Like Water

My friend and publisher Craig Smith asked of me a task.

This is not a strange task, given I am studying massage and working in the medical field. It was not an unreasonable request, given the same. That it came over a Fuller's ESB (Extra Special Bitter) at a local pub was a bit out of the ordinary but if I discounted that which came at uncommon moments and from non-ordinary directions, my life would be rather empty.

He asked me to work on his mom.

Without going into detail, his mom is old. Yes, that is rather a meaningless word. Old means something different at ten than it does at twenty. Vastly different at thirty than it does at fifty. I am forty-three and I consider her old. This is fully because she acts old. I have, in fact, no idea how many years she has been walking the Earth. I do know, however many years that is, discounting her infancy and the last few years, that number of would be minus a bit over three. She rarely ventures from bed and, then, with great difficulty.

He wants me to do massage for her. Her lower back is stiff and painful straight across. She has little flexibility and movement. Far too much time immobile has left her atrophied and less likely to become mobile each day.

She can’t get onto a massage table. A massage chair would be a difficulty. I suggested I was not the person for the job. Perhaps someone experienced in geriatric massage?

A few days later I asked a therapist who teaches at a local massage school. Ron is familiar with my work: I have given him massages in the past and we have had discussion on method, practice and philosophy.

I asked him about working on Craig’s mom. I suggested a few salient suggestions regarding technique or set-up. He did not disappoint me.

He suggested bringing in a straight-back chair and having her sit on that, the wrong way, with a pillow in front of her. Good idea. That would allow me to get to what I needed and still leave her feeling secure. It would be more familiar than a massage chair and easier to get into.

I went on to say I said I didn't think I was the right person for the job.

I was quite surprised at the answer. He countered me with what, to me, is a compliment.

"You are exactly the person for the job. You are gentle and the energy flows through you. You are perfect for it. You’re probably just what she needs."

Really? Gentle?

My touch is rather deep, but broad. It is slow and, I suppose, I can see that, though not light, being sensed as gentle.

But energy?

I said I never felt the energy flow and then, it occurred to me, what an idiotic thing that was to say. One only feels what one resists. A wire only notices the energy when there is resistance. A hose only notices the water when there is a block.

After all, if you notice your eye seeing, there is a problem. If you notice your breathing all the time, feel the air in and out, there is a problem. If you can feel your heart stomping in your chest, see a doctor. When things work right, they are invisible. When the country is run well, the emperor is never seen. So the Tao teaches us. So nature shows us. That which works as it should is not noticed, has no resistance. That which resists is worn.

I think that is why I never trusted the energy workers who shook and quaked and moaned when working. And I never figured the more hot the hands of a worker the better the work. In a way, that heat is a sign of resistance just like a cord with too much power for the gauge. It’s a sign of resistance.

So, I resisted the compliment, of course. But I was countered again, later, by another. Jennifer, my friend of marvelous intuitive power, trusted fully, implicitly and wholly, tells me the truth without hesitation or reservation. When she speaks, I believe. Jennifer agreed instantly. Agreed as though I should have known this all along.

So, I guess I'm the guy.

And why am I always the last to know? I guess I just never notice.

There is a Picture of Me in my Daughter's Bedroom

There is a picture of me in my daughter's bedroom.
On her night table, it would be the last thing she sees
Before turning off her light.

It is a photograph of me holding her in my arms.
In it, she is one year old and I am nearly twenty,
As she is now.
In the picture, I am holding her
As I am now.

Last night she swallowed a bottle of pills.

There is nothing unhealthy in my daughter's kitchen.
Processed foods and artificial colours would never
Find their way to her table.

She is a dancer for the ballet and vigilant with her body.
She regards it as sacred and believes
Others should as well.
She has done her best to keep everyone
Full of life.

Last night she swallowed a bottle of pills.

There are no prescription drugs in my daughter's medicine cabinet.
She questions doctors on the rare occasions
She feels the need to see one.

She must know why she needs the pills and what they will do.
She regards them as foreign substances
She should avoid
And would not take anything other than
An occasional aspirin.

Last night she swallowed a bottle of them.

I have a picture of me in my daughter's hospital room.
On my night table, it is the last thing I see
Before turning of my light.

It is a photograph of me holding her in my arms.
In it, she is twenty-one years old and I am nearly forty.
A nineteen year constant, growing wider, growing wider.
In the picture, I am holding her
As I am now.

The Massage-esque, Non-acu-anything Table of Ultimate Promise

If you don’t feel well, if you need to get your blood flowing and muscles moving, take a walk. If you need medical care, if you THINK you need medical care, see an Oriental Medical Doctor, an Acupuncturist or Herbalist, see a massage therapist or even a good, decent MD, if you can find one who still remembers how to treat a patient and not a just a condition, but, for goodness sakes, see a real person who will put their hands on you, listen to you, look at you and actually take the time to see what is wrong, see you as an individual, treat you as an individual.

Don’t see a table.

I received a coupon as part of a drawing at a health fair. The prize I had won was a free month of massage, once a week, at a place which shall remain nameless here. I thought this strange because it was the same coupon/gift certificate I had seen lying in piles at a chiropractor’s office a week before. “Some prize,” I thought. Giving as a prize what one normally offers for free doesn’t exactly boost ones’ karmic brownie points.

