Good Morning, Frazier

It will be old news to you, of course, but for the newcomers, it may help to know that I begin some days in a lighter mood than others. It's never a mystery as to why it happens that way. This morning was no different. 

The countryside is in full bloom at this late date in spring. The beginning of summer, for those of us who binge on the season, is only three weeks away. Already the geese in Lake Brunswick are proudly leading a half-dozen goslings around, and the inaugural garage sale was held a few weekends back. 

I'm confident that Spring has completed her relocation to the Crescent Coast. 

It's mornings like this that make one feel close to heaven, and, if you've been following this blog for more than a day, you're aware that it's exactly that kind of feeling that opens us up to the Trickster's practical jokes.

As I neared the front door of Native Grounds, I was feeling full of the energizing bunny. My step was peppy and I moved with lithesome grace, or something approximating lithesome grace. 

On mornings like this, I greet everyone I see with a boisterous Good Morning! I wave to the baristas in the back kitchen and I shake hands with the other customers. On occasion, I've even been known to slap backs and elbow ribs.

In short, I'm a nuisance to everyone I encounter and, naturally, this behavior has lost me a great many friends. But still, if you observe my face, you will notice that my eyes wear a smile even if the lips don't. In a nutshell, I'm compassionate and encouraging.

This morning, like many before it, found me on a mission to fetch a cup of Jah's Mercy for Ms. Wonder. That mission never fails to remind me of an episode of the TV show, Frasier; the one that begins with Niles ordering a latte in Cafe Nervosa. I laugh just thinking about it and this morning was no different.

I decided to share this bit of humor with the young barista who was waiting to take my order.

"Good morning," she said, "what can I get you?"

"Have you ever watched Frasier on TV?" I asked because I realize that the 20th century is ancient history to large and growing segment of the public.

"What's the name of it?" she said.

"Ah," I said, realizing that I needed another lead-in.

"It's an old television show," I said, "and there's a scene in a coffee shop when Nile's coffee order gets garbled because he  has to have it just so."

"Who's Miles?" she asked.

"Niles," I said.

"Yeah, who is he?" she said.

I'd made a blunder with the introduction, I realized, but we're not always perfectly eloquent, are we? Still, it's always best to at least get the ball over the net, as my French tutor is fond of saying. I tried to recover.

"You see, Niles asked for a double short, no-foam, low-fat latte but when the order was verbally passed on to the person who would actually make the drink, it was described as a double short, no-fat, low-foam latte."

Her face took on a sort of pained expression. The eyebrows were wedged together and the nose was scrunched. I didn't feel good about it at all. Obviously, I'd lobbed the ball straight into the net again.

"You see, the no-foam, low-fat part of the order had become no-fat, low-foam," I said hoping to clear up the confusion.

"She glanced at the barista behind the muffin display with an expression that seemed to say, 'Please help me.'

"Oh, well," I said, "never mind. An on-location situation." But my retraction didn't seem to help her feel any better about it. I'm certain she was thinking how nice it would be to have a magic wand in her pocket.

I decided to try a different tack completely. "I've always wondered about that order," I said, "just what is a double short latte anyway?"

She shook her head, "I don't know," she said. "What can I get for you?"

In my Fierce Qigong classes, I encourage students to embrace the adage that a person should always know his limits and acknowledge when it's time to cut his losses and run for it. 

"Oh, I'll just have a double cappuccino to go," I said.

The double capp was just what the doctor prescribed and was an excellent morning pick-me-up for the drive back home. When I finished it, I drove back to the cafe to get another for Ms. Wonder because, due to the double-short imbroglio, I'd completely forgotten to get hers. 

I was relieved to see that the first barista was nowhere in sight and I didn't waste any time with the Frasier small talk. Just between us, I think I watch too many Frasier reruns.

Quantum Entanglement

"First there is a mountain, then it seems the mountain's gone, but then if you take 

another look, why it's been there all along." ~~ Donovan, The Mountain

My morning meditation was unfolding breath by breath as I walked the courtyard of the South Point in Durham, and I was mindful of the body moving through space in rhythm with the breath. Of course, there were the usual private service announcements from Amy, that almond-eyed little bird that sits in the middle of my brain and whose only job, it seems, is to mess with my emotions.

