mostly

Mostly I just want to drink coffee. Mostly I just want to buy books, used and cheaper the better. For the most part I’m open to every person now, though, mostly I’d prefer a rendevous in a quiet room, drinking coffee, reading cheap, used books, Ann the only other person in sight. Mostly she prefers being with people – her energy comes from there she says – while mostly I prefer actions and behaviors and celebrations and, even, ruminations that do not require anybody else. Though hanging out with Ann is very cool.

I said this all to my Zen teacher – Sarah Roshi – and she listened and gave me quiet looks, offering a suggestion or two, the kind of thing even regular people say when they hope you’ll be coming back into the world of others. Mostly I have shined those suggestions on, all the while clear I have never been more available to members of the species than now, 75 plus years in.

Mostly my heart is filled with the desire to become a chronic doodler, chronic to the point where members of the species talk and gossip and offer heart-felt and mostly genuinely loving concern. Don’t they know, I’d just rather be drinking coffee. Reading marvelous books. Practicing doodling. Hanging out with Ann, and sometimes in Oakland and other places. Me, here, being all silent in response to each morning dove which shows during zazen and sings to call me home.

Home. Peanut butter never runs out there. And, anyway, I’ve never left.