Teddy's Lesson

The dread of every day might most aptly be characterized as the longing for dandelion fuzz to be blasting away from my deep gorilla-smelling gorilla breath. I don't know what a gorilla smells like but I trust that you can imagine just as vividly as I what it smells like when a gorilla to gives you a good long embrace after you just got back from the batting cages, and then it tells you a secret you swear to never tell anybody else, and then you watch a show together. I'll tell you about the time that I was the scourge of the lawn and the hero of the fun. I'll tell you about what I am longing for. I'm half way through the night in a bedroom having spent the whole day in another room fenced off from all other people. There are others that exist, but from afar, and all you know is their life-habits and the odd fluctations of their attendance and you really don't know why they are special at all. You sometimes feel in a good mood and imagine about their precious and special story, but mostly they are just lumbering by your person to go and take a piss, or feather-stepping byou at 3 PM on a Wednesday, leaving and not telling anybody. A millenial might complain that they have not made any inoovations in any aspect of life for he last 15 or so years. And that's being generous. Where I spend most of my daytime thinking is with this herd of wildebeests, with a questionablre amount of survivsal skills. ANd yet they tell us all what to do. With flourescent lights blaring in our eyes and squeaky daytime demands. And I'm going to write you about what I'm longing for and it's not bad it's sweet. It's not a complaint in the suggestion box it's an invititation to that gorilla. Come back for another hug now, and possibly share a coconut water with me. I want you gorilla to tell me how much you respect me for what I'm about to say.

There was a few years ago when my dear little niece Teddy was littler (though I will not declare she was dearer) and we were waiting to pick her brother up from preschool. This seemed like one of those wide open moments of childhood, like I'd been here before but completely forgotten about how it existed because I was a Visitor and it had been like many years and many blocked memories and Oh My God the things you have to do to make life work. I let my mind drift off for a moment when I was a chld and we drove by the Jolly Rancher factory in a van full of kids, every day. My sister was getting really heavy into volunteering, and she was working at this school Fletcher Miller helping out handicapped kids, and looking frazzled at the end of the day. She looked like she was not having fun and I was not necassarily looking forward to see her just trying to get through the day so that I could not have to guard my toys or compete for my mother's love.What I mean to say is the van ride was so boring and long and hot and I often felt nauseous for the first mountainous-bit. But about fifteen minutes in, we would always drive right by the jolly ranchers factory on the way and I'd feel better., I  could just hear the other kids in the van guessing what flavor they were making today by the smell. Then we could talk about that and loosen up a lot, and then I took my cue. I always took my cue. And I was probably saying something dumb about how it was a lie that they called school anything other than school like that my nephew hadn't gotten to school he was in "preschool" before the shit really got strong and yet he was obviously receiving instruction against his will drawing turkeys with his hand and shit. yet they don't even give him the break of being included in the clan of institutional sufferers yet by gracing him with the name of student. It's like Like Part-Time Employees, what is up with that? Part-time job? It's a job and you either have it or you don't. I don't know much about life but you are either an employee or are you are not one. We all are able to subsist in much varying ways based on this title of employee. Go blow that part-time part out your...and while I had noticed the twenty or so year old lawn we were standing on just fine, as it was supporting this rant I was on, and seemed like pretty standard fare for fairgrounds to be an angry unidentified youth at home (the type who's demo has been getting a lot of fucking bad press in the news lately), what I had not noticed, and what the dearest but now not less dear niece had, was the dandelions. Pick one up, rub it back and forth between your fingertips and get that little bit of gooey goodness. And nobody gives you a lesson on this one. No one tells you that you just gotta blow your breath and all those fuzzies fly all fucking over the place. And grow new flowers! If they spread far, and wide, and glorious enough. She just  knew she didn't have the gorilla breath yet.

