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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.

I worked a longer shift yesterday so my YMCA compadre Jorge could have the afternoon to attend a career day/fair for computer science majors at Cal Poly. When I left work I drove to Starbucks for a coffee and bacon /egg bites and then back to the trailer, where I had a salad before donning hiking clothes/shoes and heading to Laguna Lake for a late afternoon walk. Chilly, windy, lots of clouds, about 10 younger folks from what I’m guessing was a day treatment progam on the first part of the trail in front of me.

My son Spenser attended a day program – On the Move – when we lived in Portland, and that crew yesterday brought back memories. I’ve been missing Spenser lately, he sent me some very cool pictures of himself the other day. I’ve been wondering if maybe there isn’t a way for him to move to San Luis Obispo some time in the future and hang around with his dad. I used to trim his hair with a trimmer when I trimmed mine – though not so recklessly – another fond memory.

When I returned home for the second time I found in the mailbox used Ebay versions of David Hinton’s “The Wilds of Poetry” (book) and The Beatles “A Hard Day’s Night” (cd). It’s fun to get fun mail.

This was just some Tuesday stuff in SLO. Plus me in my hat zooming into a night of Oakland Zen.

So, this is an abbreviated post for this morning. Feel free to send flowers, money, cards of various condolence, cool photos of cows.

Monday early afternoon, working with the fact that my hair had grown longer than usual – think Scruffy the cat – I charged the trimmer and took out the numbers 7,4, and3 attachments and energized the trimmer and began trimming away when, perhaps five seconds later, I realized I’d neglected to attach the number seven attachment. Yes, there in the mirror, a far out, punk rocking, zombie from another world, the beginning of a Zen hermit wandering through mountains and hills shaved head hipster stared back, not so cool for school after all.

Perhaps 30 seconds of wild physical thrashing and dancing and countless curse words later – big, big, big, big sigh – I shaved all the rest of it off. Then I called work and asked if I could wear a hat here on out. Yes. Then I visualized a hat on at my Tuesday evening koan group tonight, Zen monk wannabe, hopefully with nothing to say. Seriously, vow of silence.

I’ve been including photos lots here from a mountain bench lately, devoted to practicing show don’t tell. This time it’s just words.

Flowers would be nice.

I never jumped all the way into the ocean this year, nevermind not a single rushing ride on a boogie board. The fact is I gave my boogie board away when I left San Diego. Comings and goings.

This photo taken at Avila Beach Saturday, October 18. After walking the five miles of the Bob Jones Trail, I walked out on the pier and then down onto the beach, took off my socks and shoes, and strolled through the water, south and back north. It was cold.

Avila Beach has a magic I’m lucky to be some off most weeks, too detailed to share here. I do splash water up my arms and over my face, and hours later when I lick an arm I’m right back at the ocean.

I wish there was enough magic to do what Joni Mitchell wishes for in her song ‘Urge for Going’ – “I’d like to call back summer time and have her stay for just another month or so.”

But she’s got the urge for going, summer does, and I have to let her go. There are things where even magic isn’t enough.