What Lucy likes

I have noticed that Lucy, the adorable young girl-dog at the cafe likes to watch birds. She doesn't watch birds like an avid human bird-watcher, studious and quota driven, rather she sponges up information in a relaxed way. No lists, no diaries, no research. Just a soft fascination with those snacks-on-a-wing. She prefers to patronize the area close to the No Parking sign, where at times she has been known to crunch on a bit of loose concrete. It is a good spot for observing the goings-on at the intersection, the pear tree behind the barnsiding wood fence, the wisteria trellis across the street and the grass patch where she harvests greenery for better digestion.
I wonder what she sees. How she sees the birds. What goes through her mind.
Then I wonder about myself. How do I see things, what do I really like, what is my purpose, what am I feeling right now, how alive is my body, my brain, my heart. That's all.

talkin'bout road rage on a sunny slow day

It was Memorial day and the cafe closed early. Dang! I didn't get my daily dose of just sitting around in. Seems I overslept and didn't get into the cafe untill the Bank opens. I was flabergassed. Closed? Waddayamean, closed? What about my daily dose? There were some other layabouts laying about. We got to talking about important stuff, like road rage. Thank God I don't live in Seattle. The way I figure, every commuting hour in Seattle is worth a visit to a shrink. That's the way I feel. O.K., I am not a Captain of Industry, I know. Not even a corporal of industry. I may qualify as a private industry.
But the way I figure, every day living without road rage is worth a million. If more people did a lot of nothing, I figure, this would be a much better world. No commuting, no crap jobs, no B.S. No war in Iraq, Darfur, no meddling and mucking about. Doing nothing has not been explored as a profound statement for the times. It's easy to do in a do-do culture. Be-ing, just being, is a toughy.
I know the fears and the objections. Who is gonna pay the taxes for the Pentagon and the Natinal Spy Agency? The answer, dear naive reader, is simple: the same people as who is paying for them now! Your grandchildren!! (Gramatical error? No, it be Presidential newspeak, tank u vermuch.) Let's all drink to debt!
Oh man, I'm tired. Nap time! Wheee!

I've been watching

About the most ubiquitous electronic appliance in America is the television. I own the aparatus for receiving the signal, but do not utilize it. I got the TV for free. It is very easy to get a free TV. Nearly everyone has an extra TV and if you say that you are TV-less, within minutes they get you hooked-in. It is nearly a religion. I have been house and dog sitting and I've been watching. I am horribly addicted to TV, ever since I was a kid. The only way to mitigate my addiction is to say "No". Nancy Reagan would be proud of me. At this house I can't just say "No", I say "Yessir". And I watch and watch and watch.
One officially enters the television wasteland after midnight. Strange things begin to happen. I know I am tired and should go to bed, but I need to finish the movie or look for another program. With the remote control, the TV becomes totally non-physical, except the pointing finger that activates the channel flipper. My body melts into the couch. My brain blanks out. Only a small part of my brain does anything other than absorb the pablum spewing forth. That part is the quiet, sane part of me and it is no longer quiet. It is screaming. Turn this crap off and go to bed. What are you doing? Look at yourself, you are akin to nose snot, slime-ball! I studiously avoid hearing the voice of reason. Gee, aren't these comercials good!
Actually, the comercials are better than ever. Somebody expained to me that with the advent of TIVO, TV programs can be recorded while skipping the commercials. It is forcing the buy buy propagandists to resort to something much more creative so as to get the people to watch the commercials willingly. I even saw a talking gecko explain how that works (in a commercial). Cool. Another commercial gave the definition of inner strenght as a combination of knowing oneself and being connected to others. I was impressed, about the best working definition I've heard. Cool. Luckily I only have about a week of this before I return to my saner life of drinking smoking and carousing.

rainy days

One of the best things about rainy days is the "work at home" break in the scedule. Not that I have a scedule. I would like to have a scedule. No, I would like to follow the scedules that I make. No, I would like to follow the scedules that I make, so that I can deliciously ignore them. Yeah, that approximates the truth.
Rainy days, working in my shop, working on projects, putzing and puttering around, playing solitaire, making tea, getting a beer in the evening, what a day it would be. The rain this week has been good. It isn't the endless grey drizzle that descends like a streak of bad luck. It came with sunbreaks and touches of blue sky, soft and hard rain alternating, warm and fresh, uplifting. I like an "honest" rain. I like for the sky to bust wide and declare open season on drought. I like being amazed by the sheer fullness of clouds, generous and copious. I like watching the UFO bubbles appear and wink out in mudpuddles. I like jumping in, with both feet, into the middle of that pool of H2O. I like the smell of the rain when it first comes. Farmer Dave taught me that there is a word that describes that particular smell. Petrifor, I think it is called.
So if you ask me if I like the rain, chances are I would say "no". What I should say is "it depends". Yeah, that approximates the truth.