She looked at me and knew one thing. She could borrow my breath. She enlisted me. And before I know it we are running all over the lawn. We were finding the fluffiest of all the gooey stems sprouting out of the god-blessed grass and what fascination. We were spreading the scourge of lawns and the joy of gorilla breath and dear noticing and that is one thing that just makes me feel happy. Nobody teaches anybody to blow dandelion fluff, and everybody has to teach everybody to just be quiet and just notice where you are standing and to just run around and extract the goo of where you are.

"Uncle, you gotta see seeds, and you gotta give 'em a chance. You gotta run and You gotta smile and take delight." She bounded away in her diaper and demanded something ridiculous from her mother, like her binky or an iPad as she got forced into a hybrid vehicle. And she was an absolute asshole about it. She did not want to be restrained into a two-ton mass of steel while hurtling down a thin layer of asphalt carrying multitudes of her peers in the exact same situation. Or be at the total whim of people who had once experienced that exact same amount of powerless and were now in control of the two tons of hurtling steel rolling down the American highways. If we could all just stay still. Stay in our homes. She was calmed with potato chips.

I hope it will help you Teddy, to know that the moment of wisdom did not go unrecognized. You gotta get the goo on your fingertips and you gotta blow the fuzz off of every dandelion you see. And you got to gather the forces and have everyone blow every last blasted one of them into the sky when you see the opportunity to do so. She then asked me when the next time I would see some elephants, or giraffes was. I told her I am not sure sweetie. She wandered off introspectively, and I looked for something wondered what my parents had to eat in their fridge. And their pantry.

I'm pretty sure I would find giraffes and elephants in there. I went in there, and even though these animal crackers posed during the day as small floury snacks, there was some serious animals in that pantry. Elephants and Giraffes and Lions who kept to themselves, and there were sobering up drug addict spaghetti strings who drank all the damn coffee. But it actually wasn't a sobered up drug addict piece of pasta who worshipped something besides me first when I went into that pantry, it was a jar of peanut butter. And that was all the giraffes and the lions talked about was how they could enlist your gorilla skills into making the animal crackers more tasty with the Peanut Butter, and therefore, Teddy's life more fulfilling.

A list of things I love

• Figuring it out
• The tone of Lester Young's saxophone
• The feeling of effort
• William James. Fucking obviously.
• The banjo. The happy happy banjo.
• The eyes
• The smile of a woman
• When a kid or a dog takes a liking to you and you can't figure out why
• Making people laugh
• Fine, ok, people making me laugh too (but less so)
• Making dinner
• The plant growing food on it
• Seeing one of those bugs or spiders that make you rethink the universe as you know it.
• Two people excited to be talking to each other
• Creating something for folks to consider, and not lightly
• Thinking of something really charming to sign a letter off with
• Flavor combinations
• A well-worn baseball cap
• The feeling of coherence
• Floating in Epsom Salt
• Serving dinner
• Jacques Tatis
• Getting up early to make your lunch
• Nutritional Results
• Getting everything you can out of unhealthy decisions
• The Chicago Cubs
• Therapy
• Commanding Computers in an elegant manner
• Lookin' all professional
• The looks I see on faces every day (except when I stay in and rest)
• Jazz on a Summer's night
• My special and very favorite musicians
• Don Ellis and MFDoom and the Bad Livers
• Exemplary blood test results
• Lots of good produce (appropriately stored)
• Well made butter
• A successful grocery store trip
• The creek by my house
• When running into people that you know actually turns out to be quite pleasant
• Pickles
• Pickles just sittin' there
• The Rothko Chapel in Houston
• Getting out of anxiety/anger/confusion
• Simplicity
• Focus
• A ripe pear
• The new mattress I just spent $800 on, and the dreams that come with it
• The last item is sensitive women into the arts

A list of things I hate

• Parents of child athletes.
• Cops who approach you offensively or defensively.
• Assumption.
• Not respecting what's alive in other people, even if it's coupons or football watching.
• Feeling misunderstood.
• Feeling like a burden to somebody.
• Rejection
• The inevitable insignificance
• Personality -- the entire enchilada
• People eating cruncy things at work
• The common understanding of mental health treatment.
• Self sacrifice.
• Teaching of powerlessness.
• Pounding the love of learning out of people.
• The moment when kids figure out the pleasure of being a dick to somebody.
• Lack of responsiveness.
• Not understanding. 
• Never understanding.
• Being too obsessed with human striving that you lose a sense of understanding.

