Does Cutting Work?

I told my daughter to tell her kids that you can cut an earthworm in two and each part would grow the missing part. My smarty wife googled it and shamed me, telling me that it wasn’t true. The head would grow a new tail, but the tail would not grow a head. She had never heard about it as a kid. I figured that earthworms in Chicago could grow a head, while those in the middle of Illinois could not.

Then I asked some others and they believed the same thing, not about Chicago vs. middle of Illinois, but that bisecting earthworms would increase their population. So what do I really believe now: what I grew up believing (and didn’t adequately test), or what my wife of 50plus years Googled? No comparison! Though I realize that’s slightly ambiguous as I meant it to be.

Yesterday I had practice discussion with a Zen teacher and was describing how I was angry at what someone had done, and she suggested that I try to look at who was it that was angry. When I saw the picture of the worm, I thought about her question. Maybe I could just cut the anger off. I wonder if people who are cutters want to do that. Just cut the anger off. And then it will go away.

Certain places and people seem to be triggers for anger. They don’t do things as I would like them to be done. Someone believed that I didn’t pay for a workshop, so they circulated a signup sheet with a comment next to my name, “Did not Pay.” I’m not positive my credit card payment went through because I have a vast amount of credit cards and don’t have the time to check, but I do have a note from them that I did pay. But whether I paid or not is not really relevant. There are other ways to tell someone they are delinquent than public shaming.

So I wrote to them that they embarrassed me. In accordance with their typical practice, so far they have not responded.

But anger. In Zen, we talk about equanimity and tolerance. Why can’t I just say that some people are different than others? Why can’t I forgive someone for not realizing that they meant no public shaming... they simply wanted me to know that I didn’t pay and they didn’t have time to send an email.

So let’s say I was a Bodhisattva and my path was to save all beings from suffering. What would I do then? First, I’d not be so concerned about what I was feeling as what they might be feeling. If someone is not thinking and they hurt your feelings, what do you say? If you say, “you are not thinking,” you might hurt their feelings. Will you ease their suffering?

This would all be laughable if it was the first time that poor communication occurred. But every interaction with this institution has the same result. Perhaps I am just overly sensitive? But when I am treated well in some communities I feel especially hurt by others.

I remember a situation in another community where someone was given a single bed sheet for a double bed. There are options and possibilities here. One could just return the single sheet and ask for a double. Or they could use the single, being thankful for having a sheet. Or they could stomp their feet and feel insulted and unliked.

We can choose. But what response makes the world a better place? Letting someone walk all over me doesn’t work. Going postal doesn’t work. Is it enough to tell someone how you feel? Should I have just assumed that they met no insult when they said, “didn’t pay.” Should I now follow up with a second email or phone call and ask them what they discovered? Or wait it out?

P.S. Planarian flatworms are able to reform their entire body from slivers just 1/300 of the animal’s original body size. Ain’t that a miracle!

Wild Party for 50th Anniversary

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Those words are empty unless they are followed by actions. The shootings in El Paso and Ohio could have had some benefit if they had resulted in some positive actions. How bad do things have to get before gun laws will change? How long do things have to change before schools change their “core curriculum” to one that includes the love of fellow humans, other beings and the earth? I’m frightened to go to a gay pride festival next weekend. Might there be another shooter there? Will be all be homebound given the danger of public places?

We made it!!! 50 years of matrimony. It was touch and go (what does that mean?).

Anyway, we had an elaborate celebration. All the invited guests came (Linda and Kim). I bought sunflowers and Joan gave us sunflowers. And the gourmet meal (ice cream, blueberries, and banana not shown). Here are some pictures of the wild party.

Reality and Imagination

Spent the day with Norman Fischer at his dharma talk and workshop. He spoke about imagination in zen. I like the way he spoke of imagination as what is needed to approach reality, but I'd go a step further and eliminate this idea of reality altogether. Whose reality? I think we'd do better just admitting that we each have created a world. Period.

This is my last day of not being married for 50 years. It is odd to imagine having other people as teachers or even wives. I don't know if other people do this. Or even if you are in a parking lot and you wonder what it would be like to have a different car than the one you have. I'd rather have my dream car, which is the Mercedes Jeep. As to teachers, it is a rather tricky business. Do I want this teacher or that teacher? Norman Fischer would refuse to be a teacher but rather called himself a friend. The real teacher one has is themselves. And especially the mistakes that one makes is the ultimate teacher (if we don't repeat them too many times).

