isn’t it great just to wake up
Pssst. It’s me. I’m still here. Here’s Kevin Costner in ‘Draft Day’ – “We live in a different world than we did just 30 seconds ago.” Everything I wrote in yesterday’s post – most especially it being the final post in the lengthy history of Couch Surfing at 70 – was true. Except, it turns…
do you have a minute?
A number of months back I believe I shared the story of Peter, and his famous call of “Cheepios!” With the pair of young women protectors who promised to take names and kick ass should anyone mess with him and his differences. Nobody did, and at the end of summer camp his mother proclaimed it…
hey, check this out
I may have mentioned here one of the past three posts that I began my chase after a Bachelor’s Degree at Cape Cod Community College in the fall of 1967. The intention to hold a Bachelor of Arts in Education and/or English four years later. Yet, there I was, wicked long hair and flowing graduation…
dignity
After the divorce, couch surfing at my friend Kate’s, through the wonder of Zoom, I interviewed for and was mostly offered a job in Encinitas, California – where I was headed – working with a young man with Down syndrome in his apartment and in the community. Just the formality of a face-to-face, which happened…
oh my head
In 1984 I was spending two to three hours every week in an office in the guidance department at North Reading High School in Massachusetts. Back then I was a youth outreach worker for the Drug and Alcohol Resource Program in Stoneham, some 12 miles south. Kids would drop in to visit me in the…
into the market place
I’m strolling onto the second floor at New England Memorial Hospital around 2:50 to begin my three to eleven. There are four teams – two psychiatric, one substance abuse, and the adolescent. That last one holds my counselor position, and this Monday a young woman named Sharon runs up to me and says the staff…
this very moment
Heard somewhere along the way: “Decorate your own heart, for the buddha is nowhere else.” Feels like forgiveness, and gratitude, joy in the journey, and dancing. “Be a lamp unto this world.”
pleasures
After work, after Starbucks, I headed home on North Harbor Drive. Quite suddenly, out from the left end of the windshield, I saw three planes taking off all at once from Lindbergh Field, San Diego’s International Airport. But, in a moment, they were only crows, lifting over the drive toward Spanish Landing. Stories out of…
when the rain comes
“I put myself entirely in the keep of this rainy morning.” There are so many things I cannot explain. No words. The way my life is right here today, this morning, this afternoon, when I crawl into bed, the 2:59 alarm as bird song, and on my knees making an intention to be open to…
this Tuesday thing
From my morning reading: Huangbo says, “Feeling compassion is knowing that there’s no one to be saved.” In other words, there aren’t people and things fundementally different from you, falling into the category of “those who need to be saved,” yourself falling into the category of “the one who’s doing the saving.” We are all…
goofy out loud
“Conceal your practice, function in secret, seem for all the world like a fool or an idiot.” – Dongshan I try to pay good attention to this advice, and leave what I call ‘my Zen practice’ separate from the weekly comings and goings here in Couch Surfing. Too esoteric, too non-sensicle, too wacky…..boring. And yet…
as a kid I liked to roam in the woods
I talk periodically, here in Couch Surfing, about becoming “fetchable.” And developing, on the long, long road of this journey, amidst 10,000 screw-ups and celebrations, the quality of willingness not to flee. To stand in this one spot and welcome each and every guest arriving. Truth is, these last few days there’s been something of…
another’s shoes
“There’s a light over at the Frankenstein place.” – Rocky Horror. “Be a lamp unto this world.” – The Buddha. “Where there are shadows let me bring light.” – St. Francis. “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.” – Traditional. It’s a shining this light thing. My marching orders.
