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Everyday Meaning

View of the rock in the ocean

I got lucky. Or the opposite.

Whatever… I’ve created a mechanism that draws people to me who are in a dilemma and ready for something new.

And they ask me with the passion and wonder of a child shouting to the ocean,

“What should I do?”

What a gift: to be brought in at this moment.

Pretense and analysis are left at the shore. Even the clothes come off, whether the sun’s out or not. Such trust. It’s touching.

Every day — every single one of my days — is filled with meaningful conversations that I can only partially control.

And that other person, they’re all-in, up to their chin and ready to go under, or at least willing.

1, 2, 3. Blub, blub.

We can barely see each other at first,

but eyes adjust, and I’m used to the murk so I reach out my hand first.

It becomes easier to hold our breath, and we come up together, perhaps a little seaweed on our shoulders, some sting in our eyes.

But our lungs are relieved and it feels warmer than before.

We’re both glad we did something so crazy in the middle of our day.

And we’re excited to swim back in.

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My Daily Meditation (the other one)

Photo of a man sitting under the tree

I’m a pretty calm dude. I’ve always been this way, but it’s a talent I become more and more proud of as and enter middle age.

Life is hard. Adults have more responsibilities than time, more aspirations than years on a calendar. There’s always a good reason to be stressed: thinking about the future, lamenting yesterday’s to-do list.

I meditate daily but only for 10 minutes right when I get up. It’s essential but, truth be told, I don’t think it’s this little morning ritual that carries me through the day.

I think it’s this one:

I write resumes for about 3-4 hours/day. Usually straight through, if I’m lucky.

Wait, he didn’t just say resume writing is his meditation, did he?

Yeah, kinda crazy, but bear with me.

If you ever walk in on me when I’m in the middle of writing a resume, you’d see I’m almost in a trance. If someone says my name, it’s usually a good 5 seconds before I remember where I am and can acknowledge their presence (much to my family’s chagrin, I’m sure).

And it’s not just the writing part that does it. That’s certainly lovely way to stay present, but I think the meditation goes deeper with the mundane shit.

Do you know how many times I’ve bolded and spaced out the letters in the word “Professional Experience,” using only key strokes?

A fucking lot.

Yeah, I could use templates and pre-saved beautifully formatted keywords. Well, sometimes I do… (remember, adults don’t have a lot of time).

But I’ve noticed that when I’m doing it the other way, the long way, I actually start singing. My fingers move without me looking at them. The keys on the keyboard sing back to me. There are no thoughts.

It’s cathartic to watch the format of the characters change in front of me, like a watercolor painter doing a wash, or a child poking his finger into the middle of his mom’s latte.

It’s nuts.

I love it, which makes me feel like a simpleton and a genius all at the same time.

While people are out saving the world and getting promoted, I’m in a small room alone, watching words move around on a page.

I guess the good news is… with enough repetition and lack of effort, you can meditate on anything.

Even Microsoft Word.

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Grandpa At His Best

Brown and gray mountain

I had been running around all morning figuring out how to FedEx my suit overnight so I’d have it in time.

When I opened the door to the room, there he was, laying on a single bed, on his side, knees bent, hands flat together, snugly tucked under his cheek. He lay there grinning, in an almost feminine pose.

Hazel let go of my hand and lept onto the bed. She lay across his tummy and sang him the birthday song.

But it wasn’t his birthday, that wasn’t his bed, and this wasn’t his room. He’d never done anything in a feminine way, and, if Hazel had actually met him and had the chance to jump up onto that bed in a room I’d never known, he wasn’t the type of guy to stroke a little girl’s forehead. He certainly never stroked mine.

Nonetheless, this is the dream I woke up with, the first image of my day.

And it has me smiling.

Does it matter that it never happened, that it never would?

The kind moments with my grandpa were few and far between. He was always sending us outside to play, complaining about the mess we made.

But I remember his laugh. (Anyone who ever met him, remembers that laugh.) And we did have a few gentle conversations when I was in college. He’d grown his hair long and white, which I thought was cool. And he asked me what I was interested in. Trying to impress him, I said Black History. He mentioned some book that he aimed to give to me. We were walking slowly and I had his full attention. It was strange and by the time I was acclimating to it, we were out of things to talk about.

A moment of compassion from a man I barely knew, proof that a sea of kindness existed within him, like a warm hot spring beneath the dry, cracked earth.

And though that warmth rarely bubbled up to reach us on the surface, it was good to know it was there.

80 years of toughness undone in a single conversation…

remembered 30 years later…

and now changing the course of the day for a middle-aged grandson who, through his own dance with destiny, has developed the same loud, unforgettable laugh.