But I would almost choose my wife of 49 and 364/365 years except that she reads my mind too often. So I almost don't need to think because she's thinking of the same thing. But actually, this is good because someday I might stop thinking and then I can ask her what I would have thought of if I could think. So, unless something changes in the next 83 minutes, I think it will be great to make it to 50.

I've gone about a week now with nine meals a week. It seems like it would be torture as we think we need to eat every few hours, but really it gives me a lot of energy. People didn't eat three meals until the 1700s. Ancient Romans ate one meal a day. Hunter/gatherers ate less often than that. I don't think our bodies are meant to eat and digest continually.

I do need to remind myself to drink more water. The drink of the gods.

Stories and Fences

I am confused. In Zen we talk a lot about stories and how our stories are made up by our minds. My story might be a world is for me, or against me. My story might be that I’m a weakling or a strongling. If there is a reality (which I doubt) then we probably can’t see it.

Imagine a large donut. Is there one view of it that is truer than another? I don’t know.

I’m a little bored with “life as it is.” After two years of watching a train wreck on CNN I’m feeling the need for a little fantasy.

But fantasy is more than making things up. Sometimes it is a better way of being more literal. For example, describing our president as a man rather than as a beast might be less accurate.

Today I feel like I’m in the last stages of a marathon. In two days it will be 50 years of marriage. Many turns and twists to our lives. We lived in 5 different cities, had two wonderful kids and 4 wonderful grandsons, etc. Facts can be pretty boring though.

I remember as a kid when my closet was actually an elevator going to the land of OZ. I would make a machine noise and it would go down and down and down to a place where life was very different. Our cousin wouldn’t buy into our fantasy. Now he writes science fiction.

All the fences around us have been torn down and are being rebuilt. Fences make a big difference. You live inside fences and you tear them down and voila… your space blends with your neighbor’s space. Do we trust Robert Frost quoting the adage that good fences make good neighbors? What really was his take on that?

Renewing Vows

“My heart leaps up when I behold a zebra in my yard.”—Sears Roebuck

Well, we got close. Our 50th anniversary would have been in three days, but we are calling it off because of an irreconcilable difference. When I told her about the zebra skin baseballs she was very upset and said that was “bad bad bad.” “Why would you degrade a zebra into a baseball?” she asked. She had no problem insisting on leather seats for her new car/anniversary present. Is a cow less of a sentient being than a zebra? I guess we can return the car. $369,000.000,000 in merchandise was returned last year. Adding a Honda CR-V to that will be a mere blip.

“I refuse to associate with people who revere some animals and squish others. It seems they [the people, not the animals] are talking with a forked tongue.”—Tonto

Yesterday I wrote about a little itty bitty zebra. Today I will tell you about the miracle that made a believer out of me. That is quite true. When my dead goldfish that had been half-eaten by Malcolm’s cat was revived with a few vitamin drops, I made a vow to always love the divine and to be at her service. But when Zebe started growing by leaps and bounds, I renewed my vows.

Our house where the zebras and goldfish lived was here until a few months ago.

Zebe ate a lot. One of the reasons my growth was stunted early on was because of Zebe. When Zebe learned to talk, her (discovered sex) first words were, “give me food.” I gave her the mainstays of my diet: steak and bananas. She’d complain about the bananas, “What do you want to do, make me into a monkey,” and then she’d devour them, skin and all. I think she just wanted to give me a hard time.

I lived on the ice (not “on,” but eating it) that built up in the freezer of our ancient Frigidaire. Sometimes berries would melt onto the ice and give it a good flavor. Getting the ice out was always a challenge. I used a rusty screwdriver that I found in the back coach house in the photo above.

My son is named Josh, and he continually joshes me. I can’t figure out why. His present dilemma is that water is dripping into his electrical box and he wants to fix it himself. And gallons of water came into his car and he had to use his shop vac to vacuum it out. Then I was sent this. A handyman finally does something that makes sense.

Electrical genius

So here’s what sometimes happens when you mail-order one zebra. You need to specify “one virgin zebra.”

Zebras after their release

Sears' Zebras

Sears used to sell zebras. Once upon a time. It was their policy to sell anything that people wanted. Almost.

