Wisdom

Wisdom comes in many forms. Over the past few years, I have experienced vast wisdom in the presence of my grandparents- Grandpa being 92, Grandma 87. Both are fully capable of spinning an enticing yarn, so here is a nugget from my grandfather that I later transcribed.

From Etchings

"When I was a boy, see, we had several horses. They were, uh, let's see..." After slight trepidation, "Mustangs. Yep, they were mustangs." He cocks his head left with a slight glance at this grandson. "Well, one year the mare ready to give birth see. I had taken off for a while on chores and when I come back I seen the mare give birth to a foal." The grandson and his wife smile to hear him talk of the farm.

"See, the mare didn't have the instinct for birthing and never licked the foal clean. When I came up, the foal was dead." His eyes slump barely enough to notice. "So I took my shovel up to bury the foal, but those Mustangs wouldn't let me near it. Well, I knew they'se afraid of the car, so I drove up so as to make room. Those Mustangs scattered and I dug my hole, then buried the foal."

The grandson pictures a field in Rushville, where horses roam in a pasture. His elder assumes a tone of deep reflection in a story connecting him to the past.

"Well, those horses knew right where the foal was buried and began walking in a circle around it. They just walked and walked until the ground was pushed in, just like this." He held his hands nearly one foot apart as their eyes widened at the thought of such a spectacle.

"Through the rest of their time there, those horses NEVER entered that circle again. They ate all the grass in that field, but inside that circle the grass grew tall." A man of few words evokes the strong simplicity of interconnectedness.

I sew need to pee

Inspired by the last five minutes of my life, let's please make a list of really ridiculous things we do in the name of multitasking. Here's a good example:

Sewing a sleeve hem on a drying shirt hanging from the shower curtain rod. From the toilet.

Another: Blogging while editing while lesson planning while watching Joel paint while drinking wine while listening to music while looking at photos while sorting SD cards and jump drives while injuring my traps.

List away (preferably whilst doing something else.)

See, Joel can multitask: Here you see him enjoying the rhythms of blind Nepali drummers, while visiting a Buddhist holy temple, while appreciating this excellent Smackdown vs. Raw t-shirt.

Life Rhymes with...

A wise man named Robert Moss once said Life Rhymes. Saying it this way makes him sound ancient. While he would agree he is "Stone Age, not New Age," he is definitely very current. He may know a great deal about ancient history, and he certainly has access to ancient wisdom, but he is very much alive and is probably beating his drum this very minute. Well, actually, he probably just watched the season finale of Warehouse 13 on SyFy and is now brushing his teeth. Whatever shamans do on a Tuesday night.

So, on page 2 of The Three 'Only' Things Robert says, "The play of coincidence is all around us, and if we will only look, it will teach us that our thoughts and feelings literally generate different events and experiences in the world 'out there.' We can then begin to work consciously with the law of attraction." Being a person who loves playing around with The Secret and manifesting really important stuff, like, you know, karaoke machines and coffee, I pay lots of attention to attraction. In fact, the parking spots that open themselves up for Cesar are only for fun, a side dish to my main course: the endless series of happy accidents and feng shui flow that is my waking life.

Robert insists that living this way is just the way to live, in waking life and dream life. Which may be real life. We can and should all be doing this, all the time, and I agree with him. Now, if you think I'm spending too much time and attention quoting some guy named Robert, let me explain this: If you had an opportunity to learn dreamwork from an eminent dream expert and master storyteller, wouldn't you? If you had the opportunity to travel into your own past and future, and into other people's dreams, and to re-ignite your imagination, and live your life like it is one pleasant, amazing dream every day, wouldn't you? And if you could listen to a sexy Australian rattle on about his encounter with ancient Mohawk peoples, wouldn't you? No? Well, you're crazy.

What? I'm crazy?

Good.

Moving on. My original intention of this blog entry was to tell a few coincidence stories. Here goes:

Tonight I got a chair massage. No, not a dance, a massage. No, not that kind of massage. I have knots in my back, which I've never had before, and Michael, my masseur (just wanted to say that), said it's years of pent-up tension in my trapezius, compounded by some sort of repeated strain, like typing on a laptop, which he says I should have at eye level, but that's impossible for me because I never took keyboarding and thus have to look at the keys to type, meaning I have the laptop down low no matter what because I can't have it at eye level and the keyboard down low, because I have to look at the keyboard, and the screen is, you know, attached.

