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Wednesday, May 4, 2011

LAZY AFTERNOON


The century plants in the yard look like they're dead. They've surprised me before, though, kicking back to life after a couple of good rains. This whole desert city is going to look pretty dead before long too, as we hunker down into air conditioned isolation for the long summer siege. (We spend too much of our lives encased in concrete, and it makes us hard.)

The breeze is blowing in through the window, billowing the curtain into a kind of open parachute. The wind chimes ring off a couple of notes and fall silent again. It's a lazy afternoon.

It's nice to sit here and not think about things like Afghanistan, or the fist-pumping crowd outside the gates of the White House, celebrating someone's brutal death. I don't care which side you're on, repeating the bloody cycle of an-eye-for-an-eye down through the ages doesn't appear to be a strategy that is going to win your enemies over to your side--take the Israelis and the Palestinians for an ongoing example.

I've often wondered what if would be like to NEVER read the newspaper or hear the radio and TV news. You know, life goes on--the day to day part of it that we see first hand--pretty much the same as always. We talk to our friends, wash the car, sit on the toilet (or sit on our friends and talk to the toilet). The rest of it is just mind games. The news is designed to provide us with a daily dose of anxiety--a modern day Scheherazade that keeps us on the edges of our seats, waiting for the next episode.

Now there's this 2012 thing--what delightful suspense! December 21st, 2012 is the date the Mayan calendar apparently predicts that the world will go POOF. Many will hold their breath at the stroke of midnight--just like we did with Y2K. Some will undoubtedly sell all their possessions (what will they need the money for?) and head for the mountain tops, awaiting the rapture. The day will go by, just like every other day, and those folks will head back down--red faced--with just bare floors to sleep on. Meanwhile, those "primitive" tribes in New Guinea ain't gonna miss a beat, cuz they're oblivious to it all anyway.

So by now you may be wondering what's the point of these ramblings--where's he taking me and am I going to like it? Well, what's the real point to life? Where's it taking us and are we gonna like it?

We want desperately to like it--those of us who've decided to "keep the faith" and hang in there for the duration of this go-round. We give it the benefit of the doubt--maybe more than it deserves--because we're caught up in it. Fascinated. Spellbound. Addicted. We want to stay for the play. The journey out--into manifestation--and the journey back to Source. So we keep coming back. I think our spirits know that it's not all going to be a bed of roses when we sign on, before the amnesia sets in, (and in that sense we may all be astonishingly brave) but it's those selected moments of what Maslow called peak experience, I think, that give us the notion that it all might be worth it.

And maybe that's the best we can expect. Isolated moments of frisson when we feel like we could grab Arnold Schwarzenegger by his fat neck and swing him around like he's Mister Rogers; moments when we've got a room at the top of the world and we ain't comin' down; moments that by all rights should last forever--though we know they won't.

But they last just long enough to keep us coming back.

And maybe even moments like this will do. Moments when the wind is just husky enough to tickle the chimes...and I ain't too concerned about nuthin'.



T

10 comments:

  1. I so love this, Timoteo. I, too, have been sickened by the hoorah over someone's death. When 9/11 happened and the people Over There were cheering and celebrating, we didnt like it - how soon we forget - now Americans are acting the exact same way. On and on it goes.

    I love these philosophical reflections of yours......love it narrowing down to the sound of the wind chimes. I am a big fan of wind chimes - and porch swings. And often dont look too much farther than that because, when I do, it hurts.

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  2. SHERRY,
    I'm with you in spirit...on that porch :)

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  3. Yeah. The news is pointless. A hundred years ago, folks had no idea what other countries were doing, or even the next freaking county. There's nothing more horrifying than showing live viewers the towers going down or people crying for water to feed their babies after the hurricane in New Orleans. Leaving us to realize that we can't do a damn thing, but we have to sit and watch it, wringing our hands, relating the helplessness to our own lives and vulnerabilities. I just open each new day like this amazing gift. I have no idea what it contains. Today, it might be flavored by a long to-do list that keeps me from stopping and noticing the prarie dogs munching on the treats I left outside or perhaps it's a bunch of surprise things that crop up all day making it one long birthday party kind of day. I can't repeat the same two days twice. I love that about life. It's not a from A to B kind of scenario, it's a "there is no path" scenario--cut your own way, pick your own destination or just linger. Sounds like you had a linger day. I love those!

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  4. SHARON,
    You got it, babe. When you take a bunch of handpicked random events that occur in the world on a given day, and play them all back to back for a half hour on the news, people are going to get a skewed view of the world, thinking that it's going to hell in a hand basket, when the vast majority of lives go on unaffected by these things.

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  5. I like the breezy chatting style of this. It makes me want to sit across with you along with a few other literate sensible folks with glasses filled with decent wine and bottles on a table around which we are seated . . . shooting the shit and weaving colorful fantasies.

    I'm in a different space than you about those isolated peak moments. My experiences of the last years and the accumulations of years has taught me to cherish the ordinary on-and-onness of life. I sit on the family room with Roi, also known as "Trouble," the kitty that is that is the newest member in my family. I watch her acute alertness as she observes the fluttering moths on the other side of the window. I am content and engaged. Such are the moments, the many many moments, out of which the fabric of which is weaved my sense that it is "worth it."
    T

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  6. Roi isva male cat; I don't know why I wrote about him with feminine pronouns .

    I imagine all of us sitting on comfy chairs and couches.

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  7. Quite the commentary, Timoteo.

    Me, I only watch the news in the morning for the weather and traffic. The rest never changes.

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  8. ARLENE,
    That's why I said at the end that "maybe even moments like this will do."

    I totally would enjoy sitting around "shooting the shit" like that with you...but wouldn't it kinda splatter all over the place?

    BUBBA,

    These days I watch the news primarily to see which female anchor or weather girl will be next to turn up pregnant.

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  9. Interesting gathering of ideas! Especially love the newspaper viewed as our daily dose of anxiety!

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  10. Sept.11 2001 ... ya ... u don't really believe in that bull shit terrorist propaganda, or do u? Meouw, cat ... ya, babe ...

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