I Cheat at Meditating...

I have tried meditating several times throughout my life.  Never seem to have much luck with it.  Six years ago I was diagnosed with ADD.  Several events in my life were said to be a result of my diagnosis; going to jail a couple of times, relationships, accidents, stuff like that.  Nobody ever said anything positive about being ADD.  Maybe someone should do a study on the positive aspects of ADD, like being able to multitask like a motherfucker.

It helps explain all my fruitless experiments with meditation.  Everything printed about meditation indicates the need for a "still" mind.  The purpose is to quiet the mind and be mindful of the moment.  Nothing else exists, just the timelessness of the now.  Then a certain enlightenment creeps up on you and you smile that beatific smile of a knowledgeable Buddhist.

As much as I've tried, that has never been my experience.  My mind is busy.  I have thoughts that compete for attention.  "Me next!  Me next!" says the food thought.  There is all of this mental detritus floating in and amongst the valid thoughts competing for attention.  The detritus is mixed in with the enormity of the other thoughts.  It's kind of like making tea and your tea bag bursts open.  You have all the tea leaves floating around in the tea and no matter how meticulous you are about trying to get the leaves out, you never get them all out.  Detritus.  Left over thoughts.  Thoughts from a conversation, a discussion, an argument, a promise, or a song heard weeks ago.  It's all in there.

The formal thoughts, legitimate thoughts, if you will, are still there.  They haven't been fragmented into leftover thoughts yet, although it's high time some of them were.  In the way of some sort of visual explanation, my thoughts are like floating platforms with me jumping from one to the other day after day, minute by minute.  Picture a dark room with no discernable ceiling.  Floating platforms of dry, layered clay float about, some larger with more layers, most smaller, fill the room with just enough space between them to keep them from bumping in to each other.  I am standing on one of the larger platforms.  That platform is a thought I am having as long as I'm standing on that platform.  Should I get it into my head that there is something I need on another platform, I start hopping platforms to get to it.  I'll be damn lucky if I get there.  Every time I step on a platform on my way to the platform I think I need to be on, I am filled with that platform's thoughts.  Which are now my thoughts.  In fact, all the platforms are my thoughts and seem to do ok on their own but as soon as I step on one of the platforms, my mind is adrift in the thought of that platform.  I may never make it to the platform I had originally set out for.

Meditation is meant to let the mind go and experience a platform of bliss.  That's why I cheat at meditation.  I can't keep a straight thought going sitting still.  I have done walking meditation, running meditation, drinking meditation, weed meditation.  Even weed meditation is a wash.  My thoughts become colors.  My platforms glow fluorescent green.  They bump into each other and I get paranoid.  After bumping into each other, the platforms push off from each other and then I am stuck on one platform and that platform is usually sleep.  I do not recommend weed for meditation.  Hell, I can't even recommend meditation.  It doesn't work for me.  I keep jumping from one platform to the next, thinking the thoughts of each platform on my way to another thought on another platform.

I get it.  I know.  If I train my mind, I can do it.  Stop jumping from platform to platform.  Make the platforms come together and join.  After all, they exist in the same human brain: mine.  What would be so difficult in getting them to come together?  That is the question.  Every time I sit down to meditate about it...yeah, it starts all over again.

Just stay busy.

Stephane Grapelli

Stephane Grapelli is my all time favorite violinist.  He made a name for himself playing with Django Reinhardt in"Quintette du Hot Club de France ."  This was a while ago, back in the thirties. This style of music became known as "Gypsy jazz."  Its carefree playing of the melody line showed that improvisation would shine more than sheet music could ever hope to.  The music was about virtuosity and not a stiff rendition of a song read from sheet music.  Some, including myself, think that this was the beginning of the appreciation of the jam session, where there was structure with the rhythm and bass line but plenty of room for instrumental improvisation.  Standard blues structure with a twelve bar turn around and then turn the players loose.  American jazz evolved from this.  Listen to Stephane.  Smooth, delicate, fast. Delectable.  Goes down smooth and easy.

