Couch Surfing at 70

Perhaps you’re familiar with this Zen statement – ‘After the enlightenment, the laundry.’ Which leads me to one likely way more accessible in the long-time culture – ‘You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.’ Except – Duh! – of course you can. I’m proof. See: Today’s a good day for the laundry.

I had this sense yesterday – and again this morning – that it’s time to bring these weekday posts here at ‘couchsurfing at 70’ to a close. They’ve appeared, without fail, nearly two and a half years. I’m glad about that. It doesn’t feel like there’s nothing left to say, from this space in this…

There’s a kind of nothingness coming here this morning. Ideas flow, pretty much every moment, but none have stuck for here. I have no clue whether this is a place where words come across as worthy, of if my showing up every weekday – just that – is worthy. My Morning Pages have become daily…

I am something like giddily grateful to still be here this morning. Alive, awake. Filled with gifts and abundance, blessings beyond my capability to imagine. Considering all the pranks and flat-out grave stupidities along the way. These two quotes from Robert Aitken spoke to me over the weekend, and are worth sharing: “The biggest joke…

I made new year’s resolutions this year, back in January, for the first time in about forever. It seemed like I was supposed to. I typed them in a slightly larger font and printed them, and that sheet of paper’s up on a wall in this room. Oh, there’s 14 resolutions. One of those 14…

When I was in Portland I had the opportunity – sometimes with others, sometimes by myself – to spend what was surely sacred time at a cottage about three hundred yards from the Pacific Ocean in a little section of the Oregon coast called Tierra del Mar. The place was nothing fancy, there was a…

What you really need is simply this : aloneness, great inner solitude,to go within and for hours not to meet anyone. … The individualperson who senses her aloneness, and only she, is like a thingsubject to the deep laws, the cosmic laws. Rainer Maria Rilke I have friends in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Personally…

Do not talk too much. ‘No’ of quiet. ‘No’ of silence. Do not eat too much. ‘No’ of hunger. ‘No’ of grace. Walk out into the world. ‘No’ of all of it. ‘No’ of none of it. ‘No’ of generosity.

I came upon the word “Reverence” in a reading much earlier this Monday morning. It feels worth sitting with.

Fridays have their own agendas for me these days. Agendas not opposed to spontaneity, while holding out their welcoming arms to say, “I got you.” It feels good to be gotten by Fridays. Another opportunity for gratitude. And another. And another. I’m grateful – I’m thrilled – I woke up again this morning, another chance…

I completed a notebook of Morning Pages this morning. I talk about the Pages here in the Blog every once in a while. They’re important to and for me. Somehow, and stuff happens, I came upon a feeling to do some math. Here goes. First, these facts: I began writing the Pages in early June…

I was reading a book of Zen the other morning – I do – and came across this question, a question which might be posed by a teacher to a student who has “entered the room.” This question – “What brings you here?” It’s so cool, for me, such a fabulous question, and I think…

I drove down to the Pacific after the meditation meeting last night. Catch some of the sunset, rejoice in the endless ocean’s watery language. Be the gratitude and joy for still being here, and getting to be there. I was sitting on pretty much the only bench behind the boulders separating the concrete walk from…

On this morning’s walk, just a little while ago, I dreamed I was the last disc jockey in the last working radio station on our planet, and that perhaps it was the last day of the planet’s continuation. People would decide. So, it felt wicked important to create the perfect playlist for such an occasion.…

Oh, my mind is crazy wild this Friday morning. Wild like eucalyptus leaves fluttering softly in an early morning summer breeze. That wild. That alive, that generous. Somewhere between Laura Nyro’s soul and Kathleen Hanna’s bravery. That wild. Sitting in the sand at a deserted beach on Cape Cod, counting the Atlantic’s waves. That wild.…

Yesterday was an especially interesting day. Long periods of grace. Lots of gratitude in this old heart of mine. Which doesn’t feel so broken this morning, like some other mornings over the years. Though, broke wide open with compassion for the world. Ringing with questions. How can I help today? Last night I heard a…

Three or four Sundays ago I had one of my brain/mind/speech things – words not coming out as expected. Some other planet from normal. That state came and left in about 15 minutes and while there’s some anxiety for this kid – not being able to speak anymore – I pretty much shined it on.…

I woke this Tuesday morning with some internal nudge to give myself thoroughly to writing when I can today. And to speak fewer words. Think I’ll mostly talk with my feet and my ears today. These hands cradling a pen.