"Look you, fool, there's a car approaching at high speed driven by a young woman late for work in the shoe department of Nordstrom's and she will brook no pedestrians crossing her path. She's irresponsible, inconsiderate, and dangerous!" That was just one of the many negative comments that I remember her announcing. Most of them were simply versions of, "Run for your life!"

"Not now, Amy," I replied to each of her proclamations. "I see the car. I see the homeless guy. I see the young man dressed in gang colors. Chill out, old girl, I've got this."

As I circled the fountain in front of the cinema, I seemed to slip into the spaces between moments, and while in there a DATA bus pulled up to the stop. Doors opened and he stepped down to the sidewalk. He took just a moment to hoist his backpack, then he hefted his staff, the one with the white knob on the end, and like a tai chi master taking up his bang! he strode into the Darkness.

The Darkness I write of was his personal slice of the dark materials. He was blind. But blind or not, this man moved fearlessly toward his goal. His movements arrested my attention if that's the word I want,  and I felt a strange attraction causing my ankles to pick up the pace. It was hard to be mindful at this speed but I was compelled to follow along.

You are familiar with quantum realities, of course, who isn't these days? Well, think about that bit of Q reality that describes the way entangled particles experience the same event simultaneously. I'm sure smoke and mirrors figure into it someway. But for this example, let's say that this man is Particle A and that the Genome is Particle B. Oh, forget that. Let's just say that I felt entangled with this man. 

As we moved through the ether I was witness to another Q effect--the one that tells us that material objects appear only when the observer notices one of the infinite numbers of probabilities. I'm paraphrasing but I'm sure you follow me. You can't expect me to do the dialect. To be perfectly clear, if I can be clear, as he walked by familiar objects, he did not tentatively reach out for them with his cane. No, what he did is this, and he did it with authority, he gave each of the landmarks a great Whack! as he passed them by.

Let there be a park bench, he seemed to say, and Whack! There was a park bench. Let there be a flower planter. Whack! And there was. Let there be a fountain. Whack! Ditto. And he saw that it was all good. I realized that to this blind man, first there was no park bench, then Whack! there was a park bench, and passing on there was no park bench.

"Are you watching this, Amy?" I asked. "This guy doesn't allow his limbic system to be in control. He lives fiercely; he's ready for whatever life has in store. He shows me that life is good and that I must not hesitate. I must go forward and never stop. What do you say to that?"

She was silent. Doesn't happen very often and I felt pretty good about it.

"That assurance comes from his refusal to give up when surrounded with adversity," I continued in order to make the most of my temporary advantage.  "It's not when everything is going our way that we grow. That way leads only to complacency and stagnation. It is when circumstances take away all the easy choices and we are left with only two--give up or step out into the Darkness. That's what Fierce Living is all about."

Still nothing from Amy. She seemed to have turned the shingle around and closed the shop window. Probably tea time for her and that was alright with me. I was happy to have been entangled with this guy's morning, as he moved like Alexander toward Egypt. I made a note to find a wizard's staff just like the one he had.

Walking the Dog

"Poopsie!' I said.

'What?'

Considering the verve and umph I'd put into my opening remark, I found her response, weighed in the balance, to be lacking in luster. I mused on this mystery, and it could only be deemed a mystery when this Wonder Woman fails to rally round. After due consideration, I decided to give it a miss. It was her snit and she was entitled to it but I didn't let this detain me.

'Do you realize,' I said, 'and I'm sure even as I ask that you do know all about it in those Slavic bones, that towels have two different sides?' 

'It would be impossible to have a towel with only one side,' she said.

'Exactly!' I cried, 'And each side has its own purpose.'

'Each side has its own purpose?'

'Just so,' I said, 'you're doing great. Two out of three. Now if you can answer the next question correctly, you will win the prize.'

'The prize?'

'Your brain is a finely tuned instrument,' I said, 'We've never been so synchronized, you and I. Now, tell me what are the two sides used for?'

'Used for?'

'Yes, what are their specific purposes?'