Hazel stayed on the bed. Without really even knowing him, she hugged him so tight he looked over at me, the one who brought this child to him.

And he laughed, as only he can do.

I stood in the doorway, trying to take it all in before anything else could take it away.

Hey, grampa.

Good to see you.

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Changing The Color of Shadows

Taken from the Sky Lift at the WI State Fair, August 2017

What good are opinions?

When you stop to think about it, they’re for the opiner more than anyone, a way to say, “I’m here.”

But it’s more than that.

When I hear people giving their opinion, the refrain I hear in my head is usually one of two things:

“No one has listened to me.”

OR

“I’m not listening to you.”

(Actually, it can be both of these at the same time!)

Oh, and there’s one more phrase that comes to mind, the one that gets us into the most trouble, particularly when we’re not standing in the same room and our comments are in boxes.

“Let’s argue.”

Of all of these, the first one is the most forgivable and most interesting. You’ll know it’s the first one because once you take the time to listen, the person’s entire body will change. They will change shape and color, like a ripening fruit. Their shadow will lighten, from black to a beautiful almost imperceptable shade of blue.

And the both of you will be able to move on, go a little bit further than you expected.

Moving is always more interesting than standing still.

What’s more important? What’s going to help you ripen?

Hearing your words out in the open air again?

Or hearing theirs?

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Umbilical Cord

Girl riding bike in the middle of the road during day

When Evaline was a kid, I took her down to Jack London Square where the pavement runs straight for a good half mile. We brought her bike, which she barely wanted to touch, hadn’t touched since we got it.

It was early enough that there weren’t many people out, just us and the straightaway.

From the look of her first ride, I thought she’d never get it.

But, oh, what progress you can make in an hour!

By the time the crowds came in for brunch, I was keeping her balanced with just 2 fingers under the seat.

And she could feel it too. She’d look back with a smile on her face so wide, I couldn’t stop smiling, myself.

And then the moment:

I let go without telling her and looked on while she pedaled away. For a rare few seconds, I was the only one with the secret, a moment precious enough to be a painting.

And then reality set back in and I saw the bumps in the road. I saw the people coming in from the sides. I watched her front wheel wobble.

And I ran after her.

She’s a teenager now — 16 — and the potholes are way bigger, the crowds thicker, and the road is anything but straight. I can’t see around these damn corners and she’s going so fast…

But even if I could keep up, she doesn’t want me running alongside her anymore.

This may be the hardest part: standing still while she pedals away. Out of my sight except for glimpses of her at the intersections: a flash of color, that wild hair.

I have some solace though: a plan I hatched when she was born.

They made me cut her umbilical cord but they sure as shit can’t stop me from building another one.

This time, indestructible.

I’ve been pouring everything I got into that thing. For years. My body is drained and weak from all the work I’ve been doing, a big red stream from my heart to hers, a lifeline only I can see, but I know she can feel.

This umbilical cord is different. It can stretch miles. It can go around corners, weave through traffic, squeeze through keyholes, go underground and into the dark places that I know she has to go into but sure as shit don’t want her to. My new umbilical cord is amazing.

The only thing it can’t do is conduct soundwaves. I know because I’ve hollered into it until the vein in my neck popped out. Nothing like that gets through.

Only the quiet stream of things right out of my heart. That’s what works.

Know how I know?

I’ve been standing here for a while now. Out of a hundred intersections, I swear I saw her look back at me. It was only once or twice, but I saw her head turn, her hair shift in the wind, the whites of her beautiful eyes. I know I saw it. I can’t be wrong.

It’s got to be working.

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Give ’em a Beard!

Gray scale bearded man

A creative writing professor once told me, “If you’re bored with one of your characters, try giving ’em a beard.” It became a thing. When something was off in one of our stories, he’d slam the paper down and yell out “Give ’em a beard!”

Simple logic that somehow freed us up, made us stop trying so hard, and helped us recognize that every moment — every single fragment of time — is being created; that nothing’s written yet.

I’ve taken this sage advice well beyond fiction.

When I’m bored with my shirt, I turn up the collar.

When I’m bored with breakfast, I reach for the hot sauce (even if I don’t like it!).

When I’m bored with bedtime stories, I use a new voice. (Always good for a quick head-turn and a laugh from my reading companion).

The difference between bored and unbored, inspired and uninspired, is trivial, as effortless and achievable as flicking on a light switch, writing a word on a page, sprouting a whisker.

Change your morning, change your mood. Change the course of your life.

Don’t go big. Go small.

One detail.

Give ’em a beard!

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In The Shadow of Epiphany

Landscape photography of green leaf trees

Epiphanies can be deceiving.