I became a fan of Stephane's in the early 80's.  I was living in Northeast Oregon, working in a band, later to have my own band there, and working during the day.  I worked a lot. Maybe that's what saved me from becoming a crushing alcoholic. I also had to get up and go to work.  After playing until 2AM, not sleeping until 6AM, then being at work by 8AM, my body screamed for sleep and mercy.  Since my job involved travel, I slept whenever I wasn't driving.  Yeah, that's right, when I wasn't driving.  I was expected to pull my weight and drive once in a while.  If I was lucky, I remembered to save some coke from the night before and do a line or two before work.  Then I could drive.  And work.  Even talk.

I got laid off from my day job for a few months.  I began listening to the college FM station in town.  What a load of crap, I thought.  I went to the college.  I went upstairs from the library to the radio station itself.  I asked to see the station manager.  I asked him what I had to do to be a DJ.  He said you have to take the Broadcasting Class.  I signed up the next day.  I had no experience.  By the time that stint was through, I had won an award as best dj and was the most requested voice over for sponsor spots.  Since it was public radio, commercials weren't allowed but sponsorships were.  I heard my spots were still on the air four years after I left town.

After a few classes, I was on the radio.  The classes helped familiarize me with the control board, the switches, and the turntables.  The one thing I had not considered was the music.  I had talked to a dj about the music and he said he brought his own albums from home.  Yeah, I could do that.  Thing is, once I got to the radio station to work, I discovered they had a three thousand long-playing vinyl library.  My eyes popped wide open.  I was a kid in a candy store with all the money I needed.  That's how I discovered Grappelli, thumbing through the vinyl.  I think because the album title had "Boogie" in it, I decided to try and find something to play off the album, "Brandenburg Boogie," with Elena Duran and Laurie Holloway and Stephan.  Even Wikipedia does not list this album in Stephane's discography.  It is difficult to find and I got my copy off of eBay many years ago.  It is now a collector's item.  Lucky me.

It opened me up.  I wasn't ready to give up my hard ass drinking and rocking but this was a different music for me and I knew instantly that this guy knew what he was doing with the violin. He was talking with it, whispering, screaming, laughing, singing with his violin.  There was no sheet music.  His heart led his fingers up and down the fretboard as his bow left its mark on the violin's strings.  It was not like anything I'd been exposed to. It flowed like air through a window.

Pandora

The time at the radio station was pure learning.  I learned how to make awkward transitions work.  I once went from a Police song to the bluegrass hit, Rocky Top, and made it worked.  It was mentioned when I received my award.  To me, it's like putting together a soundtrack, a soundtrack for daily living.  Kind of like Pandora is now. Pandora is theoretically "intuitive," that is, it predicts what music you might like to hear.  It uses some sort of code to figure it out.  If a song comes on that you like, just rush to whatever device Pandora is coming from and hit the like button and Pandora remembers.  Weird.

I have a Wilco station on Pandora.  I watched a documentary on them called, "I am Trying To Break Your Heart."  It is about them recording "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot," a breakthrough album for them. My favorite songs off of the recording are "Kamera," "Heavy Metal Drummer," and "Jesus etc."  Hell, they were even introduced by this guy at Farm Aid.  Look!  There's Beck playing lead guitar!

Let us end this type fest with this.

Book Explosion

Have you ever walked in your front door, took a look around and thought to yourself, "My God! It looks as if a bookmobile exploded here!"  Those were the exact thoughts I had when I walked in my front door this evening.  Books every which a way.  I remembered.  I was moving all my stuff out of the other building, including my two bookshelves, one of which's contents were on the living room floor.  There was still another bookshelf, one with pottery and ceramic books of all kinds, out in the second building.  It had not been packed.  It would probably take most of the day.

The ct is outside for the night.  Might get some rest.

