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.
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.
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!
Just came in from saying the children’s memorial service I’ve chanted the first Sunday of every month since June of last year, a service in which I recite the names of lost and unborn children (some were long since children; some never were) sent in by readers. This is now the ninth time I’ve done this service in my backyard, usually with the dog, sometimes kids, always birds and bugs, over the din, under clouds and shine, planting a stick of smoking incense, a spiraling wisp of emptiness, and reading a list now 94 names long, some of them names, some of them not, each one reborn with the echo of sound, the heartbeat of time, the moment that comes on the first Sunday and goes on forever.
It’s never too late to include your lost loves by leaving a comment here.
Photo originally uploaded by HoneyMill.
La-de-da. The First Family has a new chef as of today, a fellow from Chicago who specializes in healthy food and “knows what they like.” From what I read, he’s going to have to put a dash of something special into every meal. I happened to see an interview last fall of the Obamas in the kitchen. Those sweet girls pooh-poohed their daddy’s fancy tuna poupon salad, and smiled, “cheese!” when asked their own favorite food. I’m convinced they’d have a seat at our table anytime.
I can understand that the President is driving a national nutritional agenda. We all drive our own family nutritional agendas, and on those nights it doesn’t drive you to the drive-thru, an agenda like that can drive you bonkers. Take my friend Shawn, who decided to take herself off the hook from cooking this week so she wouldn’t take her dinner frustrations out on herself for a change! In the spirit of compassion for all moms and dads who want permission to veer off-agenda and have a happy meal or two, let me give you an idea of some of the healthful variety that passes for dinner in our house:
Any noodle or vegetable soup with a sprinkle of cheese.
Pasta with marinara and cheese.
Romaine salad with tomatoes, cucumbers and cheese.
Macaroni and cheese, not homemade.
Cheese pizza.
Cheese quiche.
Cheeseburger hold the burger with extra cheese.
Grilled cheese sandwiches. As long as the crusts are cut off.
Cheese quesadillas.
I’m not hungry can I have some Cheez-Its.
Cheese straws, cheese slices and cheese cubes.
Fruit slices and cheese with more cheese.
Chicken nuggets. Hallelujah! No cheese.
Artichokes. I kid you not.
All of the above with ketchup.
And ranch dressing.
In case you thought my life was any different than this.
I was fuming. I spend a lot of my time fuming. Because of my husband. Know what I mean?
You don’t pay attention, I say.
When I fume, he does too and the cause of it, from what I gather, is this:
You pay too much attention, he says.
Neither of us is right, but both of us have our reasons. Reasons are a big problem in this house, but they usually get rinsed out in the wash.
Except lately, I haven’t been doing his wash for him. I don’t know how or why. I just stopped. He has the most clothes, wearable and unwearable, the most laundry, washed and unwashed, of anyone in the house. I think one has to do with the other.
My reasoning goes like this. Perhaps because he hasn’t – oh, in the last 13 years – had a weekly face-to-face with his laundry pile, he unduly cherishes his wardrobe, and unduly dismisses the meticulous task of caring for clothes.
Can I donate this to the rag pile, he says.
Trying to be helpful, he holds up a single pair of old socks.
Just throw them away, I instruct. He doesn’t like to give away worn out or outgrown clothes, and you know how I feel about that. He likes to buy new ones. I noticed last week he was sporting a handsome new sweater of a dense weave.
I picked it up while I was at the mall, he says.
I have a judgmental eye for those kinds of things. A judgmental eye for all kinds of things. I see that his old sweaters are stretched out and threadbare, but they are still crowding his drawers and closet. Still filling the hamper with to-dos.
Are you doing your laundry, I say.
He’s put a small load in on Sunday before I could start the heavy lifting. A few important things along with the new sweater.
I actually love to do laundry. Rather, I love to finish laundry. The clean, warm, folded, fresh scent of accomplishment. I just wish there was money in it!
Let me put it in the dryer, he says.
He is being responsible, cheery, chastened after one of my harangues. Washer cleared, I start my own load. About 30 minutes later, I open up the dryer to empty out his stuff. One glance at the surviving swatch of sweater and I turn it inside out to read the label he hadn’t.
Hand wash cold, it says.