Once we figure out the way – Eureka! I’ve found it! – we tend to disregard all other paths. It feels good for a while but, in the fog of euphoria, we stop looking around. Holding tightly to our compass, we become crotchety.

Simply by the passing of time, the woods thicken, the shadows change places, and our breadcrumbs begin lying to us.

At this point, we get worse than lost.

We get confident in a fading truth.

And put our best effort into blaming the trees.

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The Inquiry of a 6-year-old

Bay Bridge at Night

We’d just seen “Annie” in the Presidio, her first real production so she was pretty wired even though it was 10 o’clock at night.

On a whim, I decided to drive her by her mom’s old apartment in lower Pac Heights.

“The white one?”

“Yup. See that window there? That was her bedroom. We painted it orange. And right up there… that’s where we had our first kiss.”

She stared intently, almost in disbelief, as if looking at the royal palace of the queen.

Then she looked at me and maybe she saw something I didn’t mean to let out.

“Do you miss it?” she asked?

A pretty deep question for a 6-year-old.

One thing I love about kids is how they force you to answer any question in the most simple way possible, which means you always get down to the heart of what you believe.

“I loved living here when I lived here, and now I love living in Oakland with you.”

She looked relieved.

“That’s the beauty of life, girl. Things keep changing. You get older and you try new things. You move around. You see the world. You fall in love.”

She looked at her mom’s window and I half expected her to open the door and run up the stairs, to dive into her own fairytale. But after a moment she reclined into her seat, signifying the tour was over.

She was asleep by the time we hit the bridge.

I thought about my answer. Did I really mean what I had said? Doesn’t everyone want to go back to their twenties?

As I flew across the bridge, I kept glancing back at her sleeping, head hammocked in the seat belt.

I turned up the radio. Taylor Swift sang about first love, heartache, and driving through red lights with the windows down. Seemed appropriate.

When I got home and unclicked Hazel’s seatbelt, she reached out for me, eyes still closed.

I slumped her over my shoulder. She instinctively clutched my neck.

So many different houses, different walkways, different staircases. So many drives home. Someone in their twenties was kissing their future wife on a roof. And there I was, a million kisses ahead of them… making my way up the stairs.

My legs were tired under the weight.

Each step was slow and measured.

Careful now.

You’re almost home.

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There Are Good People Everywhere

landscape photography of seashore during daytime

There are good people everywhere.

Better than that.

Everyone is changing,

like the glint of the sun reflected on the ocean:

a thousand slivers of light

wiggling gently

taking shape,

disbanding,

coming back together,

And, each one of us,

A god for all the others.

With the vibrations in our voice,

with the tiny muscles in our face,

with our hands,

attached to arms,

attached to thought,

we can tremble the waters.

We can move the sun.

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Oh, I Wish I Hadn’t Read the Comments Section

woman in black dress holding brown paper bag

Oh, I wish I hadn’t read the comments section.

All I wanted was to read the news.

I scrolled down too far, and BAM, there they are:

Angry people with differing views.

—

Oh, I wish I hadn’t read the comments section.

It’s such a sad sight to see.

Opinions are flying. The doves, they’re dying.

Bruce is wrong and Jed is so mean.

—

Oh, I wish I hadn’t read the comments section,

Too late now, I’ve gotten sucked in.

I can’t let it go. Jed has to know

the truth and the life that’s I’ve lived!

—

Oh, I wish I hadn’t read the comments section.

Darn it! I’ve become one of them.

I’m typing so fast. I shall not come in last!

Take that, Bruce! Shut it, Jed! I’m with Mel.

—

Oh, I wish I hadn’t read the comments section.

Jed’s jab is now stuck in my head.

He’s so idiotic, so stupid, moronic.

I can’t, I just — what’s that he said?!

—

Oh, I wish I hadn’t read the comments section.

I really don’t like to curse.

But this dude I don’t know, we’re in quite a row

and no one can find the reverse.

—

Oh, I wish I hadn’t read the comments section.

Mel’s right: this is not worth my time.

I just can’t get through. What’s a writer to do?

Without rhythm, we will never rhyme.

—

Oh, I wish I hadn’t read the comments section.

I left the thread but the damage is done.

It ruined my walk, and now I can’t talk

without thinking of Bruce, Mel, or Jed.

—

I don’t even know these people. What do I care?!

Why did I do this again?

How could I think that my heart wouldn’t sink

when I crushed others with the thoughts in my head?

—

I should have known better than to scroll down that far

and see the shots fly on the page.

And the worst of all? My own shallow fall

into the darkest depths of my rage.

—

Oh, I wish I hadn’t read the comments section,

because now my brain’s filled up with crap.

But for YOU my kind reader, I hope you can see that,

the comments are not where it’s at!