Saturday Play
I finished the “Exegesis” this morning. (Philip K Dick). It left with the idea of ‘Contemplation’, the forever way to enter the ‘Mysteries’ is through contemplation. Yesterday the word was ‘Compassion’. The week before, ‘Play’.
How long did it take me to read the book, I couldn’t say what day I began, though I feel I have been reading it (900 pages) throughout this time of isolating from others not immediate family, sheltering. Come in, she said, I’ll give ya shelter from the storm. Which feels like the book, The Exegesis, singing to me. And the power of words, which I have long known and on occasion experienced, for sure thrilled to, and as of late I have been focused – as a goal, on ‘word count’. Pile up the words, Brah, on this keyboard – now that penmanship has fallen into oblivion – return to this very keyboard and hunch over and stab down on individual letters and the rare number with these two index fingers – all I know of the technical skill – staring down without final memorization of the lettered-layout, and rave on. Riff on and out. This is the everything and now this morning it has been shared with and impressed upon me once again – one more time – as to its importance. My world, my everything, it infuses me always with compassion and love and play to share with others, to love my wife and my kids, to save the planet, to all along, while pulling myself up and owning my own not to take myself so damn serious. Both at once. And it will fall out with the writing, with the words, the piling up of words, verticle, verticle, beginning to see the light (Velvets).
2) Oh, the poetry I could write if I only writ, sat right here and channeled life images and wrote them down – down, down ala Shangri-las – down here, so many creations, so many painted friends, cheering me on with the idea, again, of ‘Play’. A most worthy use of time gifted, and now this, overheard at a 5:30 meeting in Edgewater, Florida sometime around 1987 – “This is the day the Lord hath made, and I will rejoice in it.” Coming via the two ditch-diggers who showed on bicycles once a week, dirt-and-sweat-streaked skin, like the Peanuts character, Pigpen, dirt and dust flying off and around. Prophets. In the “Exegesis”, the idea of ‘Play’ the sacredness of play and play, now, these times, man, I could rave on regarding playing. And how not only not to see time wasted – when at play – but time as celebrated, so watch a movie, an HBO series, read a sci-fi book, eat breakfast while perusing the daily snoozing, a long walk, a private talk, down to the wetlands amidst a symphony of birdsong. Drawing, coloring, watering and feeding, spraying, Bro, the indoor houseplants so as to trick them they are back where they belong back where it all began back, one could say, to their roots, we all, like The ‘Turtles’ sang, ‘Happy Together’.
Yeah, listening to music is play and for me, see, writing becomes play it’s been play probably always even when I was being paid for it as both a sports writer and a poet, and is it playful to suggest these roles as one in the same? Not if you’ve ever read Peter Gammons it isn’t. Or Roger Angell. So, not only did the ditch-diggers tell me, remind me it’s the day the Lord hath made, so suitable for rejoicing, but I listened in my cars and trucks for years cassette tapes encouraging personal growth and confidence and chasing after dreams, you go boy, and some were the words of motivational speaker Les Brown who I heard (repeatedly) say, “Any day I wake up and there ain’t a white chalk outline around my body I know is going to be a great day”, which I’m darn sure holds hands with “rejoicing in the day” and a case can be made, well, let me put it this way –
My big goal for this day is to play.
Play on.