Napoleon or Not

I awoke with that feeling that sometimes comes early in the morning that you need urgent care, or you need to get to Urgent Care in about 3 seconds. I thought I'd swallowed a migration of butterflies but was relieved to discover that it was only Ben's tail. You're familiar with Ben, of course, the Ragga-muffin cat, properly referred to as Beignet. 

As soon as I could breathe again, I bounded out of bed, and seeing a cloud of steam and a small river coming from the salle de bains, I knew Ms Wonder must be within. I desired her thoughts on a subject of interest and so I waded into the stream. A raft of ducks appeared out of the mist and swam out the door and into the bedroom.

Beignet Lafayette

"Poopsie?" I said, directing my voice toward the sound of rushing water.

The torrent of water stopped abruptly and presently a Venus-like form appeared. Two emerald-green eyes gave me a look that made me think that my pajama top and bottom were mismatched but no, a quick glance in the mirror told me that the corn-flower blue pants and the heliotrope t-shirt were parfait.

"What?" I said.

"Why are you wearing Abbie on your shoulder?" she said and I'm blowed if she didn't describe the situation perfectly. I recognized the question, however, as diversionary, and I did not intend to be distracted. I pressed on.

Abbie (Abracadabra) Hoffman

"Oh, it seemed like a good idea at the time," I said lifting the little ninja from my shoulder and placing him on the floor. "If you have a moment, I have something to run up your flag pole."

"Run it," she said in that way she has of moving the story forward.

"Right," I said. "Here it is then, without preamble, having considered this and that, I believe I should stop talking about Napoleon."

Her right hand, which had been meditatively soaping a left arm, stopped abruptly as though the spring had unwound. She made a moue, if it is a moue, where she pushed the lips out and then pulled them back in again.

"I don't get it," she said.

"Simply," I said. "I keep mentioning Napoleon in my blog posts and I think it may be having a disruptive effect on the education of French school children."

"Hold on," she said, "let me get this straight. You've been making negative comments about Napoleon?"

"Of course not," I said. "Who would do such a thing?"

"Some people think of him as a little tyrant," she said.

"Not at all," I said. "An emperor for the little people in my opinion."

 "So you simply reference him in blog posts, perhaps quoting him or mentioning some of his achievements?"

"Well," I said, "I may have mentioned his retreat from the Russian front in a contingency sleigh or perhaps the burning of the French fleet in the port of Cairo but only in the most tasteful and respectful way, you can be sure."

"So what's the problem?" she said.

"Well, it's like this," I said. "I've noticed that whenever I mention Napoleon, that blog post gets a lot of hits in France. I've tried to reconcile this phenomenon and all I've come up with is that French kids are researching their country's history in school and they Google themselves to my blog where I'm sure they're entertained for hours but, unfortunately for them, they gain no useful information for their reports."

"Oh," she said, applying loofah to the left elbow, "I see what you mean."

"I thought you would," I said.

"I think you'd best leave off with Napoleon," she said.

"But only in my blog posts," I said. "I shall continue to follow his example in my plans for world domination."

"Exactly," she said.

"Thank you, Poopsie," I said. I left her soaking in the tub and I went looking for those ducks.

Sagi M'Tesi

Hard Like Water

I found her at the cafe table where I'd left her only minutes before.

"Lupe," I said. "I'm so glad you haven't left."

And I was too. You see, we'd finished that conversation which is now the gist of the last post and I'd shared my advice about wooden nickles and ankled away. Then I remembered the real reason I'd come looking for her in the first place.

Adorable Vectors by Vecteezy

"Still here," she said, "but If you have a long story, it will have to wait until our next appointment. I'm meeting friends in the Castle Street Arts District to see Wicked at the Tivoli."

"You'll have time for me, you young geezer," I said. The remark was made in the warmest, most loving way of course.

"Walk and talk," she said getting up from the cafe table and heading uptown.

"What's happening on Castle Street?" I asked.

"No time for that now," she said. "You'll have to wait for tomorrow's Star News and read about it there."

"Big stuff," I said and was about to muse on it but she came to an abrupt stop, looked me in the eye, and said, "Talk."

"Ah, right," I said. "I need some advice about changes I want to make in my life. I've been struggling..."

"I know," she said.

"I practice all my power principles and yet I seem to make no progress. I'm beginning to feel that I'm stuck in some wormhole or other. Or maybe I've crossed over the horizon boundary of a black hole or whatnot."

"Well, I know how much you like to compare your life to quantum fields," she said, "but you're wasting subspace energy looking there. Your problem is that you've forgotten Fierce Qigong."

"Mankiller!" I said coming to an abrupt stop. You've been around these parts long enough to know that when I use this former shrimp's surname I mean business and I want it to show.