Thinking I would give it a try anyway, I called to make an appointment. None needed? How many therapists do they have there that one doesn’t even need an appointment? Fine. It seemed strange but I thought I’d try it anyway. I jumped on my bike on a Saturday afternoon and headed into Melbourne.

A storefront in a plaza. Wide open view to the inside. People milling about. A row of six angled massage tables, or so they seemed, to the left side of the store. Each had a person on it, fully clothed, no draping, no therapist. At the front counter, a short line and, across from that, seating for six with four chairs filled.

I enter.

An old woman is at the counter asking about her next appointment. She will be seeing her MD between now and then about her diabetes.

She is told not to worry about it. The massage bed, yes, they called it a bed, will take care of it. The magic jade fingers will provide acupressure that will alleviate the diabetes.

The table provides, they say, the equivalent of moxa, acupressure, reflexology and massage as well as energy therapy. Further, I was told, using the Migun table means no need to exercise. as it will bring all the muscle movement and blood flow a body needs. Really?

A roller with, I am told, heated jade knobs, runs up and down the back shu points. Simply, up and down next to the spine. This is not acupressure. It is not acu-anything. It is not accurate in any way at all, as a matter of fact. And, of course, no diagnosis is done what-so-ever and certainly nothing that applies to any specific patient.

This, I think, standing there, is worse even than the Western medicine, one size fits all, treat the symptom not the person method. The most they do here is adjust the spacing of the knobs, those magic jade fingers, for the general size of the person.

She asks about her weight.

Don’t worry about that. Enough treatments and the weight will start to fall off.

I keep my mouth closed which is quite difficult for me even under the best of circumstances.

She hands them a check for six more sessions.

My turn at the counter. I hand them the certificate. It is unsigned. They don’t know where it came from, despite my giving them the location, time and circumstances, and don’t know how to assign the credit for the certificate. Somehow it becomes my problem and I must wait while they figure it out. I do wait a few moments and ask questions of the attendant left at the counter.

“Oh, it’s a wonderful massage.”

How do you all know what parts to massage or how much pressure to use?

“The table has variable pressure. We can turn it up or down.”

Just in general for all over or does the pressure vary by part?

“No, just in general. And it works on the back only. And the back of the legs and neck.”

What if I don’t fit on it, just in the right place. My legs tend to fall to the side.

“We can strap you in to keep your legs straight. That problem can be fixed with enough sessions.”

Since moxa is used for tonifying in a person who had a deficiency, what would you do if you had a patient who had excess?

“What?”

I was told I could have my turn in about a half hour and I could have a seat and wait.

I opted for my bike.

A month later I was assisting at a table at a Palm Bay city health fair held at out local community center. We had a booth there and we were one spot away from the Migun table. Again, I am leaving out the name of the outfit that was purveying the massage-esq, non-acu-anything table of ultimate promise.

As our practice is concerned with Oriental Medicine, Acupucnture and Massage, the fella at the table felt sure we’d be interested in purchasing a Migun table in our office, for the benefit of our patients. I almost never try the cure of the month club’s newest entry. But, as this one was offered, it was ten feet away, and I wanted to sit down, I thought it a sterling opportunity to give it a whirl.

I laid down and it hurt. Hard, knobby, pokey.

“I’ll adjust it.”

Knobs turned and the magic jade fingers moved closer together toward the space between the outer and inner urinary bladder channel about four fingers away from each side of the spine.

He turned it on. Was it badly adjusted? He said no. It hurt. Magic jade fingers rolled up and down the back of my legs and backside. Just hitting the wrong places nearly every chance they got. My legs turned to the side and the fingers hit bone. A separate set of magic jade fingers rolled up and down my back. They hit my scapulae, against my skull. A timer was set for five minutes and I was set to endure it for a fair trial.

About three minutes in I gave it up. Yes, he agreed, it often hurt. The pain would go away with many treatments as my tissues softened. Softened? Pulverised? Ok. Would the magic jade fingers also learn where the correct anatomical points were and stop ‘massaging’ bone?

How about acupressure? Oh, he said, everyone gets the same points done. The same meridian (inner urinary bladder channel).

Why?

“That fixes all the problems.”

Since moxa is used for tonifying in a person who had a deficiency, what would you do if you had a patient who had excess?

“What?”

I went back to my table.

Healing happens when a person, learned and skilled, finds the way you became ill and works to correct it. It is not done by a machine.

Sure, a machine may help. Electrosimulation is something we use with acupuncture. We might use a heatlamp. We find MRIs helpful from time to time. Precision lasers are amazing tools in the hands of one who is learned and skilled.

But don’t look to a table to heal you. Magic Jade fingers or not.

Kayak Book

The date is May 17th, a Thursday, and it is my planning period and lunch. I have no need to plan anything and it is quite too soon for lunch. In a middle school, lunch can range anytime from ten-thirty to twelve-thirty. It is a quarter to eleven and that is far too early.