Internal Beauty

It has occured to me that one aspect of internal beauty is that it manifests itself outside the boundaries of the Self. It may seem a bit woo-woo or even trite to say this, but obviously, the world is what we make of it; we create ugliness and beauty. I have been running around with a image in my head, something I saw two nights ago. I was walking , late at night and the snails where out. They were migrating across a busy road, making a dash for the other side, for greener pastures. Now, snail dashing is a Zen sport, it is not as popular as the consumer sports such as curling or sumo wrestling. Snail races are notoriously boring and the critters difficult to kep in a straight line. What motivates the snail is the custom of crushing the losers, obviously a take off from both Polo's divet stomping and Aztec religious practices and boycotted by Bhuddists, who aren't much fun on the outside, as they are too damn occupied with cultivating internal beauty. Ah! got off on a tangent, but brought it back around very nicely, didn't I? So, as I was saying I saw a bunch of snails and one was crawling out of the gravel parking lot snail wasteland, hoping to cross the road unmolested and take up residence at Moore Clark, which is a low-rent, run-down part of town populated by transient artists and pidgeons. In the light of a streetlamp I noticed a silver dot trail in the shape of a backward question mark (obviously dyslexia is not only limited to humans). The series of dots gave it a regularity seldom found in nature exept among animals with a high-fiber diet. I was struck still, admiring the curve of it, the shining, glistening chain created by the snail and the street light. It wasn't untill later that it occured to me that the snail may have been sending a subtle message. What does a Backward Question Mark Mean?

poem-the secret smile

I stand between the sun and my shadow
my two loves, one hot
the other near.

One sister to thought
the other brother
to my body and earth.

She burns me and tantalizes
heady and aloof,
he lies and lies not.

When the cloud comes
comes the quiet,
the secret smile.

po'try, poe'tree

The poets have arrived. We have a poetry festival here is lil' ol' La Conner that brings in some remarkable people. I was working at the Cafe when a couple of them stumbled in, obviously suffering from caffeine need. They are good conversationalists. I would guess that writing poetry and telling stories have something in common. I cannot say that I do either very well, though I have had my moments.
They talked about the turkeys. It was amazing to them that we have turkeys roaming around town, cage-free and officially sanctified. Now that tulips are on the decline, turkeys are on the rise. Ican see it now, The Turkeys of La Conner save the town from anonimity. Fowl Poetry.

Days like summer

It is the middle of may and it feels like August. Warm early in the morning, tee shirt warm, with a bit of pleasant chill, a freshness in the air. The channel is smooth, reflecting the opposite shore nearly perfectly; a seagull swoops and dances in unison with its' reflection. In the distance, the fragile early morning mist hangs tenuous, veiling rows of poplar trees and expansive slight-violet plowed fields. The just-risen sun is impossibly orange and cheerful. I am headed to the cafe for coffee. Only the birds are my neighbors. The wisteria across from the cafe looks like a grape arbor, with white fruit. The flowers are delicately fragrant, exotic as if from a far away place. The blooms are dropping, a mass of white a week ago changing slowly to green. We get about seventy wisteria bloomings in our lifetime. So short, so few.

More than just a good cup of coffee

So, there have been some derogatory monikers attached to the cafe on Commercial street. One that especially itches me is the tag "looser's place". I guess in deeper reflection that is correct, as the owner has, in fact, lost a lot of money (read: invested), to keep the cafe open. In no way is it big enough to accomodate the whole town; I get wide-eyed at the thought of several hundred people waiting for coffee; spilling into the street. What a sight that would be. So, it does cater to those that live an alternative or retired lifestyle or both. The cafe is open during business hours, when working people work, so that influences the selection of customers. Since my primary career has been Prison avoider, which with my 'colorful' past I have done quite well (though it doesn't pay, the benefits are great). So, like some of the other losers, I spend way too much time at the Cafe and am not making hay while the weather is hot. I will at best, tag along at the bottom of the economic food chain and scrape up enough money for a meager life. The poor will always be with us. The losers too, as when there are winners, losers are created.
Having confessed my shortcomings, I will point out something that the casual observer cannot know. For one thing, Gretchen is a remarkable person and brings a rare compassion and wisdom to the cafe. I have noticed the difference in how I react to situations and how she does. Her reactions are life-affirming; live and let live. As a result, a wholeness is created and remarkable things happen. Between friends this may be common, but in the context of a communal gathering place, complexity rises and as do difficulties. To my knowledge, only one person has been excluded, not because of anything that Gretchen said, rather the person sensed that their behavior was realy unappealing and subsequently did not return.
In this context, I have observed some transformations in people. It is my conviction (yikes, wrong word: read belief), that the wholeness of the cafe is a primary factor or catalyst for these changes. For social beings acceptance is paramount, perpetual isolation is akin to death. I have seen this in my life and see it in the lives of some of my friends.
So, here at the cafe something important happens that cannot be duplicated in a clinical setting. There is a sincere concern for people and that concern is truly healing. Humane attention is manna for the psyche.