"Never do I forget Fierce Qigong. It's my raison d'ette."

She came to an abrupt stop. It was looking like a big day for abrupt stops. She turned around and took two slow steps toward me. I knew she meant business.

"What is the foundation of Fierce Qigong?" she asked.

It was a rhetorical question, of course, but I had a strange feeling that we were about to get somewhere and I thought it best to play along.

"Fierce Qigong is founded on taiji chuan," I said.

"Chen style," she said.

"To be sure," I said.

"And what is the principal difference between taiji chuan and kung fu?" she said. "Or should I say, wushu?"

"Wushu or even sip pal gi in case any of my Korean masters hear of this conversation." 

"Genome! Put a sock in it! Back to the question; what's the difference between taiji and wushu?"

Well, checkmate, I thought. She'd done it again and with only two questions. Forget Sherlock Holmes, forget Jeeves; when this Lupe Louise Mankiller accepts an assignment her mysterious something works wonders.

"The difference is soft hands," I said. "Hands like water--soft and yielding and yet unstoppable; cutting through stone."

"Taking a relaxed approach," she said. "Never losing inner harmony. Performing the next best thing without striving and without planning the outcome."

"That's what I haven't been doing," I said.

"Rem acu tetigisti," she said.

"Fierce Qigong," I said. And I meant it too.

What's The Point?

I pulled on the trousers just as Archimedes, George Washington, and Barack Obama must have done--one foot at a time. Did Archimedes wear trousers? No matter. Ms Wonder tells me it's the small things in life that make a difference, and I'm sure she's not far from wrong. It made me feel pretty special to be in the company of those great men. 

And let's not forget cats. It's equally uplifting to be in their company. They may be small, but they're great in their own way. Beignet is undeniably one of the greats, but he isn't small. Just thought I'd clarify.

"Well, Poopsie," I said, "how about it?"

Source: Mango Science

Earlier that morning, during the corralling of cats, I'd briefed Ms. Wonder on the latest developments regarding my book. You remember the book, don't you? It's a guide for coping with the less pleasing emotions--anxiety, depression--those nagging questions about why we even bother? I mean, what's the point of it all. 

I can't wait for the book to be published because I know it will change lives. Maybe even mine. But as much as I look forward to its release, the stark truth remains--it must be written first. And there, as the man said, is the rub. 

I'll bet it was Shakespeare who said it first. He had a knack for snappy, memorable phrases. The Marketing Department would've loved him.

But back to the book. My agent phoned over the holidays to remind me it's over a year since we first spoke of the book. He expected a draft by now and he's--how shall I say--pressing me to get on with it. 

Of course, it’s easy for him to say. He doesn’t have to write the thing. Not so simple for me. I feel like the toad must have felt beneath that harrow. If it was a toad. What is a harrow anyway?

“Thought of anything?” I asked Ms. Wonder.

She didn’t answer immediately, and the silence gripped me with the icy hand of dread. When pressing a trusted advisor for counsel, the last thing one wants is still air. I stifled a hollow groan.

Have you ever surprised a mother bear frolicking with her cub in a meadow and then realized that you've left the bear repellent in the glove box in the car? Me neither, but I can imagine the result.

Ms. Wonder’s hesitation was making me feel that way now. Whatever she was about to say, I felt certain it would hit the Genome right between the eyes.

I continued to get dressed for the day, but my heart wasn't in it. I socked my feet with trembling hands, reminding myself that I was enough for anything coming my way. The thought helped a little, but it didn't completely erase the feeling that the spinal cord had been left in the fridge past the expiration date.

"It may be," I said, hoping to bolster up the spirit, "that you don't have the whole of the situation clear in your mind. Let me itemize the facts."

"The shirt," she said, and I felt a flicker of relief. "The button-line should be straight from neck to waist."

"But I have ankylosing spondy...."

"There," she said tugging the front of my shirt into submission. "Perfect"

"Thank you, Poopsie."

"Not at all."

"There are times when I wonder if gig lines matter," I said.

"The mood will pass," she said.

"I don't know why it should," I said. "Without a solution to this problem, my life will be meaningless. Unless something miraculous pops up in my morning meditation, I'm doomed. Solutions do sometimes pop up, don't they? Out of the blue?"

"Archimedes is said to have discovered the principle of displacement suddenly during his bath," she said as though remembering an amusing anecdote.

"Was that a big deal?"

"It's generally considered significant. His death at the hand of a common soldier was considered to be a great loss to Greek natural philosophy."

"Aren't you confusing Archimedes with the tai chi master who developed the Five Animal Frolics?"

"Hua Tou was killed by a mistrustful army general, I believe," she said.

