paper clip phone bowl

It was here on the desk. Seconds ago. Where'd it go. Where could it go. It didn't just grow legs and walk away. Who took it. Say a prayer to St. Anthony, they say. So I did. Feel the surface of the desk, shake the sheaf of papers. Shuffle the pages. Look and feel on and under the chair, on and under the desk, in my cuffs, in, on, or under my shoes, between the buttons of my shirt, down my bra if I wore one (didn't), in my hair, under the stapler, under the mug, in the mug, in, on, or around the stitching of the rug, the walls, the ceiling. Search all of these once again but ever more slowly and with more concentration and feeling. Then in reverse order. Then randomly. Again. And again.

I have been swept from simple OCD to the shores of insanity.

Fear.

The universe is supposed to make sense. Things don't slip into another dimension. This isn't sci-fi or Harry Potter or Narnia. Objects do not evaporate or disappear. The laws of physics do not permit this. The laws do not stop for one paper clip. Nor does my rationality, its fragile vestiges. Like that time I lost my cellphone. I was in the first row of a theater, watching a ballet rehearsal. The phone was on my lap in the dark. I was shielding the screen’s blue light so as not to distract the dancers, so as not to be caught in flagrante delictu rudely checking inconsequential texts. I stood up. I heard a clunk, the phone falling. I felt around my body, my seat. Where did the phone go. I surveyed the floor, ran my hands under the seats, the scummy dusty grimy floor in front, my row, a cellophane candy wrapper, and the rows in back, places of impossibility, as if the phone were on a magical pogo stick. The fear of personal collapse, order dismantled, structure demolished. Repeat all those tactile and barely visual, slightly auditory, search exercises. My daughter the guest ballerina comes out during a break, after I went back stage and pleaded my case, my fervent wish for a universe with functioning rules, laws, and protocols. I told her of my incomprehensible plight. We spied a ridge in front of us. A slot, a gap running the width of the stage. The crevice had been there all along, a few feet in front of my first-row seat, several inches wide between the fixed floor of the auditorium. A movable stage raised and lowered for the orchestra. The orchestra pit. Of course. And that's where the phone dived, cascading into the deep dark. I couldn't have mailed it into that slot if I had tried. Mind the gap.

Back to the paper clip.

I discover a glimmer of hope — but not for finding the paper clip. As if in a biblical dream, I picture a ceramic tea bowl from Japan sitting in my kitchen cabinet. It was a non-occasion gift from a friend in America, a painter. I rarely drank tea from the bowl because it was too hot to hold. When I received it, I was given a gentle two-minute lecture. “You see that tiny squiggle on the rim? It’s not so much a mistake as a statement. It’s imperfect, unfinished. It’s meant to be.”

Until now, I had forgotten that tutorial on wabi-sabi, the Japanese aesthetic of imperfection, asymmetry, impermanence, incompleteness.

A paper clip. A cellphone. A tea bowl. Me. Who knew we were cosmic cousins. I got up from my chair in front of the desk. Averting my eyes from the floor, the desk, and the chair, I walked into the kitchen, went to the cabinet, retrieved the tea bowl, poured water in the kettle, and turned on the right rear burner.

mother's day, first and last

so dawned the day

breaching my birth

of quickening light

so broke the bleak midwinter

bearing December's child

too early on

touch and go

no breastful of milk

while homeward bound

we now ask what

moonlight we can give her

besides memory

of love like a stone

dropped into an empty well

echoing

still

walking with coffee

The deep, wide-brimmed ceramic cup wobbled. Not true. It didn't wobble, not that you could see. The coffee in it swayed. Medium roast. Half 'n' half. Swayed not even up to the alabaster brim, east or west, north or south. The birth of a wave. A false tsunami. No spillage.

He gets to the table, dry, slight swirl subsiding.  

"They say it's easier if you don't look at it."

"I've heard that."

"It's true."

"I don't doubt it."

He looks across the table, studiously avoiding a glance at the cup as he lifts it toward his lips. He recoils from the hot coffee, flinches, spills a dollop onto the table.

"See? I didn't look but look what happened."

"I see."

"So unlooking only steadies you if you're walking?"

"Something like that. Maybe. I don't know."

"Some kind of crazy metaphor?"

"Who knows, right? For what, I couldn't say."

He reached for the cup again, looked straight at it, lifted it, coffee waltzing, and leaned forward, trying to meet the cup halfway. His lips found the brim; he sipped.

"Ah. Success."

"I see that. Congratulations."

"Thanks. This time." 

Gravity Eventually

anvil or feather

finch and hawk

magnolia leaves

lavender ivory

this April wind

landing

me

somewhere

sudden death

On the rear window, right side, the jeep displayed the following decal:

back to back

world war champs

Between the two lines of text, an American flag.

All black.