Genetic Meanderings

Once I wondered why I looked the way I did.  Genetically speaking.  I looked at the crooked nose of my paternal grandfather and thought I saw my own nose only to be told Grandad had broken his nose in a boxing match.  He was Golden Gloves.  Still, I imagined my nose to be similar enough to his to notice a family resemblance.  By the time I was his age at this time, I would have broken my nose a time or two.  To further my point, I have a daughter by my first wife who is the spitting image of her mother, except for the nose.  It is my nose on her face.  I'm sure that's why she won't talk to me.  Genetics.  Are we predisposed by our DNA?  What about that ear lobe thing?  The one where if you have ear lobes that hang free from your skull it means something but I can't remember what.  It's a crapshoot.  I think soon enough, the world population will be genetically intermingled, much more so than now.  I think with technology and p2p video the separate cultures of the world will become more exposed to outside cultures worldwide and they, on the other hand, will be able to do the same.  This is a good thing.  I think the more we know about each other, the better able to get along, negotiate treaties, whatever, have more fun and understanding of our purpose...

Ok, and I have a dimple in the middle of my chin.  I have sawed off whiskers in it.  Where did it come from?  What chromosome forgot to fill in that space on my chin?  If it is supposed to be there, does it have purpose?  Since its always been there, I suppose it holds my skin to my chin, like an upholstery button.

I have my grandfather's liver spot on my right hand.  The lay person wouldn't notice it but I do.  In a certain bare light bulb light, I can see it.  It gets bigger but not darker.  My hairline is the same as my grandfather.  My dad had hair until he went into chemo for lung cancer.  He took after his mother's side of the family.

One thing I wonder about is my hairless right shin.  There isn't any hair for about six inches long and two inches wide down my leg.  I never really noticed on any other family member.  Most of them are women.  My leg is scarred and hairless.  For years I thought it was because I had rubbed all the follicles off my leg with a bass drum pedal.  It hasn't grown back, so I'm not sure.  I'm full of hypotheses. I wonder if I look as angular to other people as I do to myself?  Angularity.  I don't think I've ever typed that word before.  Probably never again.

I'm a genetic mop bucket.  I'm a genetic moist towelette. I'm a genetic scrubbing bubble.  I'm a genetic dollar bill.  With change. I'm genetically predisposed to listening to the wind.  I'm genetically programmed to see in 3D 24/7, with no loss in battery life.  I'm genetically sealed for your protection.  I'm genetically sanitized.  I'm genetically genetic, by predisposed geneticism. It can't be helped.  It's genetic.

Today was regular.  Sort of a one size fits all day.  Busy.  Constructive.  Rested.  Productive.  Moving a library.  Takes time. Too many books.  One building to the next.  To be useful. To be consulted.  To add to the grand feeling of the house.  Soon, it will all be done for the time being.  A house this old needs constant upkeep.  You either like it, learn to like it, or get out.  Since discovering wood floors, I have an added personal interest in this house.  Still, it wouldn't take much to nudge me out of here. The house has personality.  Any old house will.  Certain smells, creaks and cracks, echoes.  If you are in a house long enough, you get to know where each and every one of them is and how to avoid them.  Sometimes I feel that I will get moved in just in time to move out again.  I shall see.

I rented "Argo" from iTunes last night.  Very good movie but how did it win Best Picture over "Lincoln?"  There wasn't half the acting in Argo as in Lincoln and the setting of Lincoln was painstakingly real.  Argo did a good time piece for the 80's.  Maybe it's the historian in me.  Wait!  They were both history movies!  Ding ding what do I win?  I should probably stop typing now.

As Straight as a Bent Arrow...

Walking outside for the first time today, my senses were bombarded by Spring and sweet smells.  T-shirt and jeans, walking in the dirt driveway, gravel crunching as my steps carry me forward toward the black mailbox to see if someone mailed me a check for any amount at all.  I received a check for $8.83 the other day as part of a settlement with Visa/Mastercard.  Seems if you used your card between certain dates, there was some sort of kerfuffle and somebody sued which became a class action suit and I did not opt out to sue on my own so they sent me a check.  I'm sure the process of producing the check, printing the check, and mailing the check all cost more than the check was worth.  I wonder if anybody got a bigger check?  The lawyers of course.  (I still tremble at how close I came to going to law school.  My evil first wife just about had me talked into it.  Once we were divorced and she remarried, she tried to get her next husband to go to law school.  He went as far as taking the LSAT.  They are still married and he is still a wheat farmer and she is a wheat farmer's wife with a catering business.)

