Author: buddycushman

“Lines form on my face and hands.” – Alice Cooper, ‘Eighteen’

In April of 1973 the legal drinking age in Massachusetts was lowered from 21 to 18. By then I was 24, and had been drinking since I was 16, but I was happy because it was cool. It was the right thing. ‘Bout time.

Back then I was a “student” at Salem State College, returned from dropping out and enrolled in the new Social Welfare major. I was on the staff of the college newspaper, “The Log,” and was very devoted to that journalism side of college life. Going to classes? Not so much.

Anyway, the night the new ’18’ law went into effect I made a not at all unusual appearance at one of my two favorite bars on Derby Street – ‘In a Pig’s Eye.’ You know, to celebrate with the kids. Someone snapped a photo. This one:

The next day or one of the days close after I wrote a feature story for The Log, about the festivities and all the goodness as a result . I noted that this bar, just down the street from my apartment, was “within crawling distance.” The article was titled – “I’m 18, I get confused every day.” Yup, another line from Mr. Cooper’s song.

One of the electives I’d taken within the Social Welfare curriculum was ‘Alcohol and Alcoholism.’ You know, skate through three credits, race toward that ole diploma. My next class I walked in a bit early and the teacher looked at me and said he’d read my article. He said he’d enjoyed it. He said all this with something of a grin on his face, and about 20 years later the light in my head flashed on and it came to me the grin belonged to a Cheshire Cat. An “I know something you don’t know,” grin.

Geez, Professor. It only took 10 more years to start figuring it out. Like the song says – “I got a baby’s brain and an old man’s heart.”

I’m happy to report that nearly all of the posts here in this blog show up on their own. There’s nothing, and then there’s something. Last Friday, ‘JoJo Rabbit,’ a few days before, ‘Linda Eastman McCartney.’ Possibly (a tomorrow) the airing out of the song “I Belong to the Blank Generation” by Richard Hell and the Voidoids, where “Blank” is brimming with life, and the stars in the sky maintain their silence. You should hear them at 4am.

Like yesterday’s photo of so many painted kitties. The kitty on the left – “Donnie’s Cat” – my attempt at ‘Figurative,’ done from a photo I took when I was crashing for free in Donnie’s spare bedroom one of the times my life was falling apart. It was maybe 1986. Donnie now with alzheimer’s, the cat likely long gone, me left here to write this stuff.

As I type, these words from a Zen Master filling the vacuum of my mind – “That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.”

Those are my paintings, and that’s a mom and daughter, both of whom I befriended in a way – the mom with some phone calls, the daughter a time or two meeting for coffee. I don’t remember their names this Monday, it was Portland, Oregon when I was married and painting in that studio in the background, much of its walls and floors and ceilings painted by me as it transitioned from a rented-living space to an art studio for my then-wife and her daughter and me.

I have something of a vague sense that my phone calls and coffee shop meeting(s) were of a helping nature – like I was trying to be helpful in some way(s). It may have been a deep depression with the daughter, the weary living of life’s tangles for the mom. I think that’s close to it.

The painting on the left – titled ‘Donnie’s Cat’ – was actually a sheet of canvas. On the right – I’ll call it ‘Kitties’ now – a regular stretched canvas, looks like a 20 x 24. I sold one for $25 and gave the other as a gift, thankful to those who support local artists.

These are something like memories, from the corner of my mind. It makes me happy they’re both smiling there and then.

I’m still mostly wordless here this Christmas night. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas day. Mine was quite lovely. I did eat ice cream – the first time in a year I believe – and slurped and swallowed enough that I could (and perhaps should) have tied up all the hotlines in the greater Central Coast area. My ice cream problem.

I think I’ll just post a video – a wishful thinking thing – adressing and rejoicing in my life, and yours, as found here Christmas night. I love the David Bowie song, a fave, and maybe you have to see the movie to really grasp the beauty of the song’s use here – possibly supplemented with a couple of Duolingo sessions.

Joy to the dancing world.

It’s Wednesday, 3:23 pm, December 24. Approaching Christmas Eve. I’ve been thinking a few days about what I could say tomorrow (Christmas, as you see this) and Friday. I have lots of feelings in my heart and in my old soul place, but not words. A few minutes ago, doing dishes, I decided to go through photos stored on this computer, most since 2021, some from before. A few from way back when. The following pictures – and I don’t know who they are here at 3:27 Christmas Eve, I’ll see them along with you, will be as personal as I can be – without moving my lips – this Christmas time in San Luis Obispo.

Tomorrow is Christmas. So is today.

One day there were two flowers. The next, one. And yet, are more and less so very different?

Zuzu’s petals.

I like hearing John Tarrant say this – “Nothing is missing.”

Nothing is missing.

“Simply having a wonderful Christmas time.”