Now I'm sounding really crazy. Even better.

So, just as I'm leaving the massage place, I see a book for sale and I stop to flip through it. It includes a zillion quotes about love and peace and soul and happiness, a typical spa-setting-style book. When that many quotes are collected together they confound me and I have quotation shut-down, so I set the book back down. Just before I did, I looked at the inscription on the inside cover: another quote, of course. Emily Dickenson. I thought, this better be a really good one, not some gazing-out-the-window melancholy, to be the inside cover quote of a book of quotes. It WAS a good quote. In fact, so good and so surprising, I made a mental note, as I am practicing mental notes in lieu of my usual written post-it notes, to look it up at home.

So, when I got home I got Ebby's birthday present ready. A small book of quotes. Dammit. And a little pouch I found in Nepal. For, you know, whatever men put in pouches. And a little magical rock Joel brought me from a lady in Jordan who has her own little magical shop and made me a little magical...pouch. Of beads and rocks and bits of tulle and jewels, as if she knows all my favorite things. So I put one of these favorite things in Ebby's gift and tied it all with a bow. Good thing Ebby goes to bed at a teacherly hour so he won't read this until I give him his quote book and pouch, since I will see him tomorrow for his birthday. So, I had retrieved the rock from the Jordan pouch in the top drawer of the pink nightstand with the marble top. And as I went to shut that drawer I saw a scrap of paper, not a post-it but a red square of paper sans sticky, and it had an Einstein quote on it, perfect for Ebby's gift card: "The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives." So, I pulled the paper from the small stack of quotes copied out of SARK's Eat Mangoes Naked, and flipping it over to the back, I found another quote, written months ago, one I had enjoyed only hours earlier and was open-mouth delighted to find, in my own hand, copied on the back, by Emily Dickenson:

"The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience."

That was one for me for sure.

Damn, my trapezius aches. But I shall endure it to tell another Ebby serendipity story, which I tried to tell him the other night right after it happened, when I was still giddy laughing about it, when my soul was ajar, but he doesn't answer his phone when I call, so he'll just have to read it here, won't he? Michael! I need my knots rubbed.

Julie arrived from Chicago Friday afternoon. Always happy to make the scenic drive to and from Reagan National, I enjoyed the route along the Potomac. Saturday morning, I enjoyed my VERY favorite route across the Roosevelt Bridge to E Street, passing my beloved Kennedy Center. After dropping Julie off at 18th and L, I spoke to Joel on the phone and drove to Ebby's place at 14th and S.

Ebby and I had a delicious walk, stopping for coffee and chatting about his upcoming field trip to the Masonic Temple, not the Alexandria one but the D.C. Scottish Rite one, the scene of some exciting drama in The Lost Symbol, which he recommended to me and read with his high schoolers, where he and his students would be visiting and tracking the events of the novel. Halfway through our walk, I needed to pee, especially after laughing about the bra on the ground in the middle of the day outside Rumors, so Ebby suggested Corner Bakery as a good bathroom location. He was right, it was way better than Starbucks, their bathrooms always baffling me. Starbucks and McDonalds. I understand that they have high traffic from patrons and otherwise, but being the giants they are, they could at least thank their loyal..fans? by cleaning the damn bathroom occasionally. Spotless, actually. Most income = best bathrooms.

As we walk away from Corner Bakery, we hear a man yelling at another man who seems to be sitting down in the outdoor seating area of Au Bon Pain. Why, I wonder aloud, is that man yelling at that poor guy with his briefcase? In my mind I immediately think this yelling guy is a jerk. Moments later, I put all the pieces together: No one else is sitting outside at Au Bon Pain because the furniture is wet with fresh silver spray paint. The "jerk" is actually an observant, kind soul jumping at the chance to exclaim to a stranger setting his leather briefcase down, "Wet Paint!" ASS out of U and ME for sure.

On the way back to Ebby's we pass...the Scottish Rite. Which is about one block from his house.