Where does one begin? 

Questions.

• What sport is this?
• Global Gladiators?
• Who are the referees?
• What was the score?
• Any penalties?
• How many "players"?
• How much is a ticket to see an "event"?
• What kind of trophy does the "winner" get?
• When is the next "event"?  
• Can a "player" be disqualified?
• How or why?
• Who is the Commissioner?
• What are the standings?
• Can you be a free agent?
• If there's a tie, does the game end in sudden death?
• Who sells the decal?
• What are the TV ratings?
• Who buys the most air time?
• Are there team mascots?
• Where's the scoreboard?
• Do the "champs" get rings?

petitioning the desert fathers and mothers

The Zen Dads and Zen Moms barely walked barefoot into the desert. Their silent footsteps and stilled voices echoed against the dunes. For the curvilinear tawny dunes, picture, the landscape of Lawrence of Arabia. 'It is written.' By accident or providence, the barefoot pilgrims discovered the Holy City of Lightanddark. They commingled and communed with the Desert Fathers and Desert Mothers. The sands were hot, the nights cold. Our protagonist applied to join the community in the desert among the dunes. Only by invitation, he was told. What was on the application, he asked. A portfolio of pain, a paean of penance, a prostrate petition, he was told. This is not the French Foreign Legion, he was warned. You don't enlist, we don't recruit. The hardest question on the application (which existed neither on paper nor on digital atoms) consists of: why? Our applicant surmised this would be a cinch. Easy. Yet he was forewarned. No whining, self-pity, or quixotic gestures toward finding oneself. Skip the escape rhetoric, the confession, or the absolution. The self-actualization crap. Our fallen hero wanted to join, even if momentarily out on the periphery, along the outer borders that required a Passport of Perfidy. The chasm between then and now, between her and him. Hesychasm. Sacred stillness silence. I want to be honed, carved, cured, our triumphant warrior wailed. There is no cure, there is no cause, replied the palindromic Abba (Father). I want to be whittled, reduced, spared, declared the supplicant-applicant. There are no words, smiled the recursive Amma (Mother). Iconic. Dolorous. It is not to hide but to expose, not to lose but to find, implored our narrator. Let me dry out, sober up, be salved, o saviors, prayed our petitioner. Why, the Abba and Amma intoned speechlessly. Read my lips. Quiet. White sands. Ascetic fasting, paring down through prayer, alms as balms. 'Though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed.' The desert monks and nuns, in a chorus cried, Cities of the night, metropolises, subway roars; there's your desert for you. Dig in. Delight. Yet the applicant seeking to join the Settlement of Sandy Silence persisted. Let me be hewn, tell me how, he said. And waited. 

hole in the donut

Waiting to board an Adirondack Trailways bus bound for New York from Syracuse, I spied a sign in the distance at the Dunkin' Donuts in the regional transportation center. 

The sign read, "DO A DOZEN."

Or did it?

Now picture a doughnut, or donut, if you will, in place of each letter "O."

"D A D ZEN." 

I pointed out this oddity, coincidence, novelty, or providential message to the prospective passenger sitting in front of me on a metal bench.

"I've never been on a bus," she felt compelled to confess.

"Never? How old are you?"

"Twenty-two."

"How about a train?"

"No."

"Plane."

"No." Self-conscious chuckle.

"A school bus?"

"Yes."

What Dad Zen wisdom could I impart to this brave-new-worlding daughter of her dad?

A smile, a reassuring voice.

"I wonder if it's late. I'll check," Zendad offered.

What is Dad Zen? you might ask.

If there is no self, wouldn't that rule out Dad Zen, as well as Mom, Son, Daughter, Brother, or Sister Zen?

Having no self, do we become the hole in the doughnut? 

But in doing so, are we made whole?

In Step Three of Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Bill Wilson observed that someone, especially a fledgling seeker, might be afraid of taking a leap of faith, a surrender to Somebody or Something. Such a BraveNewUniverser might be afraid of becoming "the whole in the doughnut."  

Becoming a doughnut hole isn't just a clever Dunkin' marketing ploy.

Willing to risk becoming the hole in the doughnut takes a leap of faith, as Soren Kierkegaard put it.

Who wouldn't be afraid to take a leap of faith? Where do we fall to? Who or what catches us? Are we bruised? 

And what or who are we after The Fall?

There you have it.

It?

Alan Watts says, "This is It."

So be it.

Later, having arrived in NYC, I see In front of La Mode cleaners on Broadway near 109th Street, an Asian man wearing a black baseball cap emblazoned with the word "DAD."  

Was he practicing Dad Zen? 

(Or subliminally advertising DO A DOZEN?)

I've been staying with friends on 108th Street.

There are 108 mala beads.

A baseball has 108 stitches.

It's Opening Day.

I'll have a bagel with a schmear.