'Are you alright?' she said. And at this precise point it became apparent to me that, although we had seemed to be in complete agreement throughout, we had somehow jumped the rails at the crucial point. It was the same with King Harold when Windy Bill breezed in at Hastings.

'Poopsie, have you been paying attention? I mean really close attention? Remember, when we are not mindful, we fall into the default mode where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, and that never works out well.'

'You're driveling,' she said.

'And you're yanking the dog's chain!' I said and I meant it to sting because the memory of that guy and his dog was still green.

'What are you talking about?' she demanded. Yes, I think "demanded" is the very word, the mot juste. She demanded that I enlighten her and I did. I let her have it.

'I'm sure I told you about the man training his puppy to heel and each time the puppy pranced ahead of him, doing a little doggy dance, the man would jerk the chain and pull the front half of the puppy's body off the ground. He had an angry scowl on his face when he did it too--the man, I mean, not the dog.'

'What does this have to do with anything?' she asked.

'Everything,' I said, 'Don't you see? The dog lives only to please the master. This is the defining characteristic of dogs, I believe. Shakespeare noted it in one of his plays. And yet the man was not simply training the dog. The man lacked patience. The man was telling the dog that he was bad just because he had not yet learned to heel. And the intensity of the move indicated a very bad dog--a stupid dog. Not the right tone if you ask me.'

'And,' said the Wonder.

'Well, you know how Princess Amy is.'

'You're limbic system,' she said.

'That's right. She hotted up when she saw this abuse and descended on me like one of those goddesses in the Iliad that descend from clouds and spur their favorite on to action. Amy spurred me. She rode me like a Voodoo loa.'

'You didn't?' said she.

'Of course, I did. Am I a man to stand around and watch animals abused? The emotions surged upon me like the seventh wave. A voice inside me shouted kawabunga! . Of course I did something. Not much. I simply asked the guy how he would like it if someone treated him that way. It was only later that I realized that someone had treated him that way. That's the only explanation for mistreating animals.'

'I'm disappointed in you,' she said.

'Me!' I said. 'What about that man?'

'He was minding his own business.' she said.

'So was I,' I said.

'No, you were minding his business,' she said.

'Exactly,' I said, 'I am my brother's keeper.'

'You're not even your keeper,' she said.

'You don't see the irony in Princess Amy controlling me like a goddess and then me controlling a total stranger? I'm a very powerful person, although not as powerful as you, Ms. Wonder. Still.'

'You're a Looney Tune,' she said but in a kind and caring way, I'm sure. I thought this would be a good time to get back to the subject. Side issues can be very distracting, or don't you think so?

'One side is for drying, it's the more open and fluffy side,' I explained. 'You use that side first and then the smoother side is used for buffing and invigorating.'

'You're crazy,' she said. 'Towels don't have two sides.'

'Manic-depressive,' I said, 'and you've already admitted that it wouldn't be a towel without two sides.'

She gave me a look then she said, 'I love you anyway,'

'Thank you, Poopsie.'

'Not at all.'

The First Lesson for Authors

Having re-read the half dozen pages I’d written in the middle of the morning when the large family next door was still having the time of their lives, I lovingly saved the pages to the cloud, like a mother goose tucking her goslings into the nest. I had that feeling that often comes upon authors when they know the blog entry they're working on is just the stuff to give the troops.

Happiness, a wise man or woman once said, comes from making others happy. It’s possibly one of Shakespeare's gags. He made a career of writing stuff like that. But no matter who came up with the little thing, it was someone with a finger on the nub, because I was happy and all because I knew that little story I'd just written would bring joy to many.

One of the first lessons we writers learn is that you can’t please everybody but this particular story was sure to please even the dourest reader. It’s the story I call Cabbage Head and it’s the details of an encounter between my dear old friend, let us call him Gandolf, we did call him that, and a guy in Ireland’s Bar out in the West End district of Nashville when we were in school there. 

I won’t go into details now. You will have to wait until the book is published for that, but the gist of it is that Gandolf thought he’d met the girl of his dreams only she’d arrived with someone else that night. After the exchange of a bit of name-calling, "Cabbage Head" being the one I remember most fondly, and a jostle or two--I still think management made too much out of a few broken dishes--and yet the bouncers competed for the privilege of throwing us out.

