Category: Uncategorized

What I said Yesterday.

I love my sons, that’s most important. I love my closest friends, that’s most important. I love the Boston Red Sox, though I’m kind of mad at them now.

Saying I love my Ch’an (Zen) practice is goofy, as anything I write here is already that. But, anyway, I love my practice, it’s most important.

Beyond those, nothing is as important here today than rescuing my 19 boxes of mostly books and 25 loose paintings I long-ago painted from Idaho and bringing them safely here to me – some five years gone. Not eating, not sleeping, not employment, not YouTube, not slow dancing, not peanut butter, not ice cream. Nothing.

My entire attention is on 19 medium-size, taped-up boxes and 25 loose pieces of art.

Eight days ago, Sunday the 10th, I was sitting in the recliner writing my Morning Pages when a strange thought appeared in gray ink – What if I park the Camry across the street after the Tuesday church interview and don’t drive it the next five days? Then, not 10 minutes later, the thought became a decision.

Monday morning I drove to the closer-to-me Trader Joe’s, which I’m learning to love, and sort of stocked up. Later I drove to the Rhododendron Garden. Tuesday I drove to coffee, to a used bookstore for a five-dollar art book, and to the interview. I parked back home across the street at 4:45 and the car’s moved just 10 feet since – moving a bit up the curbstone Friday to lessen the chance of the neighborhood confusing a Morning Page guest with abandonment.

And what I’ve noticed, through those five days, is that I’ve barely noticed.

They say feelings aren’t facts. I don’t know about that. The way I feel looking at clouds some days feels as real as 9 x 9 is 81. Maybe you feel that way. For me, the first bird-song of the morning. Learning how to cook all over again for maybe the first time. Pelicans.

I’m on an early morning walk yesterday, out on Hancock, back on Schuyler, and I get the feeling that finding, applying for, interviewing for, and being offered a job with a time sheet and a boss and probably lots of requirements is just about gone in my life. This 77-year old, gypsy, flying out of a basement in NE Portland to chase wonder and grace and all that great stuff life. Late last night I received word letting me know I would not be hired by the Waverly Heights church. There is now nothing pending.

Call it my stubborn-ness (I prefer “To thine own self be true”) of what I will and won’t agree to; maybe it’s about my birth certificate; possibly employers don’t get all the wicked cool-ness and hip-ness right there in and on my resume – who can say? 

Which, say this feeling is in fact a fact, then it’s become imagining far outside the box time for your devoted blogger, because I am on a wild, rather urgent mission to rescue my 19 boxes of books, CD’s, and more important stuff, and about 25 loose paintings from an ‘I’ve got to pay for it’ storage unit in Idaho and get those goodies down here. Where they belong.

Nibbles of ideas….

If the creek don’t rise and I’m still waking up to each day’s sunlight, perhaps next week I can come here and be a bubble – all rainbowy in the sun – and float some possibly interesting thoughts about a way to pay for that rescue without a payday.

The revolution will not be televised, and neither will this blog post today. Though there is a most relevant song:

I had an interview at four o’clock yesterday afternoon at the Waverly Heights United Church of Christ in SE Portland. The interview was for a position of ‘Building Coordinator.’ I was interviewed by four people, including the part-time Minister. Her name’s Molly.

I couldn’t tell you how the interview went, as in is it a possibility I’ll be offered a second interview, or even the job. I certainly did make a point of pointing out my practice of Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism, even slipped in some of the lingo. A bit from those meetings too. Never mind this wild and crazy life on full display.

Here’s a question – “Right now, in real time, send me a calendar invitation on your cell phone.” And my answer – “I don’t know how.” Here’s a question – “Your cover letter says you are looking for 15 hours or less of weekly work. This position is posted as 20. If you are offered this position at 20 hours will you accept it?” And my yackety yackety yak answer – “No.” And just so you don’t think I’m a total jughead, many of my more human, graceful, dignified responses to ‘human’ questions brought praise, and even thanks.