I have yet to spy a robin but I hear the birds in the trees singing their tweets. (Birds can't tweet using cell phones as they have no opposing thumbs.  They don't call them bird brains for nothing.)  The environs are still gray and the green of Spring is just beneath the surface, waiting to jump out of the ground and shock the shit out of everybody.  "Hey!  Spring just popped up!  Yay!  We're saved!"

The bamboo is spreading horizontally heading toward the driveway and creating an organic break from the road.  Like a growing fence.

It is March.  Time to start on the second bedroom and do the floors.  Thankfully, this room is smaller.  There is a plumbed sink and vanity in the room.  It has to come out.  The story I heard is that someone's mother had that room and, even though, the bathroom is next door, had a sink and vanity installed.  I don't know why.  Out it goes.

I think that, in addition to making clay pots when I am done teaching school, I should like to be an antiques book dealer.  There's no money in either endeavor but maybe enough to stay afloat, preferably on an air mattress.  :)  Plenty to do and I'm the guy to do it.  I am me and dang glad of it.  Would that we could all say the same.

Perfume Behind Her Knees

Love is a good thing. Love rocks.  Love is an alive force of nature.  Chemistry, pheromones, hormones, synapsis, rapid heart rate, sweaty palms, perfume behind her knees.  How did she know?  Her bright orange fingernails raked his face.  "You fucking bastard!" A shout but more a plea than volume. "You have love oozing from every open pore on your body!  Goddam you!"  She wanted something he wasn't giving.  Too much love for one person.  Too much love for her.  Still, she wanted his love.  Not just his body but his soul, his core, his energy.  She wanted to know how to plug into it like he did.  When he was plugged in to his source, it was a dance away the day world.  Nothing mattered but what was going on in the room at the time.  The room was the center.  It was where he was and when he heard music, it was there also.  Dancing was the magic. Let yourself roll with it for I say unto you that ye shall dance your life away to the music that plays from the jukebox inside your head.

He looked at her.  Disheveled, mascara running down her red cheeks, her gold Doris Day dress wrinkled, she was crying.  No sobs, only tears.  He loved her, he knew.  She didn't know his world but he thought he knew hers.  Empty vessel looking to fill up on something, anything that made her feel alive.  She had come to him.  A nightclub, she asked him to dance.  They danced all night.  She liked him but there was a quirk about how he danced, free, flowing body movements, almost like ballet but with a heavy beat.  The band wasn't bad but they played covers and only with enough talent to pull it off.

She wasn't like this but she went to his house that night.  He put on Cheryl Crow.  They danced to every song on the album, the fast ones, the slow ones, every one of them.  The dawn came and went.  She tried to get him to bed.  He danced.  She had taken her jacket off and her shoes.  She was feeling it, the love, the energy.  Oh my God! she thought.  This doesn't happen to me.  What am I doing here?  He has so much just pouring out of him and he says nothing and twirls and twirls to the music.  He looked at her eye to running mascara eye.  "I love you," he told her from across the room.  She viewed him from a downturned face with upturned eyes.  Shit fuck!  "I...I love you," she whispered, " but I don't know what to do."  One night, not even twelve hours with this man and she knew that she, too, was in love.  He had plugged her in to the core, the juice, the power, the source.  She wanted to stay there.  It was good.  It was positive.  It gave off light.  It made her alive.

"Well, then," he said in a low voice, "let's dance."  He started across the room.  She met him halfway.  They embraced tightly, no air between their bodies.  She was slightly taller than he so her head fit on top of his shoulder.  Perfect fit.  She could feel the hardness in his pants rub against her pubic bone.  Oh God!  She quivered slightly and pushed against him.  They swayed back and forth to music only they could hear.  Nothing came out of the speakers except ambient static. He looked her straight away in the eye.  "To dance is to celebrate God," he quietly whispered in her ear.  She thought of another way they could celebrate God.  He didn't seem interested in anything but dancing.  That's when her hand went toward his face in a swipe.