geographies
A birthday card I received from Kate in Columbia, Missouri. To its left, a birthday card I received from David in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Behind that, a partial image of a photograph taken of me and my son Cameron at Disneyland, Florida. Back right, a casual Buddha I bought in South Park, San Diego,…
these days
These days, now in my 77th year here on this crazy granite planet, I spend what money I have mostly on just two things – my half of our exorbitant rent, and coffee. I use my car only when I have to, as evidenced by not stopping for gas for three weeks and at last…
spinning gratefully
My first paid position in the world of human service was as a day camp counselor for the House of Seven Gables Settlement House in Salem, Massachusetts in the summer of 1974. …… 1974. I was thinking about this leaning back in a chair in the cafeteria in the UC San Diego Health Center yesterday…
like totally
Four months back I ended a two-year online relationship of “work in the room” with a Zen teacher in Colorado Springs, entirely for financial reasons. I was no longer able to send the monthly “Dana” (generous support) I had been. Now my financial situation has changed some with going back to work three additional days…
hopping on the train
I began writing a post over the weekend about talking less. Me talking less. I chose not to use it, in part because it was too long, and as it strayed into areas of my own business, which don’t feel right to share. I do have a feeling this inclination to talk less may show…
all the leaves are brown
I returned to the Palisades online gathering of people Monday morning. My longtime friend Keith, who I met in Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod in 2007, had sent me an invitation to Sunday’s group – folks he spends time with regularly. Sunday, doing nothing other than being a witness to all that emotion,…
a full moon
National Football League playoffs go on. The hot stove of baseball, fact and conjecture, goes on. Owners of neighborhood grocery stores and flower shops unlock their doors, show up for work. Baristas continue to pour coffee at a hundred thousand coffee shops. I receive a used five-dollar book in the mail from Ebay. The earliest…
the fifth day
The four previous posts this week appeared in and fell out of my Sunday morning Morning Pages. I added a little mark of “Yes” as each arrived — Thanks for reading; I like this guitar; Thanks for buying my book; Anything is possible. Lately I have noticed that I go out of my way to…
shakedown street
A number of times, in conversation, I have said to Ann the problem/sadness/reality of homelessness could be, can be, fixed in 20 minutes. Twenty minutes. “Don’t tell me this town ain’t got no heart, When I can hear it beat out loud.” – The Grateful Dead
journeying with joy
I am most grateful to and for every single person who has bought a copy of my hopefully helpful book, “Joy in the Journey.” (Blogger’s note – One man has bought 12 copies and ordered 10 more.)
fretboards
I sold both my guitars back a while ago when there was a deeper shortage of money. Now I have come to a place where I would like to purchase another, and practice daily. I work in Ocean Beach Tuesdays. Last night’s sunset was lovely. The guitar I see costs $193.21 – the guitar, the…
who wrote the book of love
Someone offered this advice to me yesterday afternoon – “Be curious about your life.” So far this morning I have come to no conclusions about my life. After a number of hours, amidst a world of questions. What about this? What about this? What about this? The encouragement to “Abide with the wonder of uncertainty”…
koalas asleep in the trees
Yesterday afternoon I walked with Ann up through Balboa Park and over to the zoo, getting to hang out with giraffes, a cheetah, and a couple of kookaburras. On the way back I heard and saw a guy playing guitar in an alcove in the walkway structure of the park. I walked past, then turned…
early in the morning
It’s the first morning of a new year, there are two 2025 calendars in this room, and while it is still early, 5:18, I’ve been visited by the word “practice” over and over again. Both as a verb and as a noun. Perhaps I can re-learn guitar if I practice enough. My ongoing daily practice…
I am everyday people
In a coffee shop Monday morning, my last day off before returning to work, I received a text that the time sheets for the two young men and one young women I work with as a “job coach” were now due today (Monday), and not tomorrow (today, Tuesday) at the end of the pay period,…
try a little
“Oh, she may be wearyYoung girls they do get wearyWearing that same old shaggy dress, But when she gets wearyTry a little tenderness.” — Otis Redding This blue planet, Mother Nature’s grand-daughter, maybe, snuggling behind bales of sweet-scented hay, giggling just a bit, peering over the straw, a look somewhere within apprehension and curiousity. I…
cool beans
I can’t and don’t want to explain the process – mental, emotional, spiritual – of how I get to where I am, say this Friday morning. Why I think this or that. Why there’s way less “opinion” in my life, more bowing to the plants and the loyalty of the “Kids” (stuffed, wooden, kitties) in…
we are the world
The holidays before Christmas were quite wonderful, and Christmas itself yesterday was lovely. I felt my mind slip a little yesterday, and again a bit this morning. It’s like that. “There’s a choice we’re making. We’re saving our own lives.” – ‘We Are the World’
a most wonderful time
The plan is to drive to the central California coast tomorrow, stay until Tuesday, and return. As such there will be no posts here Monday or Tuesday. And Wednesday, Christmas, surely has a glow all by itself. Christmas. If the creek don’t rise, and there ain’t no meltdown, I’ll be back here with something the…
sleigh rides
In the recliner, early reading with my coffee apparently not a thing this morning with so many swirling thoughts, I see the blue kingfisher on the sweatshirt draped over the chair with wheels a few feet away. A “Good to see you” without words. The kingfisher has a survival hunger within the intensity of its…
the dark sacred night
A week out from Christmas. In the spirit. The words of George David Weiss, Robert Thiele: I see trees of greenRed roses tooI see them bloomFor me and youAnd I think to myselfWhat a wonderful world I see skies of blueAnd clouds of whiteThe bright blessed dayThe dark sacred nightAnd I think to myselfWhat a…
what’s with these offers
Sunday morning Ann opens the office door and says, “I’m skipping yoga and going to see the king tides, if you want to come.” This facing my relatively set early Sunday schedule. And yet, on my knees each morning – something closer to breathing intention than praying – the words “All offers.” Opinion-less open mindedness,…
fortunately
I’ll begin the posts here this week with a passage from the Zen teacher John Tarrant: “Eventually we just start to accept. Not only do we not dislike our circumstances, we do not dislike our own states of mind, which is the key thing. We begin to think, ‘Fortunately I don’t get it yet.’ And…
include, include, include
Yesterday someone said, “I like ice cream but not broccoli.” I also heard this – “Appreciate your life.”