Energy crisis?

Every day the sun donates more energy on the US than all the oil ever used or will be used in the whole world. That is nine quadrillion kilowatt/hours per day. 9,000,000,000,000,000 is 9 quadrillion. Free! Gratis! That is worth about one thousand trillion dollars. Every day. Every day the sun spends that much on us in the United States. That is how much it costs to run the weather, grow the plants and heat the place. It is equivalent to 4.25 trillion barrels of oil. Every day. What generosity! The Sun is good. We are swimming in energy. There is enough for us, our kids, their kids, all other people and their descendents for ever and ever, all we all need, plopped on just the U.S. in only one day. Tomorrow comes more.
There is no energy crisis. We are thirsty people standing neck deep in delicious water.
There is something going on, none-the-less. The crisis is called "free market manipulation", and it keeps us in the dark, untill whoever's got their finger on the light switch deigns to turn the lights on. But wait, does that sound like a conspiracy theory? It must be, so don't listen to the mad man rant. Move on, folks, he's just nuts.
Have you heard of ENRON? Energy price fixing? Rolling black-outs is what they specialized in. They conspired to blackmailing or extorting energy consumers. Just a few bad appples? Hardly. The stench goes all the way up to the prez--Mr. Dick "F-U" Cheney. What is the secret energy policy of the current administration and why is it secret? Paranoid types like myself want to know.

The fundamental mystery of life

Not another quote!:
If we could only find the courage to leave our destiny to chance, to accept the fundamental mystery of our lives, then we might be closer to the sort of happiness that comes with innocence. This profundity from Luis Bunuel, who was a filmmaker.
Time for a homily? Best laid plans---,etc. Just might be that too much planning and expectations takes the flavor out of life and to be open to whims of fate, to expect chance encounters, is the key to living like a king or queen. Too much handling and overcooking ruins the delicacy of many foods. Lao Tzu uses the metaphor of cooking a small fish as an illustration about how easy it is to overinterfere in the process of life. The hardest thing for many painters is knowing when to stop painting. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
For us that have been trained to be too linear, the concept that the shortest distance between two points is in reality a curve, is a bit too much to swallow. It just goes against the grain. Trusting in the intrinsic benevolence of this Universe, through aligning oneself with subtle tendencies, just too frightening. Yet the anecdotal evidence of the sheer goodness of (IT, God, the Tao) is brimming and overflowing. Scientifically, Chaos is Order.
Let's all take small steps of trust. Nothing wrong with testing the water.

importing the important

I confess, I have been feeling overwhelmed lately. I have been working long hours (as much as three or four a day). My winter depression had evaporated any drive to "get stuff done", so now I have stacks of undone tasks, chores and want-tos. It is real easy to get caught up in these important details and fill the days with a carnival ride of establishing order and making lists of keepups.
Here is a quote that I ran across this morning while wasting time on the internet:

"The only real valuable thing is intuition." A. Einstein

Good ol Al. He also said that time, as the common man perceives it, does not exist and he said that reality is merely a persistent illusion. More enigmas for me, while I am trying to solve some conundrums like why doesn't my floor vacuum itself, when will they invent self-washing dishes and what does it mean that there are dusty spiderwebs in my shop.
I have noticed that several people have complained to me about clutter (thankfully in reference to their own lives, not mine). So, there must be something afoot. If we mostly did what is important, cutting out the "fluff", what would that look like?
The only real valuable thing is intuition.
Take that to heart, Roberto. Thanks, Bob-o.

Would you like fear or fun with that order,Sir?

I have been thinking about what motivates us. Some have said it is greed; some say it is survival; some say it is spirituality; some say it is social. I figure it is either fear or fun. Fear is well-known as a motivator and it is used extensively in politics to control a population. Religion, too. The fear of going to Hell is very exiting. It is a breathtaking game, where one wrong move dooms one to everlasting suffering of a most excrutiating nature. Perpetual torture, administered by fiendish demons with nothing better to do and endless time to perfect devious tricks.

