Waiting

Despite the calendar, a chill remains

Azaleas seem only to bloom with regret

Their thoughts a bit like mine I’d bet

Something is lost amid the steady rains.

The overdue season, by far the favorite of most,

Spring shuffles in this time, not bursting forth

Recalling wintry blasts out of the North,

Arriving weekly those polar waves did boast.

Winter’s power foretold a sense of loss and more,

Sending forth a chilling icy regret

Where once stood warmth and yet

We know Spring’s always come before   

So hope stands firm, awaiting all the while

The return of poetry, delight and laughter,

Catching your breath the moment after,
And, most of all, that summery, sunlit smile.

A Morning with DL and SG

Tibetan Buddhists believe, I think, that we sentient beings have reincarnated so many times over the countless centuries of our existence, that almost anyone and everyone you run across was your mother in a previous life.  It is the odd foundation for the practice of lovingkindness--a sincere and heartfelt loving disposition toward all sentient beings.  Not as romantic as the numerous stories and screenplays tracing lovers encountering one another in a series of lifetimes.  But a mother's love is often more passionate and more enduring than any romantic love.  It seems to overcome almost any hardship, to forgive so many mistakes and to persist, whether the child bothers to attend to it daily by remaining close by or simply carries it in one's heart as a little-recognized foundation of one's sense of self-worth.

Expressions like "he had a face only a mother could love" try to put a comical veneer on this kind of love, but only a few are able to truly cultivate such an all-accepting, all-encompassing love for all the sentient beings they encounter, from the smallest insect biting their skin, to the smelliest animal at the zoo, to the meanest of humans on this earth.  But that is what the Buddha calls upon all people to do.  to offer lovingkindness to all, no matter what they may do, or might have done to you, for they may once have been your mother in a previous existence.  That may or may not be a fact, but it is a way of helping us understand the kind of face we must strive to put on for the world if we wish to achieve enlightenment--in other words, all the dislikes, the wrong actions taken toward other people and sentient beings, get in the way.  We carry them around with us, and they cloud our attempts at insight into the nature of existence.  The Buddha said "only good acts bring wisdom."

Sounds pretty tough to me as I meditate this rainy morning.  The thoughts that arise include what to do with those not-so-loving-kind-benevolent feelings that I direct at  my own self.  Self-criticism for my mistakes, my meanness, carelessness in relating to the others (and the universe) around me; all these seemed to be the only thoughts arising.  Plenty of that to go around, though, so I think I'll try to let it all go and gaze out this window at this fine grey, rainy morning.

P.S.  DL and SG?  The Dalai Lama and Siddhartha Gautama (aka Buddha, The Enlightened One)

Here's An Idea That Didn't Work--Ho Hum

With no subject ideas screaming out to be pursued, I decided to carry a small notebook with me for a week or so.  The idea was to jot down some ideas or observations and thereby develop some subjects I might write about.  A to-do list for Wal-Mart?  How does "fishing pliers, knife, soft-sided tackle box, jelly beans and chewable multi-vitamins" provide any useful subject?  I mean beyond the exciting acknowledgements that I still crave sugar and use the next best thing to Flintstones vitamins as my multi-vitamin of choice, what else is there?.  I could also let you know that I use chewable vitamin C tablets, but I can spell "b-o-r-i-n-g."

Next, I have the cryptic entries I made here describing what sort of exercise I have worked in each day before transferring the information to my on-line wellness web page.  Now how's this for some excitement--"20 minutes treadmill at 3.1 mph, ten minutes elliptical, 60 min personal training session."  All in a day's work, I guess.  But come on, what else do you write about it?  

Then, here's a cryptic note--"tiny birds, no bigger than my thumb," I guess I saw them, but not being an expert bird-watcher, I don't know anything else about them.  So, on to the exciting ones--"first sunburn of the year, nose and forehead peeling."  Long time since I actually had a sunburn that peeled, but I went golfing without a hat, and, 18 holes later, I was sunburned and grumpy about my golfing performance.

Oh, and another couple of bird references--"birds flying into window," and "heron seizing fish and eating them right in front of us as we watch the unmoving bobber on our fishing line."  I guess the heron fishes better than I can, but he'd better--he can't stroll into the Sea Shack and order up a seafood platter, or a grouper sandwich.  (I did, but it was a Friday during Lent, so I waited an hour to place a carry-out order--the heron could have caught forty or so fish in that span, and eaten himself silly).

