Couch Surfing at 70

“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…

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…

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’

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

Yesterday someone said, “I like ice cream but not broccoli.” I also heard this – “Appreciate your life.”

Morning note to self – Don’t be so thinky.

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…

Grateful for time spent with my son Cameron. He is a remarkable being.

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…

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…

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…

“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…

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 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.”…

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…

Here, giving thanks.

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,…

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…

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…

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…

Yesterday someone from my very own current employer promised me some new hours when December rolls around.

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…

“Twenty years of schooling and they put you on the day shift.” – Bob Dylan, ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ Let’s see, there’s 12 years back there in the Wareham public schools. There’s another seven between Cape Cod Community and Salem State, scoring that piece of ‘Bachelor’s’ paper. Then there’s like three months of ‘Fiction Writing’ at…

This is some of the geography in my life: lived four and a half years in Florida; lived almost 12 and a half years in Oregon; now, among four ventures under the California sun, four and a half years here; it leaves a smidge over 54 years living in Massachusetts. I was there when all…

This morning a chilly breeze blew in through the open kitchen window while I was preparing coffee. Yesterday I walked to the library and checked out the movie, “a good year,” because it’s gentle and sweet. In a zoomed Zen Koan group in Kentucky yesterday afternoon, the Roshi said, “Fall into the world.” Quite like…

I applied for three jobs yesterday, it would not be a stretch to call them freaky. Two had at least a bit of charm. The other would replicate needs and devotions and semblances of skill from like when I was in the good old days of a string of program director and similar leadership positions.…

Yesterday was such an interesting day. Varieties of offers, invitations, and acceptances. Unfortunately I’m not in a place to talk about some of it, probably most of it. Secret handshakes, family jewels, a growing yearning for something else. Something other. Like that. I can tell you that yesterday was my son Spenser’s 32nd time around…

I was thinking about grandparents yesterday. I mostly didn’t have any – my father’s parents had died before I was born, and my mother’s mother. My mother’s father was around for a while in my early childhood, though he only spoke Portuguese, and was sort of scary. At least to little me. He had remarried,…

I live in a country that values anger more than it values kindness.  And Camarillo is burning. I’ve cried a bunch these last couple of days.

I watched Godzilla yesterday, the original from 1954. Actually I clicked away from it right after Godzilla had destroyed Tokyo and was disappearing back into the bay, before they kill him with that pill thing. Stuff’s pretty black and white in that b/w movie. Good old days – though not for Tokyo. I also watched…

When I was much younger I would go to Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire, sometimes alone but usually with a friend or two. Highways traveled to smaller roads, out from the town of Jaffrey on Route 124. I or we would pass the state park entrance and drive up to a place we’d discovered, a…

From the Moody Blues ‘Days of Future Passed’ – Breathe deep the gathering gloomWatch lights fade from the every roomBedsitter people look back and lamentAnother day’s useless energy spent.Impassioned lovers wrestle as one;Lonely man cries for love and has none;New mother picks up and suckles her son;Senior citizens wish they were young. Cold-hearted orb that…

“I’m glad I’m still alive (class ’67) cause I live for this.” – This is a comment I left two weeks ago on the YouTube recording of “Heaven Must Have Sent You” by the musical group The Elgins (1966). I like that comment. I came across it today while I was listening to that amazing…

I have a Zoom interview at 10:30 this morning with a program named “All Things Are Possible.” Who wouldn’t want to work for an outfit with such a cool name? While writing my Morning Pages a while ago I tried to anticipate possible questions for me – taking into consideration both versions of my resume…

I decided to randomly select a photo from my “Pictures” section on the old Dell here, and allow whatever showed up to inspire today’s Couch Surfing post. A few whispered, but this one said “Hey.” And so…. This elephant painting. See the blue blue sky, the purple mountains’ magesty, all this green. “What’s that spell?”…