Only some of you know what unexpected encouragement I took in finding those three words. Those three little words. Not because of what they meant about him: that he hadn’t paid attention, but because of what they meant to me: to take heart and keep going. To keep washing, drying, rinsing, and writing. To have faith, because I now have a new sweater that fits me perfectly!
It only cost $25, he says.
Priceless.
No thought, no concern, nothing to hinder.
Going well at ease, coming well at ease, left to nature.
Staying at a stream in a deep valley.
Time flows with the Sun and the Moon.
Translation from a friend at Mountain Spirit Center. Better yet, translate it yourself, as I am, all this week.
Dear Malia,
My name is Georgia Miller. I’m 9 and from California. I watched your Inauguration at school today. What is it like at the White House? What I really want to know is if you want to be pen pals. I would love it if we could but it’s ok if you don’t want to. I hope to get a letter from you!
When my sisters and I were really little, we were lovestruck by our handsome president and wished that we could be his darling princess daughter. Then came the teen throbs of Lynda Bird and Luci to moon over. I understand what we have going on now in our house. I understand it completely.
It’s Malia time all the time.
First, she wrote and mailed this letter. Then she decided to name the lead character in the story she’s writing “Malia.” Then she wrote a one-act play last night after dinner about a girl named Malia, age 9, doing her homework.
Malia: Ugh! More homework! I’m already on my third page!
It’s not a pure love, you see, because romantic love never is. It’s subtly and insidiously self-serving. “You see,” she says bright-eyed, “I think everyone will be writing to President Obama and Malia won’t get any letters. Mine might be the first! And if we become pen pals then she might invite me to the White House.”
Later on she asked her dad if he might ever run for president. She’s scrambling to cover all the routes of admission, you see, since she’s heard there are 132 rooms in the building, a movie theater, a bowling alley and the Jonas Brothers.
Last night I tried to coach her (my mistake) through an intense monologue she’s doing in her theater class. “Say it with the kind of feeling you have for Malia,” I offered, intending to stir up passion and enthusiasm.
“You mean, like I’m jealous?”
***
All that aside, click here to see why I no longer worry how she gets her feet wet.
Imagine if someone you hardly knew – equipped with only their stubborn insistence, vague navigational skills and a bag of spinach – arrived at your home one morning. What you would make of it?
Make soup, I say.
Denise Andrade and her husband, Carsten Kroon, gave me their prized covered parking space, opened the front door to their comfy haven, and let me keep noisy company with them and new baby Cedar on Monday. I babbled them out of their quiet sanctuary and crowded them out of their kitchen. But they were most kind and accommodating, because they are new parents. And new parents don’t get much of a say, do they?
Cedar, if you hadn’t guessed, is a fluffy soft, sleepy bundle of tiny (yes, he’s still tiny) goodness. He could have cared less for me or anything I brought, because he has this:
To redeem myself, I simmered up a big pot of Italian Wedding Soup to do at least a little good on a January day and to last perhaps a day or so after.
If you need a boost, this could do the trick. If you know any new parents, make a double batch and take some over. We’ve all been called to serve others. They won’t have any choice but to let you in.
Italian Wedding Soup
Mix and brown these meatballs (or use your favorite meatless meatballs):
1 lb extra lean ground beef or turkey
1 large egg
1 minced garlic clove
1 medium onion, minced
1/3 cup breadcrumbs*
A few dashes of Worchestershire sauce
Salt and pepper, to taste
Then combine in a stockpot with this:
12 cups chicken or vegetable stock
6 oz orzo, pastina or other small pasta*
1 lb fresh baby spinach, washed and drained
If you’re making meatballs, combine first 7 ingredients in a mixing bowl. Roll 1 tsp portions into balls and brown in a skillet until done. Place meatballs and all other ingredients in soup or stockpot. Simmer until pasta is done, stirring as needed to keep pasta from sticking to bottom of pot. Serve immediately.
Based on an original recipe by Andrea In Blue.
* Modify to gluten-free like I did by substituting 1/3 cup crushed gluten-free Rice Krispies for the breadcrumbs, and use any small gluten-free pasta.