Often, we get caught up in the hum-drum dailyness of our lives and we create some exitement that doesn't help anybody, rather causes animosity in the community. I guess that comes with familiarity and complacency. What we need is a good tyrant. Something like a natural disaster or a common affliction, pulls the community together and we have a common cause. Trivial things like Joe's unmowed lawn seen innocuous then, when facing a flood or cleaning-up after a hefty wind storm. It seems that without these sorts of major and minor causes, we chew at each other instead.
If a fiend can't be found or doesn't appear, then what? It's time for FUN! So, I suspect that having fun, looking forward to fun, watching others enjoy fun, creating and dispersing FUN is as good as the GUN (hey, it rymes)! It may be the only remedy to mass hallucinations such as perpetual war on terror or our side is better than their side. So, perhaps the way to healing is through fun, so let's all go out there and get some! It's Patriotic.

the vibrant greeness of freshly sprung trees

I have been noticing the trees flower and leaf out. Yet it wasn't untill a couple of days ago that it sunk in. Spring is here and the trees have mostly sprung a new coat of downy green foliage. The freshness of the new leaves is riveting. No dust, no chewed holes, no waxy protective covering, no history, no fear, just a joyfull expansion into the world, an exuberant expression of life.
It reminds me of young children and how they explode out of houses to play and explore, arriving in the yards full volume, hardly touching the stairs, the porch, whirlwinds of pent-up energy, a controlled bundle of chaos. It is a stretch to compare the stoic rootedness of trees to whirling darlings. If looked at over time, and time is a stretchy experience, then the yearly leaf ins and outs would look like fireworks or pulsations or vibrations.
In Germany the new leaves are harvested and eaten. Clipped with shears, the delicate salad is available once a year for a few days, less than a week.
Last week there was a layer of pink snow on the ground underneath flowering cherry trees. It is marvelous to see. Totally incongruous, pink on green grass, a soft fluffy sheet spread yearly, lasting but a moment in time, a blink. It is all so temporary. The seasons, our lives, even ages and eons. Our universe expands and collapses, living for a short 50 billion years, over and over, forever and ever, like the trees that yearly leaf and drop, like children breathing, like neurons firing rythmically in our brains.

Sunday mornings

It can get packed in the cafe, sometimes. Standing room only. There is some kind of pressure generated that some thrive on; I pull down the brim of my hat, lean into the cafe like facing a strong wind and get quiet as I weave my way towards the coffee pumppot. After adding milk and sugar, a quick stir, good mornings said, the pressure pushes me back out, for a needed break. I like people, need people,in thruth; yet unlike my vices, small amounts is all I can take. If People were a drug, then invariably a tolerance gets built and more is needed for the same effect. Looking back on my social history, that has been the way socializing worked. I may die from an overdose. I am staying away from parties held in stadiums.
If there is an overflow at the cafe, chances are it is a Sunday. Hopefully it is summer and the scene spills out into the street. Otherwise, I face the elements with only my bones and cigarettes to keep me warm. I smoke furiously. The chairs are cold and whisper promises of comfort if only I would sit in this one or the other so that they get relief from the chill. The meager roof chinsels out a bare strip of protection from the rain. Buddy, the oldman cafe dog, is huddled next to the building, snug as a nail in wood. I wish for a warm fur coat like his. Sometimes he comes over to get his ears ironed, they do get wrinkled at night. He puts his head between my legs and I cover my knees with his ears and smooth them out, enjoying the palm size patches of warmth. I tell him he has no pockets and he gets angry; more blood rushes to his ears. At least my knees are in the tropics. I wish I could make myself small and crawl into his ear, covering myself with those baby blanket flaps. But then I would smell like dog earwax.
Writing like this, making stuff up is a lot like dreaming. Last night I dreamt I could drive my little truck right into the grocery store, parking near the checkout stand. That was convenient and brilliant! Except then the way out got filled with grocery carts and stuff and I couldn't get my truck back out. It turned into a nightmare as I tried to drive out the side entrance and stairs appeared where there were none before, aisles shrunk, corners where there were straightways and the checkout clerk that was helping me got involved in a major remodeling project, complete with concrete busting tools. He hurt his head, blood flowing and me totallly aghast and beside myself. I was just about tearing my hair out, which is cool, as I don't have hair. That dream somewhat resolved itself when a way out appeared after I protested loudly.
With all that trouble, in the next dream somebody stole my moneyfat wallet but gave it back to me right away. Thank you, Dreamgod. I learned my lesson and will resolve to leave my wallet at home before I travel to dreamland and park my truck in the parking lot like everybody else.