With only that sketch of the thing, I'm sure you understand why I was so happy with the morning's output. I rose in the best spirit of morning, I stretched well, and I remember thinking to myself, 'Life is good'. If I fully expected to enjoy a perfect day, why shouldn't I? 

The day’s work was done at an early hour and the trademark-pink sunrise of Cocoa Beach was flooding the village as I made my way to Ossorio’s for a cup of Jah’s Mercy. The lark was on the wing, as Browning said, and the snail on the thorn—doesn’t appeal to me but it takes all kinds—and then there was a bit more muck of that kind, followed by the punchline—all’s right with the world. And so it seemed.

As soon as I entered the café, I spotted Ms Wonder staring fixedly at a plateful of bagels—Ms W. was doing the staring, not me. For several days prior she’d behaved as though she had something on her mind. If I didn’t know her as well as I do, I might have suspected her of stealing someone’s pig, for that was just the kind of look she wore. I'm sure you know just what I mean.

“Poopsie,” I said.

My voice startled her. She jumped a couple of inches and gave me the look most of us reserve for the ghost of Hamlet’s father. It was Hamlet, wasn’t it? I doubt they read those stories in school anymore. Probably scares the children, in the same way, I seemed to have frightened the Wonder.

“Get hold of yourself,” I said. “It’s bad enough that I frighten old ladies and small children on the sidewalks. I don't have room for scaring the whatsit out of my wife. Do you realize that when I stopped in the park to qigong this morning, a small child started crying and the mother rushed into Thai-Thai’s to tell the manager that a man was in the park having seizures?”

“Sorry,” she said, “I was lost in thought.”

“You were lost in the movie playing in your mind, is where,” I said. “Lost in the default network and that never turns out well. It leads to negative thinking and unhealthy behavior. It’s a scientific fact. You can read all about it on my blog.

“You’re probably right,” she said, “and I think I’ve caught a chill too.”

“That’s why you wobble is it?”

“I think so,” she said.

“You’re not practicing the steps of your new line dance?”

“No.”

“Try a stiff whiskey toddy,” I said, “I understand they'll put you right in no time.”

“I don’t drink,” she said, “remember?”

“So I do,” I said on reflection, “and if I remember correctly, neither do I.”

The next few moments were filled with silence. Finally, she said, “Oh, I almost forgot. I picked up your phone by mistake and someone texted you a few minutes ago about your book. It was someone named Kayser.”

“My agent,” I said.

“He was asking how the book’s coming.”

“Yes, but it's not a book. It's my blog and he’s interested in selling the rights to dramatize it to a theatrical consortium in New York.”

“Someone wants to turn your blog into a play?” she said.

“That’s right. You don’t think it a good idea?”

“It doesn’t seem to be the kind of thing that becomes a play,” she said.

“That’s what I keep telling Kayser,” I said. I considered saying more on the subject but realized that there was no profit in it. Besides, now that I was in the company of the wonder worker, I felt in mid-season form and ready for whatever life sent my way. My plan was to wait for the right quantum wave to rise up, then get up on my mental surfboard and ride it all the way to shore. Wherever and whatever shore means in this context.

"Kowabunga?" asked Ms. Wonder.

"Did I say that out loud?" I said, and then without waiting for a reply, I said it again.

"Kowabunga, Poopsie!"

"Kowabunga, Genome!"

Some days are made for letting go of the anchor and sailing into the sun. Too many metaphors? Perhaps you're right. But still, doesn't change the fact that this, was one of those days.

So Close and Yet So Far

Sunshine, calling to all right-thinking persons to come out and play in its mood-lifting light, poured into the windows of our suite in Cocoa Village. I stood at the window, having completed my morning qigong, and stared without seeing into the duckweed bog that bordered the gardens. 

I like the sunshine as a general rule—in fact, my morning constitution includes a brisk 20-minute walk in it. But on this particular morning, it brought no cheer. I must have looked like something standing in the showroom of a Harley Street Taxidermist.