Mill Pond was a very special place back there in my hometown of Wareham, MA. Especially the small piece carved out from the rest by Route 28, which sounds more formidable than it was, two lanes. The small part of the pond abutted Elm Street, coming down from Main, and the Tremont Nail Factory on…

Man oh man oh man. I keep making mistakes. Endless mistakes. Way back to January of 1949, all the way to last night. Fortunately, I get to know them. Shake hands with them. Cuddle with them. They may be mistakes, but they’re mine. Whatever that means. Also fortunately, I got to play little league baseball,…

Memo to my Thursday self: Be the generosity. Be the kindness. Be the smiley smile.

Sleepiness composes this post here today. Honoring the earlier wake-up call. Honoring what have become a thousand hands and eyes of morning ritual. Still, the thought of sleeping a thousand years has its appeal, this Wednesday. Back in 1970 or ’71, it may have been ’72, I found myself marching in something of a funky…

I like Joni Mitchell’s song “A Circle Game”, which shuttled in when I’d been sitting here a bit staring at the empty space. I grew up on the Tom Rush version. Something New England-y about Tom’s voice. There’s the Buffy Sainte-Marie cover as well. Someone chose hers to be part of the soundtrack to a…

It was quite windy on the Imperial Beach pier Sunday afternoon. This morning the sun – cloud-rider – has shined all the starlight on. My entire person is quite ready for a spring cleaning. Somedays I really miss ice cream. Other days I get to watch Ann practice yoga, and everything is good. Let’s dance…

Somehow this day is skipping along. It’s nearly three and a half hours since the cardinal-tweet alarm on the phone, me quieting that bird and swinging right on out of bed – now adorned with summer sheets – at 2:59. Call it middle of the night or wicked early in the morning – time’s time,…

“The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool.” – Lester Bangs. I read “Crawdaddy”, some of the issues, when I was younger. I don’t remember subscribing, like I did with “Rolling Stone”. I had a couple of boxes of “Stones” in my friend Donnie’s cellar…

It’s 9:07 and I’m at my small desk eating cottage cheese out of a large container – think vat – which is weird because I never eat before going on a morning walk, or sitting three times, or (lately) doing yoga and exercise stuff on the floor. Yet here I am, hungry for no good…

And lastly, among all these closets within my mind, I was thinking about little league baseball, I got to play right field, and my dog Taffy, who was, if there’s enough still-functioning brain cells to get this right, a birthday present – six years old me, maybe seven, from a home in the Mayflower Ridge…

There is a mountain in southern New Hampshire, not far over the Massachusetts line, just west of Jaffrey. I’ve climbed it dozens of times. With roommates, college kids, bosses, group home cadets, alone, a bunch with my son Cameron. Mt. Monadnock. Someone this morning challenged me to take Mt. Monadnock out of my dungarees pocket.…

In her book “Through Forests of Every Color”, a book about and of Zen Koans, Joan Sutherland describes going to a San Francisco exhibit of Richard Diebenkorn paintings and, after a while, realizing she was experiencing the light she knew from her southern California childhood – the paintings from a series of abstracted LA scenes.…

All the ways we map come to an end. The moon has set at midnight. I walk alone through the village. Each thing unfolds as it does. Sometimes it’s not my favorite. Usually it is.   A boat without oars, making its way in the still water. I go to wild places, poke through abandoned grasses,…

I’m thinking that I’m not writing enough – and I’m a writer – because I’m talking too much. Which may be ancient news. Either way, I’m planning to turn the tables on it. Speaking of tables, the Cushman family kitchen table – in our kitchen when I was just a youngster cruising the playgrounds and…

Back there, in yesterday’s late afternoon sun, thick fog bank looming, stretching in from the west, don’t panic endless stands of yellow. Yellow, yellow flowers, there’s fields and slopes and roadsides and sidewalks and yards and adorning-bushes yellow. So much yellow. All these years, even amidst my history of the annual spring 6A daffodils the…

Sounds of being naked, and sounds of glass jars – holes punched in the covers – and hornets and big-eyed kids and rotting pears. A whole other pear salad, and who knows, letters and cards fly gently through the mails. Letterbox of love. Perhaps the word for the week is this – Generosity. Where the…

One, two, three, four….xylophone. Of course. Five is off running this morning, her small feet snug in women’s Brooks Chariots, size six. I ought to know – I brought them as a gift. Five promises to be back Monday, assuming the creek don’t rise and there ain’t no meltdown. For me, there’s a feeling of…

A calculator full of Thursdays, where even a mathematic dunce like me could gather and add up each one breathing in and back out, so far, through this morning. Like 52 times 74, and change. If I chose to. There’s a today morning physical ambiance somewhere between dizzy and sleepy, where both may have been…

I woke this morning with some degree of angst. I cannot tell you why. I doubt there is any good mental health involved. I got to daydreaming about most of my precious books, which remain boxed and probably gathering dust in a garage in Portland, Oregon. Most especially the art books. How to ship and…

Recently I rescued a postcard of a nearly-frozen kitty on top of Mount Washington in New Hampshire from a box of my most important papers. I sent it off through the mail, and it was received and loved and offered a spacious and beautiful home in which to live, right out in the world. Like…

I had a vision. It’s this: Rosa Parks is sitting on the bus. The bus destination window reads “Further”. Something approaches Rosa and says, “What is this?” She answers, “East gate, West gate, North Gate, South gate.” In other words, all of it. Fool.

