipping, extra 20 percent off one-day-only sale at Victoria’s Secret online because underwear that costs .17 cents a pair looks like it costs even less. Just wear the old underwear for the sake of the economic crisis.

4. Plus, this saves you the embarrassment of having to go up to a larger size when you buy new underwear because of the unconscionable fact that they only come in three sizes. Well four, but on my mother’s side of the family we don’t consider S a size for adults.

5. Then you can tell yourself that you are still the same size as Jessica Simpson will soon be.

6. Never compare yourself to someone who probably doesn’t even wear underwear on a fairly consistent basis.

7. Never believe the words “self-cleaning oven.”

8. Never blow your nose.

9. Hey, I’m not a doctor; I’m just a priest.

10. Silence is the ultimate kindness.

Too little time, too many facts


A nocturne to the strains of a full moon.

Mommy, don’t be mad I can’t go to sleep.

Make your mind empty. No thoughts. No pictures.

You mean like a TV screen that goes blank?

Yes, blank.

I don’t want to grow up.

I’ll always be with you.

How old was I when your mommy died?

Not yet two.

It’s sad that I didn’t get to see her or know her.

She watches you every night when you sleep.

Then she must be watching someone else tonight.

No, she’s right here, waiting for you to go to sleep so she can come to you in your dream.

Mommy, don’t be mad I can’t go to sleep.

Are you nervous about something?

Yes.

What is it?

We have a timed test tomorrow and there are too many facts.

Facts don’t matter. Make your mind blank like the night sky. Without the moon.

Mommy?

Yes.

I really love you.

I’ll always be with you.

Disturbance at 30,000 feet

This is why I am disturbed by what the kids in my daughter’s third-grade class say when asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Famous,” they say.

It’s what disturbs me about me, too.

Care instructions for an ordinary life

Lather.
Rinse.


Repeating my call for company at a one-day Beginner’s Meditation Retreat on Sunday, Feb. 15 at the Hazy Moon Zen Center in Los Angeles to fill your lonely heart with light. Complete instructions, very short periods of sitting meditation, compassionate talks, a delicious meal, and the basket empties itself.

Register here.

Engulfed in meaning

Montag felt the slow stir of words, the slow simmer. And when it came his turn, what could he say, what could he offer on a day like this, to make the trip a little easier? To everything there is a season. Yes. A time to break down, and a time to build up. Yes. A time to keep silence, and a time to speak. Yes, all that. But what else. What else? Something, something . . .

And on either side of the river was there a tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

– Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Found 165 pages in, seventeen words from the end, read in the fading light to ignite the dusty embers of our day.

The call of the child

Update:
Georgia has sold enough cookies to win the license plate, beach towel and Love Your World t-shirt, which says it all.

In case you don’t have a barefoot scooter-propelled cookie impresario on your block, you can borrow mine.

Does anyone want to buy at least 8 boxes of Girl Scout cookies to be shipped to their home or office? (Are there even any offices left in this country?)

My daughter Georgia will sell on credit, being the only solvent lender left on this planet, and pay for postage, because these days a good customer is that valuable, and the product is, well, a mint.

As economists predicted, the pedaling on our street this year is uphill. What can I say? It’s the money.

For this year’s selection of tantalizingly classic confections, look in the cookie cupboard. (But you might want to overlook the price, $4 per box.)

Her goal is to sell enough to win a personalized license plate for her scooter. The kind that costs $5 and requires her to sell $600 worth of cookies. What can I say? It’s not the money.

The sale ends this Saturday. Your regrets won’t arrive for a month. But when they do arrive, they are guaranteed not to last!

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