I also have only a week left of school; hence, the lack of need to plan. Other teachers are planning already for next year, looking at recruitment, collecting materials, packing up what they have to be stored for the next year. They’ve been doing this for weeks.

Me, I had opened up my desk drawers and filing cabinets for the students to take what they liked, yanked wide my closet doors for students to take what they chose. My books, academic, scholastic and otherwise: given away. Papers: given away. Posters: given away. Rulers, staplers, pens, hole punches, clips: all given away. My plan book with my year’s lessons and projects, nearly everything, all gone to students. The little that remained: left for the teachers to scrounge. I had to scrounge at the beginning for the year. The day before the start of school my room was ransacked for furniture, supplies and books. I had to enlist students to help me find tables and desks from the trash. So the students can have what they like and the teachers can do what they will, what they do best: thieve. I have no need of any of it. As of next week, I am no longer teaching. I am done. I have had enough.

All but my writing program. That, I kept neatly organized in a binder. My principal asked to have it. I laughed, quietly, subtly but visibly enough he asked what seemed amusing. After all, I was let go for being more a writer than a test trainer, more a teacher than a techie. “You’re a genius,” he said, “but you’re not duplicatable. Neither is what you do. We can’t afford that.” I suggested he could purchase the program or hire me to teach as a consultant but, no, he would not be left the fruit of five years’ labour and two decades experience.

So I have little to pack but a portfolio and a few papers. I have finals to give and grade – pass them out, pick them up and run them through a machine. I have students for whom I must enter grades and, averaged, their final grade will not look like the letter grade on their report card. Students, eighth graders, who published essays, poetry, journalism, won contests, accomplished works of beauty and artistry but whose ability simply cannot be expressed in the final the administration mandates must be multiple choice and look very much a mock state assessment. No score will go down but several will be much higher than the numbers alone might dictate.

As a matter of fact, some of those final grades can be entered even before the test. As I start, I remember to turn my phone on, as I do during my planning periods. It chimes and I hear the signal that tells me I have voice mail.

The call is from Witney. I left him a message about kayaks some days earlier. I have been interested in kayaking and canoeing ever since I went on a rather surreal canoe adventure down north Florida’s Santa Fe River with an entire Hebrew school student body. The result was a blues song called “Jews in Canoes” and a love for quietly paddling calm waterways.

Jews in Canoes

(chorus 1)
Jews in Canoes
Bad News
Jews in Canoes
Bad News
You'll always get the blues with
Jews in Canoes.

(chorus 2)
Jews in Canoes,
Bad News.
Jews in Canoes
You're gonna sing the blues.
You're always gonna lose with
Jews in Canoes.

Went or a trip
with my daughter's class mates
from her Hebrew school
I couldn't guess my fate
We set out on the river
at the outpost site
oh my lord
I had such a fright.

We were set in the water
barely two feet deep
There were thirteen canoes
in our Hebrew fleet
one paddler in the front
and one in the rear
rocking the boat
both trying to steer.

chorus 2

Then we got it straight
headed down the stream
twelve canoes
from a very bad dream
When I heard a little chuckle
on the bank from an otter
when our fleet was jam
from one bank to the other.

Well I floated down the river
as easy as can be
Then I make the mistake
of looking next to me
out on a river
one hundred feet wide
a canoe from the blue
hit me in the side.


Shema Yisroel,
Adonai Elohenu.
Adonai echad.


chorus 2

Now we're out ahead
just my daughter and me
I look around
at the scenery
Here comes a canoe
with a mother and a child
next thing I know
we're a canoe pile.

When we reach the end
our destination in sight
I hang back
to avoid the flight
canoes left and right
my chances are slim
next thing I know
I'm hangin off a tree limb.

chorus 2

I get off the limb
and walk to my boat.
Barely ‘nough water
to keep it afloat.
Canoes all around
ahead and behind
paddling to the beach
like they was all blind.

Out on the grass
sitting in the sun.
licking my wounds
kinda glad we're done.
Then my daughter tell me something
leaves me cold with fright
“Our next canoe trip, Daddy, it’s at night."

chorus 1


Jews in Canoes,
Bad news.
Jews in Canoes,
You're gonna sing the blues.
You're always gonna lose
You're gonna pay your dues
You always get the blues with
Jews in Canoes.

I had asked him, in an email and phone message, if there was such a thing as a stable kayak or if I had to look for a canoe. I further wanted to know if he had a line on one that was affordable on my schoolteacher’s salary, which meant I was looking for someone who had a perfectly usable boat and wanted to pay me to take if off his or her hands.

I return the call.

I ask my question.

There is no such thing as a simple answer to any question asked Witney. This is not because he doesn’t want to answer a question in a simple way but because he wants to be sure the answer is right and complete to the best of his ability. It requires patience. Sometimes it also requires coffee and, often, strong drink.

What do I want? To paddle easily along Goat Creek, Horse Creek. To get some exercise, see the manatees. To cross the brackish shallow sound of the Indian River, eight-mile wide, until I reach that quarter-mile spit of land that keeps it from the Atlantic Ocean. To be alone on the water.

How about a johnboat? No. I want to see where I’m going. He doesn’t blame me.