All my life, I have been stitching together a family – Barack
I read a fascinating piece in The New Yorker the other day. It became more fascinating days after I read it, as the implications surfaced in all kinds of other events right before my eyes. It’s from an interview more than 10 years ago of the young Obama couple. It’s delightfully honest, because you can see the truth and trajectory in what they say long before it was made known to them or to us.
There is a strong possibility that Barack will pursue a political career – Michelle
You can hear the foreboding, see the vulnerability, in her words and her picture. She describes herself as more traditional, more risk-averse, pretty private. She is so much like many of us, with a family background so much more like the rest of us, without ambiguity, and yet we see ourselves so clearly in him. How so?
I trust her completely, but at the same time she is also a complete mystery to me – Barack
Reading this I thought, wow, having a family is like an adventure to him, a journey. Because he didn’t have the kind of family that brings with it such an overriding sense of identity, such confining identity, he is free of expectations. He is comfortable with mystery even in those he loves. His arms are wide; his pose is relaxed and natural. On this wide open face, we have projected our hopes and dreams, and he alone can bear them.
Even as you build a life of trust, you retain some sense of surprise or wonder about the other person – Barack
How many of us can say that? Do that? Withstand and pursue that? How many of us can abandon our expectations and free those we love from the prison of being who we think they are? Who we want them to be? This is the recipe for all loving relationships and the point of an article I wrote for the February issue of Shambhala Sun entitled, radically enough, “Parents, Leave Your Home.” If you subscribe, you’ll get the magazine any day. If you don’t, you’ll see it at the Whole Foods checkout. Or, you can download it from my website right now by scrolling down the home page to a list of my articles and anthologies.
Thank you, Mr. President, for making me part of your family. You encourage me to do the same with my own. Let them be. Let them be a mystery. Let them be home wherever they roam.
The deadlines are past, the chance has run out, but you should quietly study this. The dinner is cold, the time has gone, but you should quietly study this. The bills are due, the check is late, but you should quietly study this. The clothes have shrunk, the socks have holes, but you should quietly study this. The market has tanked, the airplane has sunk, the world’s come undone, but you should quietly study this. The day is done, the year barely here and yet gone, everything yes everything disappears, but you should quietly study this.
Quietly study this and let go.
What a brilliant sky.
The teaching of the grandmother sycamores in my backyard.
When your daughter’s new doll is 18 inches tall, and your new daughter was 16 inches tall, the brief span of Daddy’s Girl fits entirely around the length of an American Girl. Are they one or are they two?
(Mommy saved her baby clothes, and her baby didn’t save a trace.)
Open your eyes.
Open your eyes and see that you are no longer in the dreary landscape you habitually occupy in your head.
This is a head’s up and sincere invitation for you to take part in two eye-0pening events coming round the bend.
The first is a Beginner’s Mind One Day Meditation Retreat I’ll be leading on Sunday, Feb. 15 at Hazy Moon Zen Center in Los Angeles. It’s perfect for you, and it’s only $25.
The second is the half-day Palo Alto Mothers Symposium at Stanford University on Saturday, March 7. It won’t be complete without you, and it’s only $20.
Now, before you tell yourself what you always do, “I can’t possibly go,” stop and open your eyes. Read aloud the next words you see here:
Let’s just see how it goes.
Let’s just see how it goes. That’s what Maezumi Roshi always said to me. It’s not just a social courtesy. Not a simplistic cliché. It is a precise instruction on how to live an enlightened life.
Open your eyes.
That brings me around to mentioning something that might seem peculiar about zazen, or Zen meditation. We meditate with our eyes open. Slightly open, but still open. What you probably think of, and maybe even do, is meditate with your eyes closed. But that’s not practicing meditation, or awareness. That’s daydreaming, or sleeping. Daydreaming is nice, but no one needs to practice it. If you want to meditate with your eyes closed, I suggest you just opt for a deep tissue massage and get total body benefit out of it. That’s what I plan to do with the gift certificate I got for Christmas.
Wanna get away?
See how it goes. See that airfares, in some cases, are delightfully low. See that cross-country or even cross-town, is amazingly close. See me smile in total rapture to finally meet you face to face.
This time of year, we might find it easy to make long-range plans and commitments to improve our health, break old habits, lose weight, enhance our productivity and save or make more money. But can we commit even a few moments to transforming our lives and everyone in it? Sure we can.
Open your eyes and see.