Speaking of eating habits, I wrote down this gem, "I like all kinds of fruit, just not bananas."  Sounds like our friends' grandson being offered a wholesome snack.

There was one sight to behold--seventy paddle boarders practicing yoga in the inlet behind our house.  I texted a picture to my yoga teacher--saying "are these some of your people?"  She replied "You know it!"  This had been an attempt to set a new world's record, but the turnout of 70 was not enough--just how many of those people are out there anyway?

Was this all, you might ask, you made note of this week?  No, I'm afraid not, but these were the highlights, the rest was really humdrum.  Too much I found bobbing on the surface, not much introspection or insight.  Ho hum, I'll try something else, but at least I wrote something. That's what I was after, I think.

Fishing, Water Boarding and Flak

Just keeping you posted on my progress on learning how to fish.  You may or may not know that I am now a fully-licensed fisherman in the state of South Carolina.  This represents real progress from the stage of having purchased and not yet read, Fishing for Dummies.  I am here to tell you that I have now fished on three occasions alongside the inlet that occupies most of what can be seen in the view behind my home.  The first time, I caught nothing, having spent most of the time learning to tie hooks and so forth.  I wasn't too patient, and quit after just a few casts and about twenty minutes.  My excuse was that I was being swarmed and bitten by "no-see-'ems."  So much for communing with nature and enjoying the peaceful solitude.

The second time, I caught what we think was a Pinfish, roughly ten or eleven inches long, and I have no idea how much it weighed.  I was fishing with the grandson of some friends of ours, (his name is Sean) and we had failed to bring even a cellphone camera to record our catch before we released it.  This also explains why I said earlier "...what we think was a pinfish..."  We were standing there trying to remove the hook from this poor fish's mouth but had no tools with which to accomplish it--no pliers, no knife, nothing.  Consequently we were holding the fish out of water while we tugged this way and that on the hook, then placing it back in the water for fifteen seconds or so to allow it to breathe, then removing it again to tug on the hook, then dropping it back in the water to breathe.  It was the man-to-fish version of water boarding.  I think that this fish would have gladly spilled its guts if we spoke fish.

In the end, we broke the line by getting it caught on a rock while the fish was on one of its brief returns to the water to catch its breath.  I lost the little jig we were using, but I think the fish escaped alive.  I am sure there is some knowledgeable fish out there that can show ours how to remove hooks.  I know, you probably think that makes the fish smarter than we are. But, hey, I didn't bite on the hook trying to nibble on an earthworm, did I?    

We were still pretty darn thrilled to haul in what was probably the first fish I caught all by myself in more than fifty years.  I only know of our family vacation in Eagle River, Wisconsin because my older siblings talk about it, and they think I probably fished up there when I was five or six.  If I didn't actually catch any fish at that time, then this was probably the first time I ever caught a fish all by myself in my lifetime.

We confidently strode out the next day, allowing my friends' grandson the majority of the casts so he could catch one.  All we caught was flak from a security guard who walked up and told us we were fishing in a place where fishing was not permitted.  He was nice enough and said he didn't see where were causing any trouble, so we could stay a while longer if we liked.  I thanked him and told him we wanted Sean to catch up with me on fish catching, and we tried for  little while longer without success.  

I've been doing some research on public use and access to coastal waters and the land beneath and adjacent to them, and I'm beginning to think we can safely ignore the security guards in the future.  We might have to step below the high tide mark, but private owners are not allowed to regulate access to the land beneath navigable coastal waters, in the Supreme Court ruling on the delightfully-named State v. Pacific Guano Co.  The justice writing for the court said “In South Carolina, the state owns the property below the high water mark of a navigable stream. This property is part of the Public Trust. The legislation creating the Coastal Council and defining its duties, while not explicit, implicitly charges the Coastal Council with administering the Public Trust lands in connection with coastal waterways.”  What this says to me is that the State, and not the private property owners run the show where we were fishing.  I'm not sure how much of a battle I want to wage here, but at least I know it's not so simple as the condo or the property owners' association putting up a "No Fishing" sign to stop us from fishing there.  I wonder if my copy of the Supreme Court ruling will fit in my tackle box?

Breathing In The Rain At Night (A Meditation)

Late night alone, rain on the roof quiets the mind and awakens the watcher within.  Not the thinker of all those random thoughts, twisting and turning like rabbit-holes, but the steady presence that watches it all passing.  Silently watching, seeing it all come and go. 