I ask if a canoe is more stable and the answer is, “It depends.” This doesn’t surprise me. Some have flat bottoms, some are meant for the sea, some for rough water. What about a kayak? Same deal. Some actually ride a bit under the water, some are for racing, for smooth water, for the sea, for whitewater. For me?

This is why I called. He will take it apart, find exactly what is what and, together, we will find the answer. I might take a month, but we will find it.

A month. Little do I know.

Don’t kayaks roll? Sure, he tells me. People actually roll them on purpose. Not me. Not me.

I don’t swim. I am perhaps a poor candidate for kayaking or, for that matter, water sports in general.

It is not for lack of trying. I hear I could, if I would just try hard enough. That’s what people tell me. They say, but they don’t know.

I have taken classes. Chicken of the Sea classes from the Red Cross. Adult Beginner classes from the Red Cross. Classes designed for little kiddies from, again, the Red Cross. I once swam about ten feet. It was an accomplishment. Then I panicked and flailed and reached for the comfort of feet on solid surface.

My wife tried teaching me. She was a certified lifeguard and tells me she never felt in danger in the water until she tried to teach me to swim. She says I almost drowned her. Almost doesn’t count, right?

I took a swim class in community college. My instructor was a tall, solid, chiseled figure of an ex-marine drill sergeant. He told me I would learn because he could teach anyone. Has never failed. He, himself, was a difficult case - being all muscle, he explained, he sunk immediately. Yet he learned.

I, on the other hand, overweight, fluffy, was in no danger of sinking. He was sure. I was never so happy to be fat.

Like a rock. Like a brick. Like an enthusiastic member of the Pharoah’s army chasing the Israelites, I went down. Oh, Mary, did I sink.

Sergeant Swim signed my drop card.

And now I want to kayak.

Not as strange as it may sound, he tells me. A kayak will work. Some have keels and flat bottoms. They are stable, don’t roll, smooth. The deal is I should come down and try one and see. Good idea.

What price are we talking about? How much?

Don’t worry about that. He has a better idea. Witney wants to build one for me. The cost will be materials. What can I do? I don’t do power tools. It’s the old story about the one-eyed epileptic with the chainsaw. If you don’t know the story, just use your imagination. Does it end well?

I once owned a jigsaw and a circular saw. I owned other tools as well. I once had my thumb nearly removed simply in the process of starting a lawnmower. I came home from a trip to discover my wife and my father had gotten together and sold my tools. They love me.

So I won’t be helping build. Oh, I could hold something while it dried if it wasn’t an important piece and we could afford having it call of the first chance it got. If that isn’t a problem, then I can do it.

No. He has a better idea. Watch. Just watch. Watch and write. Record the process. Chronicle building from beginning to end. He has a lead on a publisher. He gets to build, I get a kayak, we get a book. Everyone is happy.

Has he read my essays? “New reporting” some call it. Creative nonfiction. Not technical writing. It will be chronicled. Every bit. Each delay, mis-measurement, discussions. All of it. All of it surrounding the building of this kayak. It must be more than measuring and cutting, gluing and painting, if any of those are even part of the process. I’d want people to see the event in its entirety. He understands, he says. I wonder.

Let’s make a date to come down to Ft. Lauderdale, to make the two hour drive. I know I’ll have to do this a few times and this will not be built in one or two days.

First, we must get me into a kayak. We make a date. It’s set. Early June.

My second book is out. The Phoenix and the Dragon hits the shelves - there are launches, readings, performances. The date for the building approaches and I figure, since I’m going to be down there, why not set up a reading or two, a workshop. I’m making the trip anyway and the first time down is for kayaking, not building.

It is the second week of June. I look at my ringing phone and it is Valerie. I hear Witney in the background. They live next door to each other in a duplex. They share a wall and a child. They also shared about ten years together. But there were some basic philosophies and proclivities they did not share and now, they get along well enough but a marriage is no longer one of the things they share. In the past, yes, but not today. Not tomorrow. I know them both. I met them in church.

He wants to know if I am sure. Should he order the plans? What plans? Weren’t we going to check out the stable kayak first? Wasn’t I supposed to get into one before we decided to build a boat from scratch? I have never been in a kayak.

Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry? He is telling me, from the background, not to give it a second thought. Val says she took one for a ride, built, by Witney from the same plans we are going to use. She and her daughter and it was smooth, non-tippy, non-rolling, stable. Val would not tell me this if it weren’t true. I’m pretty sure she prefers me alive to be her partner in crime, camping, contradancing, singing showtunes in front of gay bars – all difficult to do after drowning.

Sure. Order the plans.

Don’t worry.

*****

I have waited ‘til mid-day as the early February morning is cool. It has been eight months since the idea of building a kayak was suggested to me, since I was offered to build one, write about it, take it home, author the book.

Mine is orange. The company, Pelican, based in Quebec, calls this material RamX resin. It seems rather indestructible. It is extruded and multi-layered and all sorts of other terms that means it floats and does not fall apart. I was told this by the company secretary with a quiet, musical French accent in a soft velvet voice, so I know it’s true.