A moralist, watching me standing there, might have remarked, smugly, that it cuts both ways. The peer of the realm, he might consider me to be, enjoying a robust fitness far above that which his irresponsible younger years might warrant, often suffers the outrageous slings and arrows of uncertain fortune. 

This world is, after all, full of uncertainty and bogs filled with duckweed, and at any moment, life may come swooping down out of the blue and smack one behind the ear with a sock of wet sand. It pays to be ready.

I, of course, have none of the training of the normal person who after suffering years of waiting 45 minutes to be seated is prepared to take the big one in stride. No, I am one of the blessed ones who have slept well, learned quickly, and measured up to the demands of a rigorous life. 

In short, the universe has worked things out in my favor. Oh sure, sometimes the moment seems to be lost but it always works out all right in the end.

Is it any surprise then that in the agony of this sudden, treacherous shock I was left feeling and looking stunned, like the blowfly that has met the swatter? You may have seen a comic illustration of the ostrich that has swallowed something he shouldn’t. You may have or you may not but, seen or not, that’s the way I felt. 

And I’ll tell you why I felt like a large flightless bird with a brass doorknob in its throat. I absolutely insist on being happy, joyous, and free that’s why. But is that enough explanation? Perhaps not. Let me marshal my thoughts and have another go.

I’ve recently become acquainted with the work of Nobel laureate, Daniel Kahneman, founder of behavioral economics and widely regarded as the world’s most influential living psychologist. 

When you’re a psychological phenomenon like me, you pay attention to what the world’s most influential living psychologists are thinking. According to Kahneman, we are happy when we can look back over our lives and remember plenty of happy memories.

If happy experiences are to be stored in long-term memory, he argues, those experiences must be as meaningful as they are happy. Otherwise, all that short-term happiness doesn't amount to beans. To be happy, really happy, we must have happy experiences that are truly meaningful. 

Now you will understand I think, why a recent scheduling conflict that prohibits the happiest and most meaningful experience of all, had led to the melancholy that flooded my soul. Melancholy heaped up, pressed down, and overflowing.

As I stood brooding, if that’s the word I want, the door behind me opened and Ms. Wonder entered the suite with coffee. I glanced at her with an apprehensive eye because she is not known for great empathy with those who, as she would express it, whine. 

I feared she might wound me with some flippancy. My concern lessened when I took in her countenance and discerned no frivolity, only a certain gravity that became her well.

“Bad business,” she said handing me a cup of Jah’s Mercy from the Rastafari Café on the corner.

“Hell’s foundations quiver,” I said.

“What are you going to do about it?” she said.

“Do?” I said. “What can I do?” This is my standard answer to a question about what I plan to do but it seemed especially appropriate in this case.

“Well, there’s no need to spend extra money when we can get a discounted rate at an inn farther away from the arts district,” she said.

“Wonder,” I said, “just what are you talking about?”

“Spring training, of course,” she said.

“I’m sorry, but it sounded to me that you said spring training.”

“Spring training is what I said,” she informed me. “It’s March and the baseball games have filled the hotels up and down the coast, right? We can’t stay an extra night in this hotel so we have to find another one and I have a coupon for the Fairfield by the Interstate.”

I stared at her dumbfounded. While I stood brooding and contemplating how much life had suddenly become a pond full of duckweed, this marvelous wonder had found within easy reach a prime opportunity to experience a day full of wonder and amusement leading to many long-term happy memories.

I’m sure Dr. Kahneman would approve when I say that I would sleep in the car if it meant a chance to be happy. Wouldn’t you?

“Wonder,” I said. “I would gladly sleep in the car to ensure a joyful tomorrow.”

She turned, shaking her head, and left the room but I heard her say as she walked out of sight, “I’m calling the Fairfield to see if they have any rooms left.”

Once again I turned to stare into the bog. Memories of a happy childhood played out like movies in my mind. My dearest and most cherished memories lived once more and it created a bitter-sweet mood because of what might have been. 

I felt the impact of Tom Hank’s words, like a sock full of wet sand to the occipital bone when in the role of Walt Disney in the movie, Saving Mr. Banks, he said, “I love that mouse.”