"Still," I said, "what's it got to do with my situation?"

"Well," she said, "it couldn't have been a pleasant experience for either of them."

She had a point, of course, and I mulled over her words sensing a lesson. There seemed to be a hidden lesson in them. 

"We do what we must do," she said, "and the best course of action is often the next step in front of us."

"Is that what great men do?"

"Great and small," she said.

"Alright," I said. "Today I'll organize the chapters I have, and then first thing tomorrow, I'll jump into the fray."

I'm not sure what Napoleon would have thought of the plan, but sometimes we must soldier on without the benefit of a great general. As I looked around me, I noticed the room was devoid of generals. I sighed deeply and resigned myself to taking the next step--finishing the book. 

Footnote: Several readers have commented that being in the company of Timberwolves can be just as motivating as other greats, like men, women, and cats. I'm not up-to-date on Timberwolves, so I'm not recommending it, but I thought it worth mentioning.

A Tide In Affairs

I woke this morning to that old familiar feeling that in about a minute, I was going to explode. You're surely familiar with that feeling. Your legs seem restless and anxious to be up and doing. 

You feel that no matter what comes of it, you need to get out on the road and go somewhere--doesn't matter where. Instead of caffeine, your thoughts turn to cruising down Ocean Highway with Whitney Houston singing I Will Always Love You. 

Do you remember...of course you do, we're not animals after all, that it was Dolly Parton who wrote and first recorded that song. If you're aware that Dolly Parton is the avatar of Shady Grove, my ancestral home, then you might suspect that the old familiar feeling comes around like this only because the Ghost of Shady Grove wants to be remembered. 

The ghost I speak of isn't the spirit of someone long past. It is instead, the spirit of all that was perfect in a small boy's life and that has become lost forever due to the passage of time.

It isn't to be feared unless an overwhelming homesickness and near panic caused by thoughts of love lost forever are to be feared.

To face the ghost requires a steeled resolve if that's the term. And resolve, steeled, jellied, or crocheted has been in short supply in recent days. Remembering an old saw I heard somewhere--it may be one of Ms. Wonder's--I decided to gather what little resolve I had. 

The gag I mention goes something like this (I paraphrase, of course): There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. 

With the still green memory of the first time I faced the ghost, at the tender age of 5 years, I took the tide at the flood and, with a burst of resolve, threw back the duvet and sat up in bed to face the rainbow and claim the pot of gold. 

Oh, I'm sorry, I think I'm mixing metaphors or whatever it is that people do sometimes mix when facing difficulty. What I'm trying to say is, I don't know if you've had the experience, but the spirit indeed was willing but the flesh weak.

There was no pot of gold and no ghost. The anxiety I felt was caused by the fact that Beignet, the unprecedented winner of the Cat of the Year award for 5 years running, wasn't in bed next to me, and not because I was still in Shady Grove. I was back home in Chatsford Hall. Now you know why I felt incomplete.

Wen, the Eternally Surprised, my once and future martial arts master, taught me that it's always a good idea to accept whatever life throws your way. 

"Don't make a drama of it," he said, "make a musical comedy instead."

Not his actual words; I'm paraphrasing. The methods one might use to make it happen he never said exactly but I gathered that it required sucking it up and getting on with it.

And so, I'm getting on with it. Blogging is the only musical comedy that I have at hand and I'm looking for the bright spots in my day, every day, to share with you.

And so we come to the present moment where I sit at Native Grounds writing this post. I feel better now after having crossed the Memorial Bridge and seen Wilma's Downtown Business District stretched out along the Cape Fear River. Always inspiring and just a little bit exciting for who knows what wonderful new opportunities are waiting there?

By the time I motored into the Castle Street District, everything had been transformed. The birds that had seemed to be in an unending argument, were singing as though spring were around the corner rather than summer, which as we all know is undoubtedly the case.

Though things came within a toucher of falling apart this morning, the flame of fierce qigong never died and I was able to extricate myself from the looney bin without a stain on my character. Almost no stain. Very little stain. No stains that won't come out in the wash.

What was the turning point? It's no secret. Music, blue skies, birdsong, and remembering what Beignet taught me about taking the tide at the flood. That's right. The phrase belongs to Ms. Wonder, or if not, I'm going to consider it hers anyway. She's the closest thing I have to Jeeves.

No matter who claims the copyright, Beignet always comes to mind when I think of the quote. So thanks, Ben. I needed that.

And so, my friends, there you have another little episode in the final season of The Circular Journey. The details of the episode, which my biographers will probably call, "Down the Waterspout at Midnight" are perhaps not perfectly clear to you, but neither are they clear to me. 

