Author: buddycushman

My Friday Morning Pages were an absolute revelation for me. This clear sense of being fetched by a parade of unexpetced decisions.

How have I acted? How have I followed these mini-moments of bliss?

Let me show you:

A subscriber unexpectedly sent me $25 to support the blog;

The clarity, ringing through the morning Friday, that this is the only day I have;

The warmth of childhood memories for lazy endless summer days at Little Harbor Beach;

Getting to talk about joy with someone afraid she’s missing out on it.

The first time I found myself on the ups and downs of the Lemon Loop Trail on San Luis Mountain, switch-backing the easterly lower half, the 101 falling farther below to the right, endless whine of determined vehicle engines muffled, yet still present, I was shuttled down into a small canyon-like space and came upon this:

How could I have thought anything else? – Ladies Choice.

Maybe from the corner of my left eye, maybe gravity’d down to a direct seeing, there was this cactus, anthropomorphic in all its succulent energy, dancing as if there was no one to see. Dancing fool. Forever hearing, above the far-away traffic, Chris Montez – “Keep on Dancing.” And no surprise, upon my arrival, absolutely clear with this boundless offer: “Hey there, big boy, care to take a spin around the planet a time or two?”

How could I say no?

Stepping through the Friday afternoon heat on the Lemon Loop Trail on San Luis Mountain, first time with that particular journey, I came up and round a corner to this:

I’m happy to say that as soon as I saw what was there, there was only one thought – “Take the bench.”

Autoclave afternoon, drenched with sweat, snake slithering across the trail a few moments back. Sitting there, just sitting, a feeling of never being anywhere else. Nowhere better to go.

As John Tarrant Roshi says of meditation – “Nothing is missing.”

I called my younger sister Nancy Wednesday afternoon to wish her a happy birthday. She told me it was raining then, there in our hometown of Wareham, Massachusetts where she now lives again.

Rain.

It has rained here once in San Luis Obispo, CA in the four plus months this place has become my home. Early on, late April, for maybe a bit over half an hour. I miss the rain.

I’m a California kid, now, til death do us part, and know from experience the rains will be coming in the fall, often with a fury and wildness that has kids like me longing for sunny summer days. It’s okay. My teacher endlessly reminds me — It’s dry, it’s like that; it’s a rain storm, it’s like that.

Here today, I’d like to think that when the time of the rain does return I won’t be shy stepping out into it. Dancing this mess around.

“You may be eloquent as a river tipping steadily over into a falls, but what would all your explanations reveal?” – David Hinton, “No-Gate Gateway”

It’s interesting to try and carve out a post – using words – about the value of not saying anything. Which continues to gather as a suggestion – zip it, throw key – in my life these days. Me and Uncle Buck. The following two paragraphs were typed before this one, being typed right now within a morning of worthy activities – some of which involved talking. Hmmm, don’t-know mind. Anyway, this below from the artist Drew Davis here in SLO. Who needs words?:

As my Teacher pointed out to me Wednesday morning – Having a plan to not have a plan is still having a plan.

And like I heard another someone share a while later yesterday – “Like I always say, it’s the limitations that make the artist.” …….talkin’ about mine, surely not Drew’s.

This was posted on Craigslist yesterday:

Hello. I am looking for an empty or somewhat empty garage space where I can store 19 medium size boxes, almost entirely filled with books I’ve gathered through my life. They are currently in a garage in Idaho, but those friends are moving away and I need to find a resting place for the boxes here in San Luis Obispo. They would fit against an empty wall if you have one, the conditions of the garage are not important – lots of your stuff, dirt floor, spider webs, windowless, etc. I cannot pay much but it would be something where there’s now nothing. I would/will never come at strange hours, likely late mornings or earlier afternoons, and rarely at that.

These are books that have been away from me since a divorce in the spring of 2021. It would/will be a thrill to hold them again, and that can only happen if I find a space where they can rest their too-far-away selves here. I’m pretty sure there are a bunch of CD’s tucked in a box or two as well, and that means dancing (out from the garage) will be involved.

I’m responsible, I already have a grateful heart, and I am long-time sober. I’m only interested in this city. They’ve (we’ve) logged enough miles already. Thanks for your consideration.

