Author: buddycushman

Last week in my post focused on “Having a good time now” I presented my job titled ‘Member engagement specialist’ at the front desk of the YMCA as the “Theater of welcome.” Given a stage in which to welcome. Not acting as if. Acting as.

This idea of ‘welcoming’ is big for me now. It’s obvious at my job -“Good morning, welcome in.” It’s a welcoming back as I’m welcomed in at the coffee shop; the passing with gracious “Heys” and “Hellos” fellow hikers on my various trails – “Welcome to the vastness;” and for the kid selling me a lottery ticket in the convenience store – “Welcome into my Saturday afternoon.”

Then there’s all the creatures along the way, and the ever-present breeze, even the dark of night arriving earlier. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Doing my part. The joy in the journey. Having a good time now as a welcoming presence. As the “Welcome” itself.

Magical thinking episode #438 — What if everyone on the planet went around through their day welcoming everyone else. ‘Things’ may be a smidge better. Ya think?

I’m feeling very much a punk rocker lately. I sold my electric and acoustic guitars preparing to leave San Diego, just no room in the Camry for the journey to San Luis, and needed the cash. Sold the solid state Fender amp I’d bought for $40 from a kid off the Martin Luther King highway in SD, don’t remember to who or for how much. Maybe I gave it away. Maybe it’s in this room somewhere. Which is all background for I’m seriously feeling like a punk rocker and there’s nothing to make music on. Probably why I’m living on YouTube with headphones, listening to Dinosaur Jr and The Cure and most lately Portland’s own Wipers, who I never heard of my 12 years living there. All this — think of the song “New York’s a Lonely Town When You’re the Only Surfer Boy Around” (The Trade Winds, 1965) — and you feel me.

I think inadvertently shaving my head two weeks ago is the cause of some of this. Then there’s the quiet angst of doing everything alone, talking to vultures and little lizards, and myself, living for coffee and way too much peanut butter. Spending nearly all my money on bitchin’ hiking shoes and an endless stream of used Zen/Ch’an books. Here’s the most recent – “Original Teachings of Ch’an Buddhism’, translated and with an introduction by Chang Chung-Yuan. Who may be a lizard in this lifetime. Which doesn’t matter to anyone except me, and even that sends me a small ache, here with no guitar, no strap, no amp. 

Showing up to this blog (and older sister ‘Couch Surfing at 70) nearly all the weekdays of the last seven years probably has something to do with it. And add 14 years of Morning Pages 24/7, those Pages never as “out there” – mirror mirror on the wall – as they are now.

I don’t know. All this time on mountains and hills and in the landscape, vast open spaces and the woods, I may find myself as a wannabe punk rocker more likely mistaken for “It’s a Beautiful Day” than “Husker Du”. And me up there on the mountain bench, all my Motown, “Da Doo Ron Ron.”

For your enjoyment, sharing two poems from my most recent book of poetry, ‘my startled heart.’ Transcribed here in prose form, best I can:

‘who’s racing?’

“I was in a race, just yesterday, with the white water of a wave. Charging the shore, oh, all that ocean. Someone called “Go” from the lifeguard tower, though it may have been a gull – ordering breakfast. I’d fluttered my beach towel, like a checkered flag, and rushed up and out the sandbar, close by the surfers and their invisible starting line. The wave and I, more one than two, zeroing in on the rolling pebbles at the shoreline, me something of a live mulligan, the wave getting its start in Japan, when I’d only come from Portland. It cannot be a surprise to tell you the wave was faster, rolling far ahead. Nor come as any shock that I yelled out I had, in fact, found Nemo. Causing the swell of water to pause, amazed, maybe a “No shit!” moment, as I splashed by howling “See ya”, cracking up at my own cunning, with just a tinge of regret the circling pelicans might assume my heart wasn’t pure. Me, making up stories, and everything.

The wave, though, had no opinion. The way waves don’t. Just roll on – roll on. Waves being waves. With seagulls always hungry. Pelicans filled with magic. Nemo giggling just beyond the jetty. And the wave nothing but ocean. This, this, this, and this. It turns out the only one racing was me.”