It is not wood. I did not build it. I’m writing about it anyway. I’m quite happy.

This is the third time I have been out in it. Me, who doesn’t swim, out on the expanse upon which I am comfortable and in which I am not. And it is glorious.

Within ten feet of the slip, down which I carried my small boat between craft larger by far than mine, the world had changed. Within ten feet the manatees are floating alongside me. I paddle. I am but slowly getting the hang of paddling and, at times, I am a bit overzealous, but when the manatees are alongside, I stop. One of us belongs here and it is my place to be still.

Within five minutes I have passed through Turkey Creek, past the Palm Bay Marina where I paddled in and out between parked boats just for the practice of it, and under the bridge on which the thousands of cars a day buzz on US1 over the creek. And there is the Indian River.

Immediately I hear the spray of a dolphin beside me. I register the sound, understand what it is just in time to turn and see the water shooting from the blowhole of a dolphin well within arm’s reach. Thrusting water high and in my direction. Without expelling water, the dolphin would drown and expel water it does. A muscular flap opens and other muscles push with such force the water leaves the beast at slightly over one hundred miles an hour. Plenty of speed so that it lands, less than gently, on me.
I am glistening with water from the spouting dolphin. One, two, three, more swim along as I slowly skid toward Castaway Point. In the water and out, jumping up, wetting me down. Surfacing next to me and disappearing again, again, again.

I pass the point on either side and the water opens in front of me. To the left, in the distance, North, up the river, I can see the Melbourne Causeway misted gray faint by the bay air. To the right, the nearest bridge is thirty miles downriver at Sebastian. Aside from the scant beach behind me, the nearest land is two miles away, over this river that, more properly, is a sound, a brackish bay. Indialantic is a quarter-mile-wide spit and all that separates me, this river, from the Atlantic Ocean. I am headed there.

Once there, I’ll beach, take my shoes and wallet from the ziplock bag (terribly unreliable, I’m told. Get a drybag.) and walk a block to the cafés. I’ll sit and have coffee. Stroll to the ocean.

In the meantime, here I am. The boats race by, longitudinally, as I cross. Each larger than I and each given the right of way. Wakes come and I learn to meet them head on, the water rising before me, above me, under me, behind me, before me.

I am delighted to find myself not becoming seasick.

From upriver, sliding toward me, is a barge. Perhaps this is coming from Cape Canaveral. From the distance it appears massive and grows as it approaches. I backpaddle.

I had not thought of backpaddling before. I imagine it is the same as paddling frontward but just the opposite direction and, of course, the kayak stops. I drift as the barge is pushed south toward me, Sebastian Inlet and the ocean.

Drifting. This kayak is tiny, even by kayak standards. It is small and cheap. Nine feet and four inches. A kayak to sit in, float in, paddle in but not race in.

I bought it for one hundred and forty dollars. A few years old, it sold for about three hundred new. Bottom end.

Stable. Very stable. I needed that. It isn’t long so it won’t be spun much by the wind. But it also takes work to keep it going where I want it to. It does not track well.

Track. That is a word I learned recently while teaching myself about my little boat via Internet searches for explanatory material, tutorials, instructional videos and glossaries. Track means to go straight. This kayak doesn’t.

It tends to drift. Actually more what feels like a skid. If I paddle straight it goes straight, paddling one side, the other, the other, the other, with correction here or there. But if I stop or paddle a bit more strongly to one side, the skid is obvious and anything but minor.

And I don’t care. Paddling is exercise and all I wanted was to be out on the water.

I did try to find a skeg for it. That is another word I picked up recently. A skeg is a non-movable rudderish device to keep a kayak from skidding. It helps it track. Mine is, I discovered, not designed to take a skeg. The Ms. with the velvet voice told me so. No problem.

At times, when there is a current and I am paddling toward the dock or one side of a fork in the waterway, the kayak pointing slightly in the direction of the current, my head, facing the point I’m aiming for, the kayak moves slightly forward and slightly sideways, skidding in a way that tosses my senses a bit, my body facing in one direction while it moves in another.

What a kayak this size does have going for it, however, is more important than what it does not. It fits in my truck with no problem. I pick it up and carry it with no difficulties. From home to slip with no stress and all ease. It feels as stable as a floor and, at its size, I can turn with almost no space needed. It can nearly spin in place.

Spinning in place is what I’m doing now as I wait for the barge to pass. The closer it gets the more clear it is to me how thin lines between safety and danger are, between good sense and opening oneself up to the universe saying, “I’m here. You’ll take me if you want. It doesn’t matter. My stuff was part of the world before I was born, I did not come into the world, I grew from it, I am not separate from it and I shall go back into it when all is done. And now, I lay myself out on it, onto myself, and trust it will be OK.”

My small self, this small boat, the water beneath me, surrounding me, the barge. And, still a half-mile away, coffee.

*****
June, and I am ready to build a boat. School has been out two weeks and I have been two weeks gainfully unemployed. As planned, it is time for a short trip south and my first writing assignment since leaving college. And this one should prove much more satisfying. It should certainly be more fun. Time to build a kayak.