Bird Song

What do birds think when the earth is no longer scorched with drought? Lungs hydrated,
brain healed, bright-spread toes dappled in mud? I'll tell:

Forecast today: the X-Y plane is wobbly at best.
Evening storms ahead. Thunder may crash over my song.

Sometimes you are submerged, and sometimes you are not.
Sometimes there's a bug and sometimes there's a whole worm.

I am the general of billions of cells over.
Each sunrise, I put on a feathered cap. And mind a nest, made out of honey twigs.

My heart wakes before anything. Its thing is consistency.
It speaks in meter. Broadcasting a song that is enough so to transmit AM radio.

I'm starting to notice that if rain falls and I sing my head off in spite, the sky eventually answers in flight!

Wisdom

It's confusing to be the Buddha when you self-impose the thing that makes you him. It can become a duty.

The last thing he said was.....oh, fuck off! You know it's obviously already inside of you.

(dramatic last gasp)

Actually, they were instructions on how to spread light.

Gentle Me Soup

Vegetable broth--store bought (this is not about making your own)

A stressful day at work

One meditative evening activity (or, texting a person you don't know that well yet?)

Turmeric, and never be shy 

A big hunk of fresh ginger

Fresh-cut Leafy Greens (I cannot emphasize keeping a garden enough)

Liquid Amino or Soy Sauce

One egg. (The color of that yolk better pop!)

A lemon (if you have it)

If your nose is stuffy, or throat hurts, I guess a pinch of cayenne will do, but this is not about that. We are cultivating something much more mild.

Throw all but the greens in the pot at once. Let it arrive to a nice rumble. This step should take several breaths, but there is no wisdom in telling you how many. You decide how many you need. When you are complete with this step, add the greens. You soon will enjoy the sight of a most vivid shade of green come alive in your pot. Turn off the stove because the color starts to become a more realistic shade of green rather quickly. They wilt. Now add the egg, scrambled and seasoned, and stir.

Pour the soup into your favorite bowl or mug. Use one of those big Asian cuppy spoons in the back of your drawer. Have some patience to tend to its neglect, washing the dust off with soap and water before you use it. Serve. Put a little more soy sauce on top. If you have any fancy salt that you once were gifted and always forget to use, get that instead. Pour a cool glass of water. The cooler the better. 

Now a moderate squeeze of lemon into your soup if you have it. 

a) If you don't have lemon

Practice not worrying about it if you don't. There is no substitute for having an opportunity to practice not worrying about something. Make a confident move in life, and gain the resolve to keep lemons on hand more regularly. Then you can try this exercise again in the near future. But if you must know a splash of cloudy apple cider vinegar works I guess.

b) If you do have lemon

You'll notice that the egg, broth, and lemon flavor is divine. But be careful not to do too much. If you squeezed in too much lemon, you will probably have to try again next time to experience the balance of flavor in its proper form.

Now for everyone, take a nice deep smell if by chance that sensation fires a memory. Give yourself a chance to be transported to another time and place that comes with the sensation of the soup's steam, or the aroma of the egg or lemon. Open yourself up. Now go outside. 

Hopefully it's cool outside, and I'm assuming it's night. Hopefully the sky is clear of clouds. Don’t look at your phone too much or anything. Drink all the soup you need. Swallow the greens whole. You might be able to hear bugs singing their song, or maybe a wind kicks the trees and yard ornaments around. The chimes and whooshes and clacks playing a comforting and hardly noticeable background music to eat your soup to.  

You don’t have to eat it all if you don’t want. Or, like me, you could get seconds. But listen to how you feel. When finished, if your spirit still needs some unthawing, you can go ahead and pop that hunk of ginger.

I am a bruised vegetable

My line for the next time i get real vulnerable around a girl.