I became a cow Sunday afternoon. I walked the walk, I talked the talk. I stepped over the patties of others, and danced my slow animal waltz amidst all those strands of golden grass. We was all wary of mountain lions, just like the sign in the eucalyptus grove said to be. We cows can run, but those lions can motorvate.

I followed a brand new path on a now old trail,found my way into being lost on the way back. Then I saw an opening and became a cow. On the ‘Tube I played Van Morrison. I played Freddie Scott. I did not play The Dave Clark Five – “Catch Us If You Can.”

I’ve been walking a lot, more than usual, these past days, and my four-leg sisters travel on and about nearly all those bedouin paths. Right there along with me. And always there’s this fine practice for me – Holding those close no longer close by.

“Well, I’ve been out walking
I don’t do that much talking these days…..” – Jackson Browne

There’s a mellow up-and-downness on the hiking through the Johnson Ranch. The topography of the land takes and gives. The strong breeze cools, from around one bench, through the stand of oaks. I feel as if every one of the buzzards gliding on the currents above are my sisters. Saturday there must have been eight of them. The hardpack beneath my feet, step by step by step, appears to hold as sticky my badly worn orange shoes. I see and nearly taste the way the ground maintains me – keep on little traveler.

For me the day offers trades, though Saturday was mostly receiving. It’s longer periods than that, I think – four months; four years; the first fly ball I ever snagged while falling in a Little League’s right field.Taffy, my childhood companion, traded in for cats on the small streets in this trailer park. Some rub my leg, others a friendly distance. I wonder what they think about all the surrounding hills? Those mountains? Look Felix, Cloe, fun Cheshire – I climbed that one. To the very top.

I’m glad I’m not as social as those eight hawks circling in some funky rhythm above me, Saturday walk, walk, walk. Maybe if I was a bird it’d be different. ‘It’ as me. I might be different. I think I hope not.

I do love the land here on California’s central coast, and I swear it’s forever welcoming me with all its arms wide open.

I’d join the buzzards’ chorus if I knew the tune. If they gave me the sheet music.

I told on myself yesterday. It was at work, a few minutes after a conversation with the young woman who’s my boss – a conversation in which she checked my input on the computer and said it was right and correct and good job, because you (me) didn’t offer a free pass when this was a case when there was no chance of a new membership. Why we give out free passes, to people seeming sincere about becoming a member.

So, yeah, I’m cool and hip and minimally computer savvy. And, um, I did give the guy a free pass. It was after I couldn’t get the $15 fee for a day pass to show up, and it was dragging on and on. Turns out this guy handed me a $20 and said to bring him a five if I ever could fix the problem – and like they say, even a blind squirrel will find a nut once in a while – I did figure what was missing and fixed it. There was the charge and I brought him a five. And I had given him a free pass, and told him he could use it tomorrow – which is today as you read this.

Back in the day I would keep secret these little secrets. Some sense of self-protection, ongoing rationalization. And it took a long while in sobriety to start to get it – that those things always eat me. Every time.

So – Happy ending!! – I called Julia back to the front desk and said, “I did give that guy a free pass.” And she smiled and said that was okay; that was cool.

It felt better, telling on myself. The gray-haired canine in me, forever learning new tricks. Owning my own.

Some of you seeing this know that I write “Morning Pages” every morning. A practice I began June 2011 and have continued every day since – three pages in a (wide-ruled) notebook. Again today, hanging with my brother Chuck Berry, “No particular place to go.” Julia Cameron in her book “The Artist Way” with this one one law – Just fill up three pages.

The material, the filler, had ebbed and flowed, changing through the decades the way my physical and emotional, perhaps, even, my spiritual self has changed. These last few years I believe it’s something of a ratatuoille of broken heartedness and a forever more spacious Zen practice. Moving here and there, and money, and out from retirement, and books I’ve read and now read – perhaps its the seeing with my feet, hearing with my eyes. The air that I breath. The air I breath through my one hand.

For whatever reason and plethora of factors, I come to my Pages these days, usually around five in the morning, all ears. A kind of sitting down giddyness, alert to what arrives out from the tip of the pen. Am I hosting? Am I the guest? Anyway, it’s often like this, from 25 minutes ago:

“The experience of being entirely alone on the walk through the luscious Johnson Ranch, and never alone – the golden grass, the green oaks, gatherings of tall, yellow flowers, the warmth of the sun, shirtless body. Aretha singing, ‘Who’s zoomin’ who?’”

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