Somewhat spontaneously on Monday I scrolled up and watched the movie “The Magic of Belle Isle” on the free, commercial’d Tubi streaming channel. Late morning through mid-afternoon, with fits and starts, around a limited lunch and a bit of recycling. Also, I think, while imaginging myself playing a sea-foam green telecaster guitar through my rather…

Sunday morning, celebrating my new fun, sleek, bitchin’ resume, I listened to 738 billion cover versions of what I always considered The Monkees’ “I’m Not Your Stepping Stone.” Fun is good. For instance – Paul Revere and the Raiders; Minor Threat; The Sex Pistols; Peter Tork (solo); The Liverpool Five; The Merton Parkas; Cardboard Brains;…

I have looked at hundreds amd hundreds of resumes as a director of multiple adolescent and adult treatment programs. The tendency, my tendency, is to take any resume more than two pages and aim it as the nearest trash can. Because reading and evaluating resumes can be crazy making. Like when there’s 50 for one…

I interviewed for the position of ‘Developmental Paraprofessional’ a week ago today. I mentioned it was about to happen in last Friday’s post, and that it had happened in Monday’s. This from Monday – “Also last Friday I interviewed for a job, in an ongoing effort to find new money. It was my favorite interview…

Gibberish being just alright with me, like that Doobie Brothers song except a little different. That saying, “No news is good news,” feeling a little off this Thursday. My position is no news is no news. I had the most lovely conversation with my son Cameron on the phone late yesterday afternoon. He’s an amazing…

I went to bed at 7:30 last night and woke at 10:30, tossing and turning nearly another hour before giving in to awake-ness at 11:20. Water on my face in the bathroom, dressed, on my knees in the dark front room in what feels like ‘intention’ for the day – not drinking, being kind, open…

“Like Vimalarkiti she shuts her mouth, following the old way. All day long, she sits within the gate. She does not tell anyone her inner treasure. When she sees the Blue Mountain through her veranda, and recognizes it, she feels she has spoken too much.” I cannot remember exactly from which of my ‘Zen’ books…

I have sent out an email attachment with the file of my new book to six folks, identified as Oregon, Rhode Island, New Jersey, California, and Massachusetts twice – Quincy and Malden. A sentence in the email asking for a ‘general impression.’ In my Pages earlier I was wondering, in writing, why I had done…

I have an interview for a job, scheduled for 10am this morning. The interview will take place via video conference. It is suggested I dress ‘business casual.’ The sixth Koan in the “Gateless Gate” collection of Zen Koans is, “Buddha holds up a flower.” The Buddha is scheduled to preach to his followers, and when…

I wonder if I find myself this morning in a state like Lewis Carroll may have found himself in anticipation of his poem ‘Jabberwocky?” Let’s see — There was a cow-ness to the gentility when lugging the dancing library all the way home. Winter cannot wait, Brian Wilson feels the giggly stuff. Once on a…

When I was a kid growing up in Wareham, Massachusetts we had an after-school hangout at Jay’s Drug Store. It was pretty much a typical drug store/pharmacy place, with the addition of a real long counter fronted by a lot of those stools you could spin around on. I’d say a delicacy for a junior…

I have written a new book. An electric copy of which is presently somewhere in the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon, waiting on thoughts from a young woman traveling a similar path. At some point I may go into the how’s and why’s of it – what encouraged me to set out on a journey…

I bought my Sunday groceries Friday afternoon when Ann said she was going to Sprout’s, just so I could hang out with her. “The only true currency in this world is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool.” – Lester Bangs, “Almost Famous” Me to a job interviewer HR person Friday morning –…

I’d like to talk about a few of the rare acts of consistency in my life. Let’s see: my meditation practice; my Morning Pages; this Blog. I began meditating in 2008, while living with my son Spenser in a winter rental down the end of Cape Cod. A book from the North Truro library titled…

My Zen practice leans into – Just this here now. Wednesday afternoon at the zoo.