Now he was standing, looking at her thoughtfully, as if determining the remedy for a particular situation.  "Are you finished dancing?  Then you must go."  It was a matter of fact statement with no discernable emotion in his voice.  Just a statement.  "And if I'm not finished dancing?" she hoarsely whispered.  "Then we shall dance until we can no longer and sleep demands to be let in. Then we shall lie together and sleep.  When awake again, we shall dance.  It is love."  He was self assured and seemed to truly believe what he was saying.  She was trying to be skeptical without much success.  It was all too real, the smells, the facial expressions, the feeling of his body, it was all here.  She was hooked.  She had to go with him.

"Come with me, love, and celebrate the goodness we take for granted.  Love me, and I you and we shall never climb down.  Be assured that I am here for you.  Now, let's dance."

She looked at him, looked away, then back at him.  Yes!  I will.  I belong.  To him.  And she knew that he belonged to her, as long as they danced.

Twice Bitten...

Cliff wondered what kind of man could still love a woman who dumped him twice and was having too much fun to drop him a line once in a while?  Why did he believe the things she said to him?  Why did he trust her?  It could go two ways, he thought.  Either I loathe myself and need to somehow punish myself with anxiety and depression.  And it's a textbook depression.  The kind where you just can't get out of bed.  Or, is it because, somewhere in the valleys of his core, he knew he loved her and that she loved him and things would turn out.  Turn out how?

What happened to the plans?  The preparations for travel and uninterrupted communication?  Didn't he say she would call but it would have to be very judicious?  Yeah, Cliff thought, I remember that.  Didn't he say we would Skype once a week?  Again, Cliff remembered those words.

What about the almost unintelligible "profile" on the business connections site?  What the fuck was that all about?  Bewildered and feeling disheveled, Cliff lifted his glass of wine and sniffed.  He drank.  Yes, he told himself, it would be great to be a drummer in a hot band again.  But I've already done that.  Man, I'm 60.  I don't think I want to do that anymore.  What is it like, Cliff wondered, to get to a place where you can even forget about love?  Is there such a place on the Earth?  Must be, Cliff assumed, my girlfriend found it.

Cliff stood stiff.  His eyes darted back and forth as if an answer was just beyond his sight.  What is this all about?  Cliff is perplexed.  He had taken her at her word.  He didn't know forces stronger than he were at work when she left country.  It was agreed the time would be short.  He would repair the house.  She would return and come see Cliff and the house.  She would take the train.  It sounded like a storybook romance where the couple overcomes all the obstacles and wins. Cliff reveled in it.  He felt the love, he felt her presence in his house.

Cliff ruminated about it.  Was it me?  I'll bet it was the first time we Skyped.  I was probably too matter of fact, not lively enough.  Fuck, it didn't make any difference right now.  One thing Cliff knew was this is as real as a rock for him.  He still loved her. It's real.  She is a part of me, he said out loud to the empty room.  When she quit communicating with him, he tried to shrug it off.  Lots of excitement, he figured.  Then he tried to ignore it.  She sent a short note on Valentine's Day.  That was cool.  Cliff was hopeful.  The next couple of emails were the nuclear ones, the ones that sent Cliff into a frenzy, the ones that said yes, I'm ready for a relationship but can't give you what you want right now.  Cliff's frontal lobes ached.  He thought he had a relationship only to be informed that, if anything, it was nothing more than a rehearsal.  Miffed.  Cliff was miffed.  It was as if he didn't understand anything anymore.  His world had never been like this.  Maybe he was naive.  Didn't see it coming.  They promised monogamy.  He held no hope for that. Yes, he was still monogamous but for how long?  He wanted to be.  Damnit, Cliff said.  Damn! Fuck! Shit! Hell!  How could he let himself fall?  He had dated other women.  They were cute, vivacious, funny, beautiful but they did nothing to Cliff like this woman did to him.  She collected his heart and left town.

He missed her.