last Monday

It’s interesting. Coming back on the Bob Jones Trail I see a slightly-larger-than-half moon just above the tree line of the hill that holds my all-by-itself tree. (The one I bow to.) The path takes me away from the view of the moon, but as I move around the corner and uphill, the moon is there, high in the sky, the tree high on the hill, and this is my Koan, which begins, “A solitary boat without oars making its way in the moonlight.”

Which is no other than me, in this very life now – a solitary boat without oars making its way in the moonlight. Home. Yet, four hours later when I don’t get tagged to speak at one of those meetings – and not tagged for the second week in a row – I realize how disconnected I am from these people, like barely an after thought, and the question flashes – “Why is that?” The question maybe hoping I’ll beat myself up, the “without oars” more than some romantic poetry.

And I don’t know if I beat myself up or not, because on the way out a woman chases me down and says she wants one of my books, she’ll pay, and I go to my car and bring one back, it’s free I say, and she says, “We have to get coffee sometime,” her and her partner Rick and me, and I say I’d like that because for six months I’ve suggested we all get coffee and I’ve never heard from them.

Maybe the question “Who’s fault is that?” floats by, but I get in the car and turn on the radio and forget it. I don’t notice, driving up Higuera, no doubt the moonlight slips into the passenger seat and rides along with me. Digging the beat. It’s easy to dance to.