really good peanut butter
I’ve come across this word “elegance” a number of times lately. I’ve rather become enchanted with it. When am I not offered something akin to elegance when I simply walk out into the day – the first sips of coffee; standing before a green wall of bee-covered, butterfly-covered, hummingbird-covered yellow flowers; getting the chance to…
my dinner with Cameron
My son Cameron, who lives in Montana and who I haven’t seen in person for nearly two and a half years, has a work gig in Irvine – 84 miles up the 5 from San Diego – this morning and early afternoon. His plan is to complete the work at 2pm and cruise down the…
fats domino liked walking too
One day I was walking in the Everett Woods back in my hometown with my friend Donnie Sisson. We could begin walking into the woods right out from the end of the backyard of his family’s house. Wild guess – 1962. Along with us that day was my dog Taffy. I can’t remember if there…
sitting in chairs
I was introduced to two young men yesterday, in a hospital cafeteria about a mile from my home, for whom I’ve been offered the opportunity to provide a bit of support on the (their) job, and maybe help them open up a little more to the world and the folks in it. As I’ve been…
what’s that sound?
“No need whatsoever to have feelings or opinions or can’t-possibly-know expectations about showing up to a breakout room. Now this. In fact, never stop being a fool.” – my Tuesday Morning Pages I heard recently that a while back a man was asked how he could explain remaining married for 50 years, him being something…
go on, take a peek
Do you remember rounds? Songs ending with rounds, singing in rounds? Like this one – “Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.” Or here’s a more popular one, for the newer-aged among you – “God only knows where I’d be without you.” The effect,…
I know a place
I spend many of my Sunday mornings sitting in on an on-line talk from 10:30-noon. I pay $15 a month for that priviledge, and a bunch of other goodies. I’ve continued to be able to afford that. Yesterday’s talk was a dance with this statement – “Thank you very much. I have no complaints whatsoever.”…
home cooking
I strayed far off my keto pasture yesterday, begging a clear need for a serious dose of self-discipline moving forward, as long as the creek don’t rise and there ain’t no meltdown. And yet, weekends are for kids. Sort of like Trix. Kind of like tricks. The moon in the early-morning sky the last few…
bonfire from the night before
These last couple of years I’ve been visited regularly by memories of my childhood. Vivid, clear memories. Like then is now. Memories stretching up through my 20’s and 30’s. Even beyond. Earlier this morning I had the visual memory of walking sort of catty-corner across High Street and paying Kenny Page $18 for his bike,…
wandering about
As Thanksgiving approaches I am spending time in thought about this rather broken world, and my place in it. What’s my life? How I am? How available I am? Like the bodhisattva walking back into the market place with open hands – “How can I help?” Once a week I get to support a young…
my internet is wonky
This is me being all new-age and everything, making use of technology as a way to describe myself rather than, say, a chapter or two from the DSM-IV. This makes sense. Plus, a revelation came to me while writing my Morning Pages Saturday that the four words of the title of this post could be…
no title
When I was first coming around and hanging out with people trying to get and stay sober a day at a time, I’d say that ‘The Animals’ song, “Please don’t let me be misunderstood,” had been a constant theme of my life – that people wouldn’t get me – and inherent in that, get that…
that’s all folks
Yesterday someone from my very own current employer promised me some new hours when December rolls around.
a line on me
I don’t exactly remember who turned me on to the music/rock group ‘Spirit,’ it may have been a kid named Bob Mulroy from New Bedford, Massachusetts. A guy with whom I experienced very many substance abuse adventures on Cape Cod the school year of ’68/’69. One of the Spirit songs I’ve always liked is “Fresh…