I drive home from D.C. and am shortly thereafter picked up by Ebby, who drives the two of us to Ballston Mall. Not my favorite place to be, but I keep finding myself here. I leave the bar to get my first massage, the day I met Michael. You know, my masseur. Then Shari and I meet Ebby in D.C. again. So, not having seen him in about 3 years, I now see Ebby 3 times in one day. I know, these were intentional plans, not coincidence, but it felt like a play, an Act in three scenes. So, Shari and I drive across...the Roosevelt Bridge. To E St. To 14th and S. Past the Scottish Rite.

Sunday morning, after a long night out in Adams Morgan, I drive into D.C. Again. Across the...yeah. To 18th and L. Numerous black secret service vehicles line the back drive to Julie's hotel, and I find myself walking through a gauntlet of cute agents in black suits to get to the other side of the hotel. I don't know who was brunching at the Mayflower, and I hope it was First Lady Obama and not some boring senator, but it's always fun to see secret service. One would think the suits attract more attention, not less trouble. Anyway, I did not cause trouble, although I wanted to, just to see what would happen if I started acting suspicious, like rummaging through my purse frantically or wearing dark sunglasses indoors or pretending to take photos with my watch. Especially suspicious as no one wears a watch. If I took a photo with my cell phone that would not be suspicious at all, just annoying. I was also wearing a DMB shirt. Very un-spy-like. But wouldn't that be a good cover.

Julie and her friend Adrienne and I walk down the street to get breakfast. Julie says, "The concierge told me there is a Corner Bakery just up this way." A bit slow to connect, what with the Kracken Kritter rum and G&Ts last night, it takes me a block or two to say, "Huh. I think I have been to this Corner Bakery. One other time in my life, in the nine years I have lived here. To pee. Yesterday." Four quadrants in D.C., 68 zillion corners, and Julie wants to eat at my pee spot.

When we get there the cupboard is bare and so the poor girls have none. Apparently the folks at Corner Bakery and Chik-Fil-A of "My Pleasure" fame are in cahoots with their LDS closed-Sunday baloney. So, Julie suggests we cross the street and go to...wait for it, wait for it...Au Bon Pain. The wet paint signs are still out. Not a damn soul in this town is out eating brunch. Except maybe Erica and DCBC across town, and I regret not signing up for a fun meal out to show Jules that D.C. is cool. If she were home in Chicago, brunch capital of the world, she'd be waiting 47 minutes for a table at M Henry, but here in downtown D.C. we can't find an open cafe. Sometimes I wonder about the pulse of this city. Is it beating? We get our food and sit outside. I forget about the wet paint. Did I mention my hangover? We did not get paint on our butts, thank goodness because Julie had cute jeans on. I was hoping for some sort of Issac Newton bird-poop-on-my-head aha-moment sitting outside in Wet Paint land, but nothing came to me. Except the idea to tell Ebby about this story. So that's something, because now I'm typing this. So that's definitely something.

Finally, I drive Julie and Adrienne to Reagan National. My scenic route. And I think about the weekend and how it consisted primarily of driving around and walking around and seeing and doing the same things many times and how natural it all felt. Like this is the way life should feel, like a silly, funny dream. And I haven't even talked about picking Jill up and how we ate pizza and drank beer in the RV. Just like we used to eat pizza and drink beer in the dorm. And how Julie saw Morgan for the first time in forever and he remembered all kinds of crazy stuff, and Joel and I talked about Mike and how he always remembers crazy stuff...

So, this is all my mental note about coincidences, just in the last few days. Life rhymes. Our thoughts and feelings literally generate events. Thoughts have mass. Thoughts become things. I wonder what things we are making happen next? I have a few ideas, and a few more ideas, but I need to sleep now. So I can dream. Funny...both Robert Moss and The Lost Symbol say the same thing. And so do The Secret and The Celestine Prophecy and What the Bleep and the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange and The Matrix and Waking Life and Rumi and the Masonic mysteries and the Bible and the ancient Mohawks and Carl Sagan and feng shui...what a coincidence.