Memories played a larger part in my salvation than I've acknowledged. Sometimes memories are all we have to rely on and that's all I'm going to say about it. I will wrap up by saying that it's good to be home again. There's no place like it.

Roll the credits!

Living On a Prayer.

I suppose I should apologize upfront. It's all my fault you see, just like so many other things gone wrong in the world today. Ms. Wonder, of course, is fond of telling me that it isn't all about me, but if she only knew. You see, it's like this...

       

"My friend, Luminita," I said to Ms. Wonder as she packed for the morning commute downtown. You surely remember that this Wonder is one of those savants you're always reading about. She has the answer to any question, the solution to any problem. I think it's all that fish she eats. Brain food. Has to do with the healthy oils. 

I said to Wonder, "My friend, Luminita, sent a link to an article about the future construction of floating cities, and it was that term, floating cities that...well, you can easily guess the thought that came into my mind." 

"This velcro gets caught on everything," she said much to my amazement.

"Did you say velcro?" I asked. "You know it must be the trademarked "velcro" if you want to use the word."

"Yes, I know. See, at the bottom of the shoulder strap?" she said as she held the problem strap in her hand for me to see. "Every time I putit on or take it off, it gets caught on something. Drives me crazy."

"Wicked!" I said. "Leave it off is my suggestion," I said. "Don't wear it."

"That's all you've got?" she said.

"Back to the subject," I said because I remembered in the nick of time that this Wonder, although a fount of ancient wisdom and modern enlightened thought, is also a master of the arts of subterfuge and misdirection. She wasn't going to throw me off track with this velcro motif.

"Floating cities," I said to establish the point d'appui, if that's the term, meaning the main ingredient. "Your first thought I'm sure, when you hear that term, are the floating colonies being proposed for the upper atmosphere of Venus."

"That's not my first thought," she said. 

"Oh, don't be silly," I said. "Of course, it's your first thought." And I added a little chuckle to press it home. "What else?" As soon as these last two words were out of my mouth, I knew I'd passed the kite string to her, and now all I could do was stand and watch her fly the thing.

"Well, my first thought," she said "was of the floating villages in Halong Bay, Viet Nam. You remember. That James Bond flick, Tomorrow Never Dies, was filmed there. At least the boat chase was."

She grew silent for a few seconds and the look on her face told me that she was enjoying a little time travel that included pleasant thoughts of sailing on Halong Bay.

"Remember that little boy and his mother selling bananas boat to boat?" she said.

"It wasn't bananas," I said.

"Yes it was bananas," she said with just a hint of a scowl.

"Yes, I remember now," I said. But you understand it was only because I didn't want to spoil her fond reverie.

"My first thoughts were not of Viet Nam," I said. "My first thoughts are seldom of Viet Nam. It isn't Halong Bay that I associate with that sovereign nation, it's General Westmoreland and President Tricky."

Silence ruled between us as I took a few moments to remember that episode of my life, so long ago and so far away. Then coming back to the surface, I added, 

"They gave me a letter of gratitude."

She gave me a look that said, let's not go into this again, shall we? Let's move on to something more fitting to an early morning chit-chat. It's a lot for a look to convey, I realize, but it's a look that I've come to know well.

"I immediately thought," I said in order to take her by the hand and gently lead her onto the right path, "of the floating colonies of dirigibles that certain visionary minds at NASA have proposed to be established in the skies above the surface of Venus. 

They call it Cloud City. And with that for a first thought, I don't need to tell you, my chakras began vibrating at higher frequencies. I'm tingling with excitement even now."

As my first attempt at this conversation collapsed into a heap on the floor, I really didn't expect much of a reaction from her. I didn't get much.

"Damned velcro," she said.

"Scurge of the 21st century," I said.

"Don't you mean, scourge," she said, "a cause of great affliction--Webster?"

"I mean scurge," I said, "nothing worse; as low as you can go--Urban."

"Ah," she said. 

"You're welcome," I said. She nodded.

"The article in Luminita's link was about French Polynesia planning to build floating islands to escape the ongoing rise in sea level," I said.

"Oh, interesting," she said. "Much like the floating villages on Halong Bay."

"Yes, well, you have a talking point," I said. "But those floating Polynesian islands may work to keep the tourists out of the waves while the sea levels rise, but when the collapsing ice caps generate 30-meter tsunamis, it's going to be the fall of Atlantis all over again."

"Goodness!" she said. "Didn't mean to get you all hotted up. Don't let your knickers get in a wad."

"Knickers in a wad are just what I don't have at present," I said. "I just wonder if the plans for floating cities are living on a prayer. Or perhaps it's wishful thinking." 

And thinking that discretion is the better part of valor, I exited the kitchen before she could reply.