“single mom”

“As I walk along sidewalks I gently touch flowers. Pale blue. Yellow. Red. At times we exchange places – the Hibiscus off to the next block, me here, on this branch accepting the sunlight, offering up wonder. Swaying with the endless breeze. Somedays I give my mind permission to run away. Somewhere far. Somewhere mysterious. Montana. Missouri. Massachusetts. While the essence of me remains in the neighborhood, waving to a single mom and her enchanted kids. Being delightful, at times, when no one’s looking, off and chasing bees over freshly cut grass. Like children playing tag, silent shouts filling the afternoon air.

Somewhere else, say, Sherman heights, there’s a sidewalk bougainvillea waiting to cross the street. Waiting for the electric ‘Go’. Ready to wait forever. Where time is dancing like Mickey’s Monkey. Wild, all over the place, without the boundaries of yesterday and tomorrow. That place where a single mom holds hands with her daughter – twirling and twirling and twirling. And all because I traded places with a flower.”

I came across this bit of a story while sipping coffee and reading James Ishmael Ford early Thursday morning – “In that book I recalled a friend, Bob Jessup. He had recently died from complications of the AIDS virus…. His partner, Jim Wilson, told me a small anecdote about those dying days. Jim was sitting with Bob and talking. He was filled with memories and sharing them with his dying partner. Jim said what good times those were. To which Bob replied, “I’m having a good time now.”

I was struck by this “Having a good time now.” Right now. With what’s going on. Me – I’m having a good time now performing the theater of welcome at the YMCA. I’m having a good time now sitting alone with a coffee at Starbucks. I’m having a good time now writing my rent check. I’m having a good time now since part of my tooth fell out. I’m having a good time now sitting at the light. I’m having a good time now reading the James Ishmael Ford book. I’m having a good time now getting up at 2:59. I’m having a good time now doing nothing.

There seems to be choice involved here – do I want to be miserable or joyful? But it’s more. Different. Other. Something else. Something like simply being the good time.

I’m having a good time now experiencing both joy and sorrow listening to this line from the song I posted here Monday: “Because I’m still in love with you, I want to see you dance again.”

There’s something that rings childlike (for me) looking at and traveling down a small ‘pier’ out to a floating ‘dock’ in a body of fresh water. A chance to answer the mystery of what’s at the very end.

I’ve been fortunate to make this pictorial journey a number of times, tail ends of Laguna Lake hikes…….And, Here!!, I’ll let you copy my paper without having done the work. See!! Back in school, copying off the desk next door, someone’s childhood.

I guess I’d say mostly it’s dragonflies, out there in the sunlight: electric blue, translucent pair of wings, puff-ball eyes seeing everywhere at once. They do drive-byes and fly-byes, stop a few feet away to stare me down, then it’s bye-byes.

There’s birds stepping and sneaking through the ancient reeds, frogs splashing and sploshing off to a new privacy, a gathering of waterfowl floating and blowing away. Mostly, it’s dragonflies.

“Pssst,” the ever-present central coast breeze whispers so only I can hear — “It’s all out there, kid. Out at the very edge.”

I have been a member of the Pacific Zen Institute for four years. In that time I’ve been attending Tuesday night story groups offered by PZI teacher David Weinstein, Roshi, who at some point became my teacher. I’ve almost never missed a Tuesday.

The hour and a half Zoom gatherings include a 20-minute meditation and a presentation talk by David regarding the weekly story under consideration.

Following through with an idea that popped into my head Friday morning, last night I turned the volume all the way down when David made his presentation. To see if I could hear his talk with my eyes. It was kind of wild.

Later on, in a small group, I said it sounded like all the rest of his talks to me.

Early Monday morning I decided to change my life almost entirely, sometime between the end of my first 34 minutes of sitting (3:50a) and the last word on the third page of my Morning Pages (5:45a) – those very rich two hours I’m gifted each morning I wake up. Seeds of decisions loitering in this wacky mind, spontaneous decisions appearing right then and there.

I believe the first urge for significant change came walking out of one of ‘those meetings’ just after 8:30 Friday morning. Then a larger push came Saturday afternoon, on my return of the out-and-back Bob Jones Trail hike, when synchronicity had me passing the home of the White Heron Sangha as members filed out from the first day of a weekend ‘session.’ I got to talking to a middle-aged Asian woman, splashing questions everywhere out into the day, and she kept saying, “Look at the website. Look at the website.” So Zen-like.