Namaskar

Nepal... At one point insane, at another completely calming. Is it the people? Is it the spirit of the land? Lumbini: the birthplace of the Buddha. Pokhara: a lakeside town blessed in the course of the Buddha's travels. Kathmandu: immortalized by the soft vocals of one Yusuf Islam, better known as Meow Stevens. A place where enlightenment has befallen many before us. At the same time, there is trash in the streets and children playing among broken glass. The organized chaos flows around us, while we witness peoples of various backgrounds interacting on different levels. The Nepalis defer to us as "kohire," and the Tibetans defer to them as exiles in their land. In one day, we can be drinking "cha pu cha" (tea with butter and salt- don't ask) and partaking in the wily ways of the Funky Buddha.

Lindsay has departed, but it's fun to see all the places we visited together as I walk around town. There is the Stupa (or shtoopa) at Bodhnath where we walked with reverent Buddhists and met Thangka artists. We also have our restaurant- the Garden Kitchen, which features a killer Banana Milkshake and monks saving three-legged kittens.

Now I am preparing for my journey to Damak in the eastern region of Jhapa, near India. We were able to visit some of the refugees preparing to travel to the USA in a few days. Rarely do we see people after our interviews, so the opportunity to see them actually traveling was very fulfilling.

Yet another adventure in books and there's always more to come!

Holy. Cow.

Didn't see one yet.

My entirely overwhelmed, inundated, boggled senses wouldn't have been able to process seeing one anyway. Less than an hour ago, riding from the Kathmandu airport to our palace...er, hotel, a blessed heifer could have been staring me down right in front of my quarter-sized, rickety white van-cab and I wouldn't have seen it, because I was too busy looking at

my Monopoly money, trying to decide on an appropriate tip, using my mini-calculator and Sharpie-written rupee cheat sheet on the back to figure it out (rupees? really? I've used those in many a merchant shop in the land of Zelda, but never in real life).

the people. Loads and loads of people doing...what? Stuff. Running, standing, selling, yelling, nearly being run down by cars, including my cab, buying, carrying, sitting, gabbing, scowling, laughing. Wearing face masks for the fumes. Going to school. I saw cutie teenagers in all their cutie blue school uniforms and I thought, how nice! they're all on their way home from school! and then I thought, damn, it's 9 in the morning, they're just now GOING to school! And all this bustle and madness and action, before you've even gone to your first class? And how sweaty are all those men in their business attire? I mean, I smell like an exhaust pipe and I wasn't even outdoors. And I plan to shower, not do geometry or go to a meeting.

the motorcycles! Or scooters, half-broken rickshaw-lookin' 3-wheeled thingys, mopeds, crotch rockets, whatever they were, they were all over the place, with every manner of passenger on the back. Riders in helmets, passengers in no helmets, women riding sidesaddle, a dad in his work shirt and tie with his infant son sleeping on his shoulder in rush-hour traffic. And my cab driver bearing down and laying on the horn all the way.

the trash. The filth, the mess, the rubbish, all along the streets, in the gutters, on the sidewalks, in shop entryways. I actually thought, hmmm, if that were MY business, I would totally tidy up the walk and people would frequent my shop because it looks so neat and nice. And in the same moment I thought, no, then people would think I was crazy and wonder why in the world I was touching what is supposed to stay on the ground.

Please do not misunderstand. It sounds like I didn't LIKE my taxi ride through downtown Kathmandu. The OPPOSITE is true. I LOVED it. It was absolutely exhilarating and I was smiling the whole time like some dumb blonde white chick smiles when she's in a taxi looking at you in wonder and is fully confident her driver will not plow into the bus full of little Nepali schoolchildren or that lady crossing the street in her lovely blouse and sari.

So, here I sit in the sixth floor club lounge waiting for Joel, on free internet, having just finished my complimentary champagne (it literally IS 5 o'clock somewhere) and breakfast of yogurt with pomegranate seeds (love how they pop in your mouth) and a roll with yak cheese (!), gaze of the sacred Boudhanath Stupa out the window fixed upon me. The Buddha and the mountains and the prayer flags are asking me, how do you feel there, Miss Fortunate (ha ha), all safe in sound in your fancy Hyatt while the poverty-stricken scratch around in the street just beyond that gated, grassy courtyard? And my answer is, I don't know, I'm not sure, but I don't feel bad. Not gonna lie, Lindsay likes having her bags bellhopped to her room. But...hmmm.