Anyway, as a kid, I was hard to please. I had everything. Everything, that is, but a zebra. And I thought a zebra was just what I needed to make my life complete because we also had lots of flies, and flies don’t like zebras because their stripes freak them out. Go ahead, Google it, if you don’t believe me.

So, I was about six. It was the early 50s, and we had a big back yard. One day I came home from school and a little zebra was in our back yard, eating our unmoved grass. I decided to call it Zebe, and, with a carrot in my hand, I called Zebe.

Did you know that zebras like to walk backward? They aren’t the best at turning around. They might do that if a lion was chasing them, but when it is a six-year-old kid with a carrot, they just walk backward.

So Zebe finally made his/her way over to me. I wasn’t sure how to tell the difference then. And Zebe saw the carrot and went for it, and my hand as well. Luckily I was a pretty fast thinking kid and I threw the carrot up in the air. Zebe caught it in mid-air.

That was cool so I ran in the house and got a baseball. Finally, I had found a friend to play catch with.

But Zebe kept eating my balls, one after another.

I came in the house and told my mom to call Sears and complain. I thought, in a just world, that Sears should replace the baseballs since it didn’t say in Zebe's instruction book not to play catch with it.

Here’s the conversation I overheard:

Mom: Hello, we just received a zebra and it has been eating baseballs.

Sears: We do warranty our products. And we do sell the finest zebras in the world.

Mom: My son is very sad after losing all his balls. How quickly can you replace them?

Tea tray to hold zebra balls

Sears: Those balls are $2.99 each. My supervisor says you need the special balls made of zebra hide. Zebras won’t eat those.

Mom: We don’t feel we should have to pay for them. We are entitled to free balls, given that there was a problem with your zebras.

Sears: Ok, we’ll send you one ball free. But after that, we can’t both stay in business and provide free balls.

Mom: (As she slammed down the phone). Thank you!

The next thing we knew, a zebra ball flew threw our picture window. That was fast, I thought.

I took the ball into the back yard and threw it at Zebe. He/she backed up to it and sniffed it. Did you know that when zebras sniff, it is like a hurricane? Anyway, Zebe sniffed the zebra ball, and upon realizing what it was, shed tears from him/her eyes. Pools of tears, enough to drench my tennis shoes.

Tomorrow: Why is Zebe growing so fast?

Almost a Winner

I told my wife that I was just going to make things up. I think our president if we want to call him that, has given us all permission to make things up. Unlike a traditional muse, she told me that it sounded boring. She’s really been a good muse for 50 years, always telling me the truth rather than what I wanted to hear.

As I sat this morning, I thought about this car that had backed into me at Central Market. It was a large shiny black SUV, and mine was a small SUV. The driver didn’t hurt me, but he smashed the passenger side of my car to the point that a passenger would be no longer.

I counted to ten. I didn’t want to get out of the car and start yelling at the guy. I wanted to remember that he’s a human being too, and he probably feels terrible enough that he ruined my car. He was an old man with a mustache that was well-waxed. He had a cream-colored cowboy hat and was well-dressed with tight-fitting jeans that had silver stars on the pockets.

I asked him for his driver’s license. He mumbled something and went back to his car. I could see him opening his attache case on his front seat. He reached in and grabbed a handful of 1000 dollar bills. Here, he said, this should take care of that. He didn’t say, “I’m sorry,” and didn’t seem to have regrets. He probably used the money to buy himself out of most unpleasant situations like someone else we know.

I felt well-compensated for my 9-year old car that I was sure was totaled. I looked at the money and the next thing I knew, he was quickly driving away.

Later that day I went to deposit the money into my bank. First, the teller called over the assistant manager, who called over the manager, who said, “wait here,” and a policeman came rushing into the bank. “Where did you get this money,” he said. I told them the story and they said, “we are looking for that guy. Do you have his license number? What kind of car did he have? Did you get his name?”

The bills weren’t worth the paper they were printed on. Where I thought I had cleaned up, and an unfortunate event turned out to be fruitful, I now faced my stupidity for accepting these poorly printed counterfeit bills. They even all had the same serial numbers, the teller pointed out to me.

P.S. I’m at the beginning of a zen practice period. I’m going to eat 9 meals a week and make one writing or drawing a day. Here’s my first meal.

Kerbey Lane, Austin, Texas (Vege breakfast w/gluten-free pumpkin pancakes, scrambled tofu and soyage)