On an early Saturday morning, I head south in plenty of time to arrive by eleven-thirty and put in a full afternoon of building. It should take a few days I’m told. Four or five. Two weekends.

I arrive at eleven-thirty, as planned, knock on the door and find Valerie on the phone. Witney is not here. His car is not here. Where is he? On the other end of the phone. She hands it to me. Can I help him pick up something?

I don’t drive much in South Florida. Drive in and drive out. After I arrive in Broward County, I tend to get carted around. But there is building to do and that requires materials and I have a truck. That leaves me with the toting.

I assume we are going to pick up kayak parts. Raw materials for boat building. We are picking up wood; plywood, two by fours, posts. From Witney’s description of the materials, this is either a super-long or monstrously heavy kayak we are building and I ask, eager to learn, about his choice of materials. No kayak parts, these. This is wood for a table. There will be no kayak building today. We are building a table. I don’t know why we are building a table. Do tables float?

Katarina, the age-six daughter of Valerie and Witney, who spells her name with a “C” but which I stubbornly refuse to and replace with a “K” on the sole concept her name rhymes with Tsarina and, therefore, should be spelled appropriately, laughs. She knows why we are building a table and wants to tell me. I want to hear it from Witney.

The table is to build the kayak on.

One would have thought this might have been done before, but I do want to chronicle the entire experience of building, start to finish, so, sure, why not.

The plan was to build the boat using common woodworking tools one might find in a home workshop. Well, the plan was, originally, to get into a kayak first and see if it worked for me, but I’m not mentioning that. Now, instead, we’re talking old-time carpentry. No production tools. No professional woodworking shop with specialized devices. A home-build at home, in a yard, using what Witney had called “primitive” tools. On this he was adamant.

But he was adamant about this at eleven-thirty the previous night. He was adamant about this in a conversation with Valerie, not me. I knew nothing about this. And so, at eleven-thirty the previous night he decided at eleven-thirty today we would be building a table.

“Where do I meet you?”

I am given directions and five minutes later I am back in the truck, in Ft. Lauderdale, Valerie beside me to ensure I don’t become hopelessly lost.

I just missed Tina, she tells me. She had come over to give her Valerie’s other daughter, now eighteen, a driving lesson. Valerie still attends the church, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Ft. Lauderdale, where, over most of the last decade, she and Witney were well known. Witney has not been there in over three years. He was, at one point, a Sunday school teacher in the teen program. So was I. I frequently return for guest appearance, readings, to take part in poetry workshops or services. I am greeted warmly, joyfully each time. Returning to the UU, for Witney, would be a much less welcoming event. Tina, complicit in Witney’s lack of welcomed status, was in the teen program as well. But not as a teacher.

Tina is now twenty.

Just before we arrive at the woodshop Val receives a call from Witney. No need to head to the woodshop after all. We’ll receive another call, with a new timeframe, in five minutes. In my bones, I feel the doubt growing. The look on Val’s face tells me I should have known better. We head back to her house.

A third call. A third-person, intermediary, go-between conversation about timing with me the only person not on a phone. The table is to have one straight edge and, apparently, this must be built at the woodshop. It is to be built first, then an edge cut of to make it straight, then transported to his mom’s house. I am to tote the table. We will then start the building.

He says he wants to have this done before, "but," he says through Val, “you know how things go. With Witney, yes I do and all too well. I have attempted projects before with him - overly bright, overly eager, underly reliable with no developed sense of time. Do not wait for him to start ordering dinner.

He’ll call, yet again, in a few minutes and let us know when to meet him there. I don’t expect that call anytime soon. My day, suddenly, is much more open.

I was hopeful. I’m not sure why. The angels of my better nature must have been having a particularly good day.

A few minutes prior, before Witney called, I spoke with my parents. Certainly, there is time for lunch. No, there is no rush. Yes, I have plans. No, there is plenty of time. Trust me, there is absolutely no rush.

I am free until eight tonight when I’m giving a reading at the Chocolate Moose in Davie, twenty-five traffic-free minutes from her house. When we had woodworking plans, Valerie has asked we get home by seven, thus giving us enough time to shower, eat and get to the venue. My sense of logic is sure I heard the suggested time incorrectly but my experience tell me I heard what I heard. This would account for Valerie’s unparalleled ability to be late to her own parties. I suggest six would make much more sense. At least it does to me. We’ll see where exactly between those times we end up.

I am waiting for my parents to arrive for lunch. The plan was for them, already out of the house, to meet me at Val’s and for us to drive the few further blocks to Lester’s, a large chrome and brilliant white diner. An hour passes. More. More still as my blood sugar hits a Black Friday low and they arrive. As I head out the door Val suggests a title for this book, for this day: How Long Will it Take?

Once in, once my mother, in her wheelchair, is trundled into the open, external elevator to rise in the world the height of one short flight of stairs, once we have fought the crowds, we find a seat with sufficient room and look through the menu. I find little here sufficiently healthy, succulent or intriguing to draw my interest and resign myself to something I am sure is going to kill me. I watch my parents eat things which I am sure will kill them as well. Another hour passes. Another. We leave and I find myself back at Valerie’s at about three-thirty. I have one thought at this moment: Witney is going to pay for this. He will pay and pay and pay. But, behind this, a voice reminds me I should have known better. I did know better and ill-advised hope to this moment led.