I'm going to the pool!

Kathmandu'n It Right!

In case anyone thought we would we roughin' it in Nepal, here's our hotel.

Well, to be fair, we are only staying at the Hyatt two nights out of two weeks.

We will post pictures from the road! Be ready for yaks, sherpas and yetis. (Still trying to figure out which are humans, which are animals and which are myths.)

Namaste!

No Woman No Cry

For the 4,643rd time in my life, I just spilled milk on the counter. I did not cry, but I can totally see why someone might cry. If you were having a really bad morning and you just wanted some milky, delicious coffee and you spilled milk everywhere, that would be terrible. It goes mysterious places, it's hard to see on a white countertop, it's sticky and it smells bad when it dries. Like water on old carpet. When I have kids I will absolutely cry when they spill milk in the cracks of the couch cushions or on my laptop keyboard. But if they spill it in the RV I might actually smile instead of cry because that means we HAVE to get new carpet.

I know this is NOT how one should blog. You start a blog, you get excited, you make two posts, you don't post for over a week then you post about milk. This is not how it should be done, but this is how it IS done. By me. So. There.

Thank you notes should also not be sent on July 31, exactly 364 days after the wedding, but that is also how we do it. Just under the wire and with excellence.

"Who said being awesome is easy?"
Meliss proclaimed this last night after I woe-is-meed about the thank yous. Amen, BFF. This shall be our new motto. It fits nicely with Tammy's (and Victoria Beckham's) motto, "It's exhausting being fabulous."

Our Newest Addition!

Ha ha, gotcha Mom!

Not a bundle of joy, just a bundle of...a big beige box of...a tenement on wheels? Our first home.

Ta da, here he is! In the grand tradition of Joel and Lindsay naming inanimate objects, especially vehicles, presenting:

Reginald von Campersand Bandersnatch,

aka RV.

Specs: 1989 Coachmen Catalina (makes me nuts -- why MEN? Shouldn't the brand name be Coachman? I don't get it) with a Ford somethin-somethin engine chassis somethin. Pretty sweet interior with salmon carpet that should NOT accidentally get soaked with the icy contents of an 80-quart capacity cooler. Imagine if you never washed your middle school home ec pillow and then someone spilled beer water on it and then you had to line your floor with it and many other dirty, smelly pillows and then you closed it into a little house.

BUT, this guy can haul ass on hills and has THREE BEDS. That is WAY more beds than in our apartment. Pat and Alicia, you and the boys still want to visit, right? Right? No?


Joel's solution to the carpet problem. Now, does this seem like more of a solution, or yet another problem? This container may also have been manufactured in '89.

More RV pics to come. A special thanks to Tammy, Fred, Fred IV, and Liz for their time and expertise in the de-gunkifying and tinkering departments. Soon all will be able to experience the aquarium-themed bathroom facilities and special "chandelier." RV is currently at the spa in Manassas Park but will be home for our weekend jaunt to Vermont and next week's anniversary/family reunion roadtrip to the Finger Lakes.

Rubber side DEFINITELY down!

Learn Something New Every Day

There are moonbows!

Thank you, Rosalynn and Nell, (who plan to check out this regularly-occuring lunar rainbow in Cumberland Falls, KY), for teaching us something new. Has anyone else seen a moonbow?

Damn, I always sound like such a teacher. Raise your hand if you've seen one.

Joel and Barb witnessed this arc, an upside-down rainbow, upon exiting the St. George's Church in Salt, Jordan, the site of a 2009 miracle -- a footprint appearing in the church floor after the locals heard a horse.

If witnessing a rainbow is a reminder everything is going to work out, what might catching a moonbow signify? What about seeing an unusual phenomenon at the site of another? (Symbolism, class. On the SOL.)

Today was a moody one, but in a world of night rainbows, upside-down skies and mysterious footprints, what a waste of time to moon about. (I'm so punny.) This reminder was delivered, just when I needed it, to our Arlington apartment doorstep today after an afternoon thunderstorm. Special delivery by one Mr. ROY G. BIV.