Sly and The Family Stone – “Different strokes for different folks.”

So, who knows. Gavin had called me earlier in the day and I told him it felt like an opportunity to step into the shimmery land of guerilla theater. Even dressing up in costume, some of that.

Everyday people.

And in a tele conversation with my friend from Queens (NYC) – Jon – who has all kinds of medical concerns and I mention I’ve developed a new medical concern which I am so far treating with magical thinking. It is a medicine. Nor do I believe I’ve mentioned a more substantial purchase ($60) the other night through FB market place of a hand-sown quilt, one of its panels with the initial of its first buyer and the year of its sowing – 1977 –

the p.m. purchase including a far out rainbowed blanket way too wild for the kid in “Peanuts’ and so far it’s dangling on a cool, straight-back, armless chair I bought for five dollars on a street corner a few blocks away – a chair designed for chair zazen and maybe Zoom koan rooms and even guitar practice if I get my butt back in gear there and – Oh, I don’t know, there’s Chinese poetry and drawing and understanding the new computer in ways that offer more computing than its current service as an indoor drive-in movie, and real to say the built-in speakers aren’t so hot, but, and thrilled with this, since I jacked-in headphones the intricate, dynamic, spacious experience of every luscious individual sound is breathtaking, and as it’s an add-on like attaching the speaker from the parking space pole on top the inside of the rolled-up window makes it all the more a bitchin’ drive-in flashback.

 So Friday I go and invest two and a half hours of way early time to the DMV for Oregon plates (now on the car) and an Oregon license (in the mail). I swing back to the studio and check the ‘Most Important’ list, which leaves finding and buying affordable house plants ’cause I want them. And later up to Wilshire Park, house plants on my mind three times around, and then, just inspired, over to Alberta Street for the first time since back, I stumble into a secret Alberta used book store, it’s so late Friday afternoon, and leaning toward a couple of large, fat art books for $5 a piece I end up paying $7 for Kerouac’s ‘Desolation Angels’ and flash on all the Kerouac books I’m paying to store in Idaho – out of my sight five years now – including ‘Angels,’ and it’s a rush of both sadness and whirring energy to find the way to get them over here (the Rose City) and to a garage-space home for when they arrive. And sometimes I’m just tired with it (stored boxes dilemma) and sometimes crazy with it.

And so I was saying….

If I was given 10,000 words I couldn’t describe my life and how I feel, how I am feeling today, this Friday, anywhere near as well as this song sings and this video shows.

Talk about being in love.

Off to the Southeast yesterday on errands, in between I walked along Johnson Creek on the Springwater Corridor. I did what I’ve been doing about once a week and hiked down over and beyond the railroad bridge and to a sitting bench just off the tar trail. There I took out my phone, dialed up You tube, and played The Shangri-las “Out in the Streets.” Kind of wicked great. Then it was Kate Bush’s “The Big Sky.” The hits kept coming.

After a while I got up to head back and was listening to The Band’s “It Makes No Difference,” a remarkable song for me. I got to thinking that everyone in that band – and I grew up with them – was gone, had passed away. All five. And here I am, dawdling along on a Wednesday in early May, Portland, OR, two addresses in the last two months, fully alive and not only out in the world but absolutely positively wildly of the world.

So these thoughts are passing through and a jogger’s coming from the other direction, slowly approaching, he’s tall and lean, and when he’s about 15 feet away I give a close look and I swear I knew right there and then it was Levon Helm, The Band’s drummer, on record as having passed away in 2012. His face wasn’t exactly like Levon’s, and he was taller than Levon. But it was him. And as he was passing, without turning his head, his eyes came over and found mine and said to me – “We haven’t gone anywhere.”

Pinky swear.

This is not a post about reincarnation or angels or ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’ or ‘Remember Walking in the Sand’ or running up any hill or anything that could be explained, even hinted at. It was just me being struck amazed.