that’s the ticket

This is a don’t-start-the-car day, which means all sorts of opportunity for localized adventures and moment after moment of joy. Joy, said here, as the I see me in this place in this moment and I am aware that life happens and I watch it and quite often dig it, and earlier today, coffee in the recliner, not yet light, blinds drawn, over-head floor lamp shining friendly beams, ongoing, I had a contest, no, better call it a survey, come floating into my mind. I often use that personal expression describing my mind at work (even when at rest) “floating into my mind”, it feels like that – not there, there, gone – which gone is where they go, these thoughts. Also earlier I was writing about what could be a photographic memory right at the moment, like I have these thoughts show up and as they are tailing off I say “Cool” to myself, I like the way that came together, it says whatever it says (always hopeful and happier) clearly and understandable, oh, there it goes, what exactly was it? Which, this isn’t old age and building senior moments or early onset, this is a life-time experience – geez, I wish I could remember what I was just thinking because it felt (to me) sort of profound, and saying sort of isn’t me hedging my bets, it’s just my “profound” may be someone else’s guffaws, but how would I ever know if I didn’t shout it out into the day and there it is and I’m gone, I’m, already off on the next experiment and adventure and peeking through the forest of a day’s moments to that path just over there, wonder where it leads?

So, the idea of a survey came to mind, and it was pick one of these two answers to this statement  — “It makes the best sense to always maintain a positive attitude”, your choices being “Easy” and “Easier said than done”, which the latter I guessed to myself would likely come out on top, and I’d love to be wrong about that and maybe I am, reminds me of my old running buddy Frenchie from Charlestown always saying, “I don’t know nothing about nothing” (no double negative diminishing what he so clearly was meaning). Maybe most folks will say it’s always easier to maintain a positive attitude no matter what the deal is, my don’t-know mind is always open for relevant info. I offered up (in my mind) – back there in the thoughts floating in and out – the example of being stuck in a horrible traffic jam, like seems like you’ve been sitting there not moving forever, and it’s wicked hot and the radio is playing one crap song after another. So, have a positive attitude – Easy? Easier said than done? And what sort of lead me into this little thicket of thinking (including where do they come from, these thoughts from nowhere) was remembering a line I’d read in a magazine about a zillion years ago, way back when, which was in an interview of this guy who’s taken his sailboat out into the ocean, big-time sailor, and been in a storm and ended up wrecked on an island and was there alone for 30 days until rescuers came along and rescued him, and back on regular land he was asked how he was able to handle it, primarily a question about emotion, and his statement and the sentence I clearly remember was, “The difference between and ordeal and an adventure is attitude.”

So, I’ve been remembering that the last few days or weeks just cause the way my life is these days and how I think about it and notice it, and that likely provoked, at least influenced, the out-of- nowhere thoughts in the early head and then the survey questions — and what if it was that simple? That simple all the time? Every single situation and event and experience throughout the day was met with a positive attitude? Life would be different. So, there’s that, and possibly I will post that survey and be all scientific about tallying up voted results, but probably I won’t. My mind ain’t all that interesting to others, and that’s okay with me. Like Dr. Frankenfurter says to Janet in ‘Rocky Horror’ – “I didn’t make him for you.” But, back to the guy’s interview following his rescue, and like I was leaning this morning, ever since I first read it (30 years ago) and have thereafter remembered and sometimes it’s popped into my head when necessary, so to decrease suffering with a pleasant mindfulness, how I feel lately is that my focus was never on the right word. All these years focusing on “Attitude”, when right there in front of me and traveling with me, in other words, always here, was the word “Adventure”. Like Scottie in the ‘Star Trek 4’ movie – “Aye laddie, that’s the ticket.” I could, thinking it right now, of course offer a survey about do you experience your life and all sorts of times in it as adventure or not? I don’t know. I’m thinking of writing a book within that vast milieu, but that doesn’t feel like quite as cool a question as the positive attitude one. Then again, I sit here alone in my room – a not-so-distant cousin of Emily Dickinson – and think what I’m thinking and getting down onto the Word Doc has some relevance to anyone anywhere outside these four walls and I’m quite clear maybe it doesn’t, and I’m just as clear my obligation as the me of me is to think it up and share it. Throw it out there.