Turning cartwheels ‘cross the floor….

For the weekdays in the month of April I’m going to try for something different here in the Blog. As of right here today, Thursday, March winding down, I’ll describe the entries I plan to post every April Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, as “Lateral stories”. Perhaps, if time allows in the coming days…

Then this shows up from upon the coffee’d recliner — “I have a lot to offer, and not much more than closet space from which to offer it.” For me, this observation about me is something of a refutal of the (me) thought that I don’t do enough out there in the world, while piggybacking…

I came upon a Ted Talk video on YouTube later last night titled “Don’t Do Your Best”, the talk presented by a man named Keith Johnstone. The description names him a “world renowned improvisational theater instructor”. I listened for a couple of minutes, remembered the hour my phone wake-up was set to tweet this morning,…

Back when I was drinking I’d like to drive around, killing time on a Saturday night, with a beer cracked open between my legs, the rest of the six-pack of talls over there in the passenger seat. I’d listen to oldies. With every mile traveled I would tell a lie. To the six-pack. To me.…

Here’s some of it. Noticeably ongoing germs, a schedule for CPR/FA, promises of good day sunshine, and me, tucked in the room most of this weekdays week. I shook hands with Joan Baez once on the Venice Beach walkway, it was 1977, or at least – memory cells a bit fuzzy this Friday – told…

I have a Zen Koan teacher. Sarah. She’s out there in Colorado Springs, CO. I’m over here in San Diego, CA. Zoom invites and allows us to look at each other and say back-and-forth stuff once a week for 20 minutes. I donate to her Sangha as part of that arrangement. I was thinking about…

Pretty seriously under the weather this morning. My mind feels like crinkled up wrapping paper and cellophane. My Morning Pages, if released to the public, could be a one-way ticket to the funhouse. Interesting quandary of going with the flow when the flow don’t want to go. With scheduled, they say, possibly even sunny breaks…

Pouring down rain, Tuesday, 5am. Here comes the Albert Hammond song – “It Never Rains in Southern California”, with its fateful chorus rejoinder, “Man it pours.” Then there’s Chicago’s “South California Purples”, and Terry Kath’s soulful moan, “Thought this was a warm place. I must be in the wrong place.” There’s lots of songs about…

It’s a Monday. Another Monday. Something of grace allowed me to wake up into it. Something of grace allowed me to walk in the mist from Ann’s place back to my car a few blocks away, hips, legs, knees, big and little toes, still showing up for the big dance. Brain remembering the way. I…

I’ve had this thing with yellow flowers. Both this winter and once sometime toward the tail end of last summer. Back then I had come from the Pacific Ocean, I was carrying my boogie board, a wet towel and dry tank-top draped over a shoulder, walking on Brighton Ave back to my faraway parked car.…

Here is a line from this morning’s Koan: “A wind boat, having loaded the moon, bobs on autumn waters.” Here’s a line from another Koan: “A solitary boat without oars making its way in the moonlight.” When I drive south on North Harbor Drive toward the city I pass 10 twisty, gnarled trees on my…

It’s 3:18 in the afternoon and I just realized and remembered I have yet to do today two of the most important things in my life. They are, post here in the Blog, and dance to the music. So here comes this, and in barely the time it takes for the second-hand of a clock…

Yesterday I struggled with technology – computer stuff. Yesterday I struggled with changing car insurance, and with so much money flowing out and away this March, a cause for a potential shift in insurers. I simply do not “do” systems, and technology, well. Perhaps I come to them already alive with those stories. I’m a…

I’ve been showing up most days for a YouTube video created by a woman named Adriene, who leads a class in chair yoga. Yoga in a chair is not the only yoga I’m showing up for these days. But it’s the primary place of that physical encouragement. Adriene closes her class asking watchers and joiners…

I went on a long walk yesterday, through the Banker’s Hill neighborhood of San Diego. Wild and twisty, sunlit, hummingbirds and sparrows and finches my companions. Across and under bridges, dangling in the day. Back at my car, it felt wrong to leave. Off. It was not me clinging or grasping, at least mostly not…