Anyway, I did, and tumblers began tumbling and all of a sudden it’s six in the morning yesterday and I could feel the changes – actually kind of experiencing  organically the quality of cool decisions as a whole – embodied and scatterbrained.

The specifics are not a big deal, it’d feel like yackety yack all over the place hoping to explain. But, I will tell you this: I’m off to work at the YMCA in a little while; it’s been crazy windy in San Luis Obispo while all this has been going on; and I’m four days older than I was on my way to a dermatology follow-up Friday morning. Still here.

So, late Saturday afternoon, ushering in evening…….hey, I’d hiked Laguna Lake way early and raced to get a coffee, then after ditzing around in my room and something like a lunch, I motorvated down the 101 to Avila Beach and the Bob Jones Trail, which was gorgeous, and out to the end of the pier, round waves rolling and crashing, folks still in the late-October ocean.

Back, snacking on peanuts and fuzzy water, I fell into watching a couple of videos on song-writing – Nirvana and Bob Dylan – and all of a sudden the video copied above just showed up. Me host, video guest. This one of the “All offers” I say out loud, a promise for complete acceptance, every single morning on my knees. Like, “Here’s something for you, kid,” Saturday chuckled.

Maybe you’ve heard this, or of this foursome. Maybe you haven’t. I never had. If you have four and a half minutes and grateful ears, later this morning you’ll be able to say, “Now I have.”

Betcha you’ll want to thank me too.

This photo was snapped by me on Reed College Way in Portland, OR sometime in the late spring of 2021, perhaps a couple of months after learning of my wife Susan’s clear desire for a divorce. By then I’d moved down into the basement, and was out walking the streets a lot.

It’s sort of funny. Back then I was out walking so much to not be there – there in Susan’s house with all the wonderful memories and all that right-then pain. Now I’m walking and hiking as much as I am to exactly be there. To be there in the landscape, there out in the day – slipping in and out of the moments of the day depending on my lack of thinking (a good thing.) and just being. Me and Fats Domino – “I’m Walking.” And Fats’ lovely existential question – “Whatcha gonna do when the well run dry?”

There’s no special reason for this picture and these words. I suppose it’s the fault of Windows 11, which since I made my best effort to download has played various bits of havoc with my computer, including running through all my photos drifting through the x and o technology and splashing them up on the screen as new-age screen-savers. There have been a bunch of pictorial reminders of those old days. The wife. The wife and me.

The walking thing is interesting to me – not enough room to riff about it here – and there’s a spooky sort of premonition wearing San Diego articles of clothing way before the fact.

It’s also interesting that the entirety of the time I was with Susan – autumn 2010 to spring 2021 – my hair was nearly as short on purpose as it is now accidentily. See:

(My art on the basement wall.)

(The idea for this post arrived while I was hiking Wednesday afternoon. I was just the host.)

I’m a cat person. Have been, will be. Though, likely my greatest pet/companion was my dog Taffy, who I received as a puppy present for my sixth birthday back in Wareham, Mass, and who remained my loyal friend until I came home for Thanksgiving my freshman year at Cape Cod Community, when Taffy walked into the living room and nuzzled me and loved me and then went into the front room and passed away an hour later. Talk about devotion. “She waited for you,” my dad said.

And yet, I’m a cat person. Always was, always am. Even when hiking through the Laguna Lake open space after work yesterday and was greeted and wet/nosed/nuzzled by two dogs hiking with their owners, loved to the point where a squeegee would have been nice. And not a kitty in sight, not even a really big one.

Still, I’m a cat person. Sometimes when I walk around the trailer park early in the morning after yogurt and peanut butter three or four or six kitties are in the streets, or on metal porches, or rolling on cement walks. Some are wicked friendly and tumble over when I speak and sing “Kitty speak” and rub against me – hold the drool – and then some look at me with a “What’s it feel like to want?” Which kind of makes me love kitties even more.

That’s it.

Below, a couple pictures ofTaffy and me a few years back, and a few of the felines I’ve tried to honor with my fifth-grade drawing and painting. And a drivebye. Cause, the fact is, I’m a cat person.