It is four-thirty. And then five. Five-eleven. The phone rings and it is Witney. He is calling Valerie’s phone, not mine, to ask for my schedule. She tells him I have plans this evening, at eight, and am expected to be reading at that time. It’s my stage for the night. I should be there.

Can we move a kayak-building table after? After? Eleven-thirty at night, through Fort Lauderdale, with a table in the back of my pick up? No. I shake my head. I enunciate as clearly as possible so Val, talking to Witney, still insisting on using an intermediary, can see me, clearly, decisively stating there is no way I will be toting a table of unknown size around unfamiliar streets on a Fort Lauderdale Saturday night. I say it loudly, so Witney can hear me.

All the while, phone crooked in her neck, Valerie is cooking and one brief scent makes the question of missing dinner to move the table now easily answered by Hell No. Val is cooking real food and I know, from this point on, I’m hers for the evening. I am being plied with food and all she wants in return is time, laughter and shared bottle of port. I don’t need to be waiting for something that won’t be happening when time with my friend is happening right now.

A truck goes by playing, in bells, a song I remember from my childhood and I know what it means: ice cream on wheels. I grab Katarina and we each get an Italian ice.
On the lid of the Italian ice, as I had hoped, as I remembered, I find a small wooden spoon. Wide at both ends, tapered in the middle – a shape very much a double kayak paddle - and I am thinking this is as close as I’m going to get to paddling anything anytime soon.

“I should have prioritized” is what he says when he walks, late, into the house. It is six-fifty three. Dinner is over. Let’s move the table, I suggest, recognizing the mistake as the words leave my lips.

We jump into my truck. It is an industrial area. Warehouses. Here is a clamp factory. There a sailmaker. Then, the nautical shop and the massive specialty production woodworking shop within. Seafarer Marine.

The shop is stacked high with posts and pillars. In vertical slats five feet high capped with horizontal slots, up to the ceiling, there is exotic wood after exotic wood in solid sheets and plywoods, varying thicknesses from veneer thin to inch thick. There are rolls of wood. Slats and pieces. Some of these in the most beautiful patterns, glorious colors and amazing grains I have ever seen and could never have imagined. Was my kayak to be made of these?

But we are here for a table and it is a few minutes after seven. I see none. No table here. I am leaning against a trough, about twelve feet long, three feet high and just as wide.
“Funny that,” Witney says. I found the table all on my own. The bed of my truck is barely six feet long.

Witney shows me around.

*****

“Four sheets of four millimeter okoumé.”

“And why don’t we get this from Home Depot?”

“Because they don’t have it.” He says this very mater of factly.

“And why not use plywood? Regular plywood?”

“You mean why not just use plywood from Home Depot?”

“Yup. What’s wrong with plywood?”

“Well, your Jo Average plywood you might get from Home Depot or your local lumber store that doesn’t specialize is made to pretty much stay flat and look pretty on both sides but it generally is not waterproof, which is not a huge concern for this because it is going to be covered with epoxy but it is not guaranteed to have totally filled cores. The cores are not guaranteed to be high quality.”

“So there are spaces inside? Sometimes voids or the plies don’t quite meet?”

“Right. There will often be a line where two pieces of the core material don’t meet when you bend the wood, because you make a kayak by forcing wood to bend in the shape of a kayak. You take a piece of plywood and force it to curve to follow the hull. What happens is you get a kink if you have a void in the core.”

“So the plywood this place has is of a different quality.”

“Right. Marine plywood. It is certified to a British standard called BS1088 that basically says it is going to be high quality faces, it’s going to be the same material faces and cores, not just whatever you happen to have laying around in the cores and the cores are going to be contiguous and free of voids.”

“You said something about Russian birch?”

“Yup. And wenge, an African hardwood with a gorgeous light relief in the grain.”

And the okoumé is actually a light mahogany? What about the clear fir?”

“Yes. A light mahogany. The clear fir is a dimensional lumber we are planning on cutting into long thin strips to make the sheer clamps out of. We’re also going to make the cockpit carlands, which are the cockpit equivalent of sheer clamps. They’re the part that goes between the visible combing and the deck and they’re up on the inside.”

“Now, what is this about the hatch you were saying? You asked about that and I have no idea how to answer.”

“Well, it is possible to fit a hatch in either the fore of aft deck or both, accessing the normally sealed off compartments fore and aft. On my larger Mill Creek two-person kayak I chose not to put hatches in because the deck is so pretty just the way it is. On my longer, thinner, single kayak, which has a much smaller cockpit area, there will be a hatch fore and aft. The aft cargo hatch will be quite large and the forward hatch will be of a moderate size.”

“What would you suggest for me?”

“Well, it all depends on its intended use. If it’s day trips, no. If it is limited over-nighting, no.”
“I don’t intend on taking it out over days at a time.”

“Then make it pretty.”

“OK, then there is room in the cockpit for a bottle of water and such?”

