Mandolins! Movies! Misdirection!

Brainstorm for a story: The lead singer of a commercially successful folk band is married to a time-travelling video store clerk. Hilarity ensues. 

Not believable though. Commercially successful folk singers don’t exist. 

You may place all groans in the comments below.  

Dinner with the Chef

I dreamt last night that Partner and I were on vacation with Tony Bourdain. We were floating in a giant swimming pool, full of other vacationers, including the kids, and presumably Tony Bourdain’s family. Tony Bourdain invited us to dinner, but Partner had some work to do, so he encouraged Tony Bourdain and I to go out to dinner without him. We had appetizers at one place. Dinner at another place. Cocktails at yet another, after being toured through the fancy new kitchen. And at each place, Tony Bourdain knew people.

It was neither obviously a sex dream or a food dream, but managed to suggest both. We debated politics and philosophy over tapas and tequila, alone and with acquaintances. The evening was full of flirtatious innuendo, but never crossed over into vulgarity or transgression. His friends made a few inappropriate comments, but I fought my own banter battles and managed to have a charming time with the notorious chef-traveller. Until I woke up.

All this is to say what you may have guessed, that he works too hard, but I have my own version of the tall, sexy chef. Flirty without being vulgar, intellectually challenging and funny without being tedious, and who isn’t afraid to spontaneously make fresh mayonnaise at a party.

10 Things: Loving, living, and letting go

By popular demand, I bring you 10 Things inspired by this quote/meme, shared on Facebook this morning:

“In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.” —Buddha

Apologies ahead of time for the rambling philosophization that gushed out. If you want to play along in the comments, skip over my bit and write your own 10 Things first, then come back and read mine. So, the first 10 Things that come to mind after reading that quote…

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1. I’m slicing up the three pieces of the quote and considering the value of love in all its forms as the foundation for all of our choices and actions. Quantity is implied here, but not the quantity of people or things we love but the amount we love, the amount we give love or put love into the world.

2. One aphorism leads to another. The more you give, the more you get.

3. I was thinking of the different ways we can love, and the marbles that started rolling around in my head were the Greek forms. I thought of eros and communitas, but then I couldn’t help myself and looked them up (I like to get things right; I have a hard time letting go of accuracy). Agape, eros, philia, storge. We are capable of loving in many ways. The deep, true love we hold rare and precious; desire and aesthetic and physical love; the love of friends and family and community that requires virtue, equality and familiarity; and, of course, tolerance (also with many forms). 

4. None of the three statements is explicit about their antitheses. Anger, hate, abhorrence, intolerance, contempt, etc. Is the first phrase — how much you loved — or the judgment implied in the opening, like a bucket that gets filled up by love and emptied by the detrimental emotions? Is it that simple/complex?

5. Gentle living reminds me of parenting babies and toddlers and preschoolers. Gently when you pet the cat. Gently when you hug your brother. Gently when you touch Gramma’s face so you don’t poke her eyes out. Gently. I don’t say that word out loud to the Sonars very much anymore. They have pretty decent self control, which is what we monitored with the word ‘gentle’ in their wee years. But perhaps I should still use it. Gently with your words to your peers who are entering an age of sharp-tongued anxiety. Gently with your brothers who will likely be your longest friends and fiercest allies, even though they may always know how to push your buttons. Gently on the earth. Don’t waste the water or the paper or the electricity. Gently with your mama who is both proud to watch you grow and gain your independence and fearful of seeing you stumble along the way. 

6. How gently you live can then be kindness or conservation or through word or action it can mean minimizing the damage that we inevitably do to the people and the world around us. So that if loving much is maximizing what we give, then living gently is minimizing the harm we cause. 

7. How gracefully we let go of what is not meant for us. In my clumsy understanding of Buddhism, letting go gracefully seems like the ultimate goal. Not allowing material goods to weigh you down. Not allowing negative thoughts or experiences or people to weigh you down. To release the weight of everything. Though in pragmatic terms for the normal human who feels angry and jealous and slighted and loves things and people and feels sentimental and attached, then letting go gracefully is challenging and requires a strong hold on the first two concepts. Maximize what we give, minimize what we take or harm. 

8. My hand is tired and far more minutes have slipped by than a traditional 10 Things exercise usually occupies. I suppose that is the nature of philosophical contemplation. It takes time and might hurt. 

9. The sky just turned much more dim and the wind is gusting. An imaginary line on a weather map is manifesting as a line of force in the sky that blusters across the coastal plains like a dust squeegee pulling cold air behind it. 

10. That dust-squeegee metaphor is both hilarious and terrible. I love it and I give it to you with love, letting go of any embarrassment I feel about it as I release it into a gust of wind and into your eyeballs. Gently, I hope, for the sake of your eyeballs. 

Bobby Pins in the Desert

I leaned over the sink and ate cake with my fingers. I listened as Jeff Buckley broke my heart again with that final kiss in “Last Goodbye.” I was alone in the house for the first time since May.

Ideas were tripping over each other, clamoring for my attention, but mostly I was thinking about writing, specifically about my writing practice. About when and how to get my butt in the seat and keep it there long enough to put down coherent ideas. I was thinking about inspiration. Not the inspiration for stories, but motivational inspiration, like Sugar’s exhortation to write like a motherfucker.

This summer Partner read a leadership development book called The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz. I have no idea whether the book is worthwhile or not (I didn’t read it), but one bit has stuck with both of us, not just because it is something that we have always done well, but also because it is something we must continue to do.

Ritualize what’s important.

Want to remember to floss more often? Do it at the same time every day. Make it part of a dental hygiene routine. Want to get more exercise? Make a ritual out of it by incorporating exercise time into the patterns of your day. Want to write a book that others will enjoy reading? You get the idea. First, figure out what’s important to you, and then incorporate actions into the day in such a way that you don’t have to waste time choosing to do them. You just do them. Ritually.

My favorite rituals in our house surround bedtime. There are bedtime jobs, a fixed list of things that the kids do automatically (if noisily), like dental care and pet care and putting together their launch pad for the next morning. Once the jobs are done, we settle together on the couch and I read to them. Lately they’ve started knitting while they listen to me. The routine has evolved as their needs and abilities have changed, but the central actions are familiar, and at least for me, comforting in their regularity.

Around the time Partner was reading the leadership book and we were discussing how we could adapt and expand our rituals to emphasize what’s important for us, we wandered into an odd place called Tinkertown. Many things affected me there, as I mentioned in my post about the place back in June. One thing stuck in my brain and has floated the surface almost every day since then. I’d like to say it was one of the quirky displays in the ad hoc museum, but it was actually a cheap, mass-produced trinket in the gift shop. These tiny wooden boxes, called Dream Boxes. Their explanation suggested that if you had a goal or a dream to accomplish, you could write that goal on a scrap of paper and put it in the box. Then each night before sleep, you could read the note. The practice, the instructions claimed, would help the dream become a reality. A reminding ritual.

What would you write on the scrap of paper in your Dream Box, sweet peas? I’m writing mine now.