Our own money

Now that our government is printing money 26 hours a day and "misspeaking" about inflation stats and not publishing the account of money supply in the collective kitty, I ask : is it time for us to have our own money, yet? We could very easily organize (very legal and possibly tax exempt) a iron-clad, inflation proof La Conner dollar. I am, unfortunately, not capable enough (yet) to pull this off, but by the time hard reality hits us across the back of the noggin, I may be organized and savy enough to launch this revolutionary economic tool. If anyone out there has any interest, I would like to collaborate, in the meantime, educate,educate and educate myself.

Poem-Butter Golden Sammi

Sammi opened the window and
The sun stole in
Licked the butter
There's no butter in the house

Sammi opened the box and
Time went by
Turned the bread green

It molted and became a butterfly
Sammi opened the cat door and
The butter fly away

Golden butter turned to sun

Time flew by and laughed
Sammi smiled as the days dripped down
Butter rose and sat
Flying through the sky

Bread kept molding green

Sammi licked the butter
Wouldn't eat the bread nor
Green cheese
Just the golden butter
Streaming from the sky
Soaking Sammi's skin
Butter golden Sammi

sidewalk talk

When the weather is nice the cafe expands. The scene shifts outside as people draw-up chairs and enjoy the sunny day. Invariably a loose circle is formed and anyone walking down the sidewalk gets included, for as long as they like. Of course, there is so much to be talked about, ranging from the personal (How are you? What are you up to today?) to community (When is the parade? Is it beer time yet?) to sports (How about the Mariners!) to national (What we need in this country is either some government accountability or a free beer day) to international (How about those nuke tote'n Iranians! Let's joyfully bomb 'em back into the stone age, yeah!) to metaphysical ( He who talks doesn't know, he who knows is too overawed to talk) and lots of stuff in between and to both sides.

I miss the good old days, when we had a couple of dedicated Republicans to stoke the fires of political debate. That was then, when we celebrated the dawn of the CEO Prez. Ahh, those were the days. The diehard naysayers were put in their place, when the victory was declared. Oh well.

It's just real nice, it feels good, a slow start to the day. It reminds me of breathing. The cafe opens in the morning and swells with customers, the morning crowd, the afternoon scene; inhaling people and exhaling at closing time, day after day. A cafe can be the heart of a community.

the quiet of early morning

I've had the by now infamous recurring flu, the kind that grabs you and hangs on for six weeks; you get better, almost normal and then, like a horror movie about ghosts, "We're ba-a-ck." So, last night I went to bed with chills and a mantra not taught by some enlightened monk: "Crap, crap, crap, crap,----", which was appropriate since it verbalized perfectly how I felt. I will repeat the wise words of a Mexican friend of mine: "There is no bad that doesn't bring some good, nor good that doesn't bring some bad." In the spirit of that, I will report that I had been concerned with the increasing tendency for me to go to bed later and later over the past month and at least today, I got up at a good Christian hour, right about when I would agonizingly retire normally. How refreshing.
It is still dark at Four, for those of you that sleep like babes well fed. It starts to get light just before five and the quiet is, well, remarkable. I suspect that there is some kind of thinking field hanging about and at about four a.m. the pollution level of the "thinkosphere" is not only lowest, but since so many of us are in REM sleep and dreaming, is actually good for creative endeavors. So, you don't have to be crazy or worse, a farmer, to have a reason to rise that early. The wild turkeys of La Conner are up and turkeying at that hour, need I say more?

When I used to go to Mexico, I often stayed in the small house at the back of my friend Victor's palapa (coconut palm leaf covered roof) restaurant and would get up early. It got very boring after about seven in the evening and going to bed was the highth of entertainment. I would wake at four, well rested. My alarm clock were the village roosters and the dogs, who would get into a shouting match starting at about three a.m. and being considerably weller rested, by five the crowing and barking echoed even into the deepest corners of my cranium. It takes a few weeks to get used to that, and then the good stuff starts. I would make good coffee, with a real coffee maker and write letters, diary, poems or study spanish, all the while noticing the changes in the light, the comings and goings of birds and locals, the sound of the sea waves breaking on the beach, the coughing of early morning Marihuana smokers, who would come to the scenic vista to start the day (in a more mellow way).
I miss that, so when I rise early, I get excited by the thought of going to the cafe, long before anyone else might arrive and have a Mexico morning. It is nearly seven, I wonder what is for breakfast and is it siesta time yet?