“Oh yes. Much. The cockpit is large enough for a camera, a bag, lunch. Use a dry bag. Those are usually made of PVC that has a roll-down top that clips back on itself and keeps things from getting wet.”

“Or a ziplock bag?”

“Notoriously unreliable. Get a drybag at any kayak store. Any outdoor store.”

“So you know this guy named Kayak Jeff and before you take a boat out you bring it to him for a blessing?”

“Well, not so much ‘a’ blessing as ‘his’ blessing.”

“And you brought your first one to him and he gave a blessing to your hull?”

“Well, in the most kayak way. Basically, I am building a slightly modified long skinny single. And he is a very experience kayaker who is also a certified instructor and he runs a kayak store called, appropriately, Kayak Jeff and he came over last night to my mom’s where all this is being built and looked over the shape of the hull and the curvature of the bottom and said ‘This is good.’ That’s the blessing.”

“So I want to know I’m not going to play twirly-games in the water.”

“Oh, this boat will spin very well.”

“Not on its longitudinal axis?”

No, on the vertical axis. As far as longitudinal… OK, if you have a center point and you try to rotate the point, it’s very easy. If you make that point low on the arm, center or not, and you try to rotate that arm, it’s very difficult. It has resistance to turning.

“You’re describing a fulcrum. I’m not sure how that applies to this. You’d think having a fulcrum would make turning easier.”

“Well, actually, I’m describing center of gravity. What I’m saying is if you put the friction at the ends of the arm, what you are effectively doing with a boat hull of this shape is your center of rotation is the center line of the boat. It is very low because you are sitting low in the hull. You are actually sitting on the lower hull. And the deeper the boat goes, up to a certain point, the greater its resistance to turning. Of course, once you go so low the entire boat is covered by water, there is no more resistance to turning.”

“But I wish to not cover the entire boat with water. I want to be clear on that. I don’t want to build a submarine.”

“Do not gain a lot of weight.”

*****

On Sunday the plan is to start early. How about eight? Eight isn’t too early to start building a kayak. That is the plan. I have it in my PDA.

Witney tells me he has a kayak class tomorrow. How to roll and recover. Tomorrow? The plan was to build a kayak. He signed up for this class three weeks ago. There is nothing I can say in the face of this temporal absurdity.

He knew. Never told me. I didn’t know, but, really, really, I should have known better.

The reading comes and goes. We stop for coffee on Las Olas, walk, talk, laugh and make up names for the kayak book. The Kayak that Almost Was. How Long Will It Take? Sunk: The Story of Not Building a Kayak. Building with Witney and Other Myths and Fancies.

It’s late and a two-hour ride home. I could stay overnight, but my own bed is so close and, despite Val’s objections and worry, I head north on I-95.

I should have known better.

*****

It is the last week in January. Plans again. Plans to travel to Ft. Lauderdale and build a kayak. Everything will be ready. For some reason, I am skeptical.

I am headed south on I-95 on this bright Friday afternoon. My phone rings and it is Witney. There is no wood. Specifically, no quarter-inch okoumé. None. Anywhere. Not in Florida. Not in the US.

I am not surprised. I am not upset. I am not worried. I tell him so. I don’t tell him I’m going to keep heading south anyway. I had made other plans. People to see, things to do. It’s Val’s birthday party. I’m having dinner with my daughter. At no point during this trip had I an illusion I was actually going to build a kayak. I don’t tell him this, of course. I also don’t tell him I have a kayak waiting for me at home. It’s orange. The dolphins seem to like it. I know I do.

And who wants to read about kayaks anyway?

Spent

Who wrote this? Well, Craig Smith, he of super human editing ability, says I did. My words.

“You wrote it,” he tells me. They are my words, true. But I was only responding to an email he wrote.

In the end, he suggested it should be a poem. I had not thought of that. He sent it to me. On his suggestion, and prior to receiving his version, I had written it as a poem as well.

His version, with three minor differences in line breaks and a word or two more, was exactly the same as mine.

Craig Smith wrote it.

Adam Byrn Tritt wrote it.

Maybe it was just laying there waiting.



Spent

One of my biggest fears is
I'm of no use.
Silly, perhaps,
but there you are.

I know one thing
for certain:
when we are done,
whether several lives or one,
what we leave is
what we have done with our hearts.

Fritz Perls said,
"I don't want to be
saved,
I want to be
spent."
Me too.
When I'm done,
I want to be
fully done
and have used what I could reach
of my heart.

So these days
fully half of what I do is done
so I can reach more
of my heart
so there is more to use.

Shaman's Journey

I journeyed last night.

The shaman’s drum kept pounding and with
Each concussion wave
The candle flame died and was reborn.

Now full
Now slight
Gone but for a wisp
A remnant and now,
At once, a flame again
Bright bright
Ephemera
Bright bright
Ephemera
Bright bright

I was the flame
What a joy to burn and shine
I wisped into near non-existence
What a joy to disperse
As I evanesced
Coalesed,
Out and in to being.

It felt like dancing.

Little Girl, I am not a Cracker. (An occurrence at The Martin Luther King Rec Center, Gainesville, Florida, the year 2000)

Little Girl, I am not a Cracker