So, in my dream, I’m hiking at the Laguna Lake open space. There are more fellow hikers on the paths than usual – maybe it’s a Saturday. I’m thinking two thoughts about that. One, I like it when there’s hardly anyone else around – it just feels quieter. Two, the entry gate sign warns of rattlesnakes, and so many people walking the paths, lots with their dogs, means there’s nearly no chance of coming upon a rattling snake as I stroll the circumference.

All that’s in my dream. So, I’ve made the turn down from the high path, a left at the cow gate, and am moving along my favorite of the trails, towards the lake, when I notice movement ahead. As I come closer I see the clear outline of a snake undulating out from the grass on the left across the path toward the grass on the right. Stepping closer, I am sensed, and the snake pauses, coils up, and turns toward me.

And I keep walking. Perhaps I’m four or five feet away when I stop. We really look at each other – me and the rattle snake, the rattle snake and me. After a moment, the snake raises its head, looks with its eyes directly into my eyes, and speaks in a voice as clear as the blowing wind:

“Wake up!”

It’s interesting.

In its own way, Christmas has reached back to take my hand and gently guide me along the path of the most wonderful time of the year. I feel the Christmas spirit within me. And falling out from me, like flashes of moonbeam.

Not like when I was 14 and going to the 5 & 10 on Main Street and with my paper-route money buying my mother two 25 cent drinking glasses, which felt so big to me. I picked these out. Not like when I’ve been wildly in love most of the past 15 years, spending endless minutes and hours really, really giving everything to a special gift. Some delight in a shop window calling me in. A t-shirt I’ve come upon – exactly perfect. Every small thing wrapped and crammed into a stocking – love, love, love.

That’s not here this year. No special one to dream about, and share those dreams. My boys each 1000 miles away – money and cards and phone calls, if I’m lucky a real-time video. Nothing like a 25 cent glass under the tree. Nothing like a gift I’m just bursting to see the most important person open Christmas morning.

And yet. Christmas has its way with me. “Happy holidays,” I say. “Merry Christmas,” I say. The living wreath on the dentist’s door. The welcoming tree in the Y’s lobby. The $52 Christmas stocking I held in my hand in a special downtown store just the other day – it was so incredibly lovely and wonderful and all its own special – knowing I’d buy it in a second if this was a different time.

And yet. I rejoice with the next Christmas song to come on a San Luis rock radio station. To stroll and drive around the colored lights all about in this trailer park. People streaming into the Y wearing goofy holiday sweaters. Human reindeer. Me too.

Christmas, the way it always does, has invited me, for about the 75th time, to come in and sit in front of the fireplace. Hallucinate joy and good cheer a while. And like I always do, I’ve said, “Yes. Thank you.”

Dec 16, 7:45p – It’s Tuesday night, no Koan group with David Roshi off to Japan. The landlord/housemate’s car exactly where it was when I left for work, 12 hours ago. I didn’t see him before I left – which is the norm – and I did not see him when I got home around 1:30. His door was closed. And now it’s 8p and I haven’t seen him once. Or heard the dry cough he’s coughed throughout all the days the last three or four weeks. Usually when he’s holed up in his room I hear something. But not today.

If you are reading this, with possibly a growing sense of dread – which you may be feeling through my fingers – you’re maybe wondering why I haven’t knocked on his door, called out his name. It’s a good question. Four or five weeks ago, when I was worried for his increasingly unfamiliar, unfriendly, ignore me, noise-cancelling headphones always on, entirely different than when he first recruited me to come live here behavior, I came in from a hike and asked how he was doing. He got angry, said I was way up in his business. Leave him alone. A couple hours later I came out of my room to the living room to apologize – not for my human being-ness, but for the trouble. He said he was going through stuff and it was his business and “don’t try to fix me.” I’ve pretty much left him alone since – I wash dishes, sweep the floor, put out the trash, bring in the mail, stay in my room.

I’ve certainly seen him here and there a bit each day, we’ve had mini-conversations when I’ve walked into the living room to wave hello or say goodbye. Sometimes he’s taken the headphones off and talked for a minute. When I came in from one of those meetings Monday night he must have had the headphones off because he called out, “Hello Buddy.” 

Now it’s Tuesday night and I haven’t seen him for 24 hours, or heard him since I was sitting in meditation at 3:15 this morning.

In yesterday’s post I said I felt like I could get in the car and go and be and exist anywhere. Maybe that’s coming. I was also thinking early this afternoon that tomorrow (yesterday as you read here) I’d go to the thrift store he really likes and get him a gift certificate as a holiday present, something I’ve planned a long time. One thing’s for sure as I’m typing this Tuesday night – there’s going to be at least one more paragraph:

Dec 17, 5:55am – A light I left on was off when I woke to sit in meditation earlier. I heard a muffled cough at 5:48am. The worst felt like a 50/50 proposition when I fell asleep. This morning he was perking coffee.