Even taking a breath feels different somehow.  It’s a little deeper, and all that is moving in that breath is present.  Sitting upright lets go of aches, shows joints and muscles that are holding a posture or position separate and stiff.  Allows them to rejoin the body and leave behind resistance and pains felt upon arising.  Allowed to move, no cramping is present.  A small movement leaves behind the pressure felt from sitting in one place.

Can that relief be obtained without moving, but just by breathing?  Attending to it, the feeling begins to subside.  I return to breathing and can feel it from my toes to my scalp.    

Allowing the hands to rest, the tremor is felt.  Joining hands the tremor is spread but in spreading it is reduced.  It brings no fear, only notice, and the hands return to the fleeting attempt to speak for the watcher, who yet watches them.  Again the breath sweeps away what was and rejoins what is. 

Attention returns to a knee that aches, even as it is observed, it subsides.  The knee speaks again, softly, then subsides.  The breathing is consciously deeper, then letting go, it settles into more normal rhythm and the body quiets itself.  Sleep will soon return.  Good night.

Fisherman's Tale

Early Sunday morning, and I’m gazing out the window.   The tide’s coming in, but no boats are about.  Delivery trucks drive off across the inlet, food for the guests replenished.  A few clouds are rolling in as predicted, the weatherman was right.  Couples are walking under the early day’s sunshine.   Once the sun’s as high as the clouds, a dimmer light will filter through them, or not, if the day clears. 

No birds are feeding.  Have the fish all been eaten, or left for safer waters when the tide went out?  Maybe they’ve learned to hide wherever birds do not expect them.  It cannot be beneath the bridge, the birds always have a pelican posted there on alert.  At low tide it cannot be amid the reeds and such in the marsh, the water’s left them for a time.  Maybe Sunday is the birds’ brunch, holding off on breakfast in favor of a brunch feast as the tide brings back the fish.  

Ah, but this is the day I am slated to become a gatherer of fish myself.  I have an appointment with an experienced fisherman (I can't say a serious one, but...).  In the span of a few short hours, I will go from a man with a retirement gift of a fishing rod sitting in the downstairs closet to a man hooking worms on 8 lb. monofilament.  One throwing the bait out into the brackish water of the inlet that ebbs and flows out his back window. 

Even as I approach the water’s edge with my baited hook and a small orange and white bobber, suddenly at least a half-dozen fish begin leaping out of the water along the shore.   Wait ‘til they see this delicious worm, I thought.   They will soon be jumping on the end of my spinning rod, fighting for their lives.  

Not so fast there, Jim, as it happens, they are having too much fun to notice any old worm being waved in front of their eyes.  Cancel that reservation for extra freezer space to store all those fish; don’t worry about the photo-ops just yet.  These neighbors of yours are not interested in the “fun” you are offering them.  These fish, who jump out of the water—two or three feet in the air—aren’t the kind of fish to go looking for some sorry earthworm.  They are reaching for the sun. 

Ah well, I haven’t yet learned how to clean a fish, and don’t have a filleting knife yet anyway.  I was only hoping to be a “catch and release” guy.  After proving my mastery by catching the fish that foolishly tries to grab the worm I dangle before him, I would graciously remove the hook from his mouth and return him to the inlet’s waters.     

So my thirty-minute interlude as a duly licensed fisherman produces no catch, no release, just a few casts, a hook that gets stuck on a log near the waters edge, and a long walk home.    

Fortieth Anniversary

I won’t bore you to tears,

‘bout our first forty years.

As Sheila might tell you it’s some kind of work,

‘cause her husband (that’s me) is sometimes a jerk,

but I think it’s OK.

Since I just heard her say

She’d think it was nifty

If we make it to fifty


(composed in a bar by an interested party after 8 PM.)

Apple Pie For Breakfast

What could be wrong
with a day that begins
with apple pie for breakfast

Skies may be gray
but there's something left over
that can brighten a day's prospectus.

It's a mix filled with apples
flaking crust and sweet sugar
it might lead to a slice that is reckless.

On the counter it waits,
calling out to be eaten.
risking enhancement near one's solar plexus.

But you promise yourself
to burn all of it off
with time on the treadmill in excess

Or, just dash off a poem
that surely will show 'em
apple pie's a most suitable breakfast.