Prayer for a Palimpsest

O Goddess-God-Supreme Being-Cosmic Energy-Eternal Now-Silence:

Grant me, if it be your will, the selective amnesia of serenity, a magic slate of erased pain, a scraping away of the ragged scars of burnt memory from the parchment of remembrance. Vouchsafe to grant your servant a palimpsest of the mind, an electroconvulsive therapy (formerly known as electroshock therapy) without the electricity, if you don't mind. May it please you to wipe my slate clean, revealing a fresh layer in this palimpsest brain, enabling me motion: to reverse course, look away, move forward. While you're at it, gift me, please, with ablution and absolution, permitting a fresh and clean restart, a do-over. Ah, but you caution me against this? You tell me that every moment affords an opportunity for me myself to do this very thing. You remind me that the memory of pain can be a useful motivator, a shield against desolate repetition. In fact, you warn me of the mortal dangers of such palimpsestic thinking and feeling (and after all, is there a difference between the two?). So now I am confused. I am baffled. Puzzled and stumped. I see where oblivion has taken me, its tides tossing me wayward. Yet the burden of memory (no, pardon me; I didn't say guilt) is an anchor tied to my ankle. You decide. Yes, you decide in all your Silent Wisdom. You decide what to grant. But let me know when you have an answer. And give me the strength to abide by its commands. Amen.   

Twelve Commandments of So What - Do Nothing

I once heard someone say: “So what. Do nothing.”

The “so what” was said to mean: whether you are addled, rattled, depressed, ecstatic, thrilled, terrified, despairing, or discontented, you are not the leading actor in your idiosyncratic, spotlighted melodrama. It’ll pass. You’re a speck of dust on an orbiting pebble in the cosmos. This reminded me of an off-the-cuff bit of wisdom a mentor breezily passed on to me decades ago: “Nothing matters very much; most things not at all.”

The “do nothing” part was said to mean: face it, feel it, suffer it, humor it, ride it out, don’t escape it. Otherwise, it will sneak up on you anyway when you least expect it. What is “it”? Any tide of emotion. Anything.

With all that in mind, here are my Twelve Commandments of So What - Do Nothing:

1. You shall pause, reflect, and shrug your shoulders.
2. You shall look at where your feet are.
3. You shall look up into the sky at midnight on a cloudless night in a deep forest.
4. You shall follow your breath, in and out, in a quiet space.
5. You shall accept and honor your self, with all your diamonds and all your rust.
6. Remember this day as holy, fleeting, and precious.
7. Restrain your tongue, pen, and Send button. 
8. Don't do the next right thing — not yet.
9. You shall let it come.
10. You shall let it be.
11. You shall let it go.
12. You shall smile.

frenzy

You see it. A palpable tension. An agitated hum. More voltage, higher speeds, greater impatience, fear in the eyes. Pressure! It's the holidays!

Yoikes.

I've surrendered most of that, though I understand it.

The fear of failing at the height of transactional trauma.

Sigh.

Maybe instead of saying "Merry Christmas," we should invoke a salute to stillness or silence.

Somehow.

Some way.

 

flinch

As the rebar comes flying through your windshield, you flinch. You flinch as the ponded puddle at the curb is about to inundate you. An infinitesimal moment before the crash, you flinch. As would I. Similarly, we hunch our shoulders against the wind, rain, or snow. We squint at the blinding light. We brace ourselves for the verbal daggers flying toward us.

Tell me. Does the flinching, hunching, squinting, bracing, wincing, cringing, or shrugging alter the results one iota? And yet we seek these armours, these paltry shields, involuntarily. (Are they ever voluntary?)

Powerlessness 101.

Iceland itinerary

This is already kind of crazy, as in cuh-razy. I am slated to fly out of Newark on a Monday night and land in Keflavik on Tuesday morning. Stay three nights in Reykjavik. I've booked an apartment through VRBO for three nights. Leave Friday evening but land in JFK. Smart, eh? That would be one major reason for the good price on the flight. 

While in Iceland, what to do? I tend to be a take-it-as-it-comes traveler, open to serendipity. I've been exploring the excellent I Heart Reykjavik blog and website, including its tour offerings. Very appealing. I have never taken a tour as a traveler -- not in Ireland or Germany, for example. I felt a tour would have restricted me, limited my possibilities. But I am not thinking that way now. I am thinking that some guidance and direction will actually open possibilities, relieve stress, and enhance the whole experience.

So, as it stands now, I am thinking:

• Tuesday: wander around Reykjavik in a self-directed get-acquainted way, eat, blog, tea or coffee, nap at apartment, meet "never-met-before friends with like interests" [that's code; can't say more without compromising principles and traditions]
• Wednesday: a tour that includes some awesome nature things outside the city
• Thursday: a mix of Tuesday and Wednesday's agenda
• Friday: another tour

That is pretty vague.

Gotta think about this a little more, but not too much!

creating coincidence

You walk the path you trod, the air colder and the sky brighter. You go to this or that music, food, or lecture venue, this time alone. You tell yourself timing is critical. You picture the "coincidental" rendezvous, its texture, complexion, the reactions, the heartbeats. But you discover you cannot create coincidence, can you. It's not so shocking or surprising a revelation. The bigger and more cogent epiphany, however, is that you are content with the absence of so-called coincidence as you traverse your world, step by vigilant step.

20 answers

"The answer is in the question." -- Zen Saying.

Zen Calendar notation for September 28, 2010.

1. green
2. red
3. sometimes
4. half of infinity
5. the other half of infinity
6. sententiousness
7. serial comma
8. tabloid
9. aural
10. Kazakhs cordially courting Cossacks
11. perch
12. el Greco
13. Picasso but not Kierkegaard
    
14. Dali
15. a grid of intersecting boulevards masquerading as haiku prayer wheels
16. pious pies of colorful pi
17. patrician accents with square jaws on Sutton Place, Manhattan
18. soberiquets
19. anonononymity
20. silencio
    

The Underachiever's Manifesto

Good enough.

The perfectionist in me balks at that. Balks radically at the notion of "good enough."

And yet.

And yet.

What a treat to come upon "The Underachiever's Manifesto: The Guide to Accomplishing Little and Feeling Great" by Ray Bennett, M.D. (Chronicle Books, 2006). $9.95. Found this find at Twig Gallery, a pleasant shop at 2162 Union Street, San Francisco.

Devoured the book in tasty morsels while at the Coffee Roastery, La Boulange, the Hilton, and at SFO International Terminal.

Good-enough sagely stuff.

Check it out.

My Summer Vacation

My summer vacation was short because I had taken a winter vacation and a spring vacation. My summer vacation consisted of parts of four days amidst pine needles, by a lake, in a cottage, called a "camp" in these parts. The morning alarum was the whimpering of Maggie, a yellow labrador-German shepherd puppy asking to be let out. At 6:40 a.m., or later on two mornings, a walk along Long Point of Brantingham Lake, foggy mist curling up off the lake, the sun trying to burn through. Chickadees. Lots of blue jays. Then back down the opposite end of Long Point, up and down macadamed inclines. One day her gnawed-at leash broke. She stayed close, unlike the late but beloved Rosie, who would've been gone, chasing the wind. All this in my pajama bottoms, sandals, t-shirt, baseball cap. No bears. Return to the cabin: toast and tea. A nap. Still in pajamas. (Have I already told you the ol' Groucho Marx line? "I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How it got there, I'll never know.") Play Yahtzee. Trade obscenities. Young'uns howl. Eat. Sleep. Play Scrabble. "Assise." "Cruster." Walk. Eat. Sleep. Dangle feet in lake. Sleep. Finish Samaritan by Richard Price. No cellphone coverage. Buy fly paper ribbon strips; mostly feckless. Nap. Read. Return home. Two messages from work on cellphone when in range. Dread. Horrid dread. Work Wednesday. Somehow get through it all. Back up to camp Friday for a cameo return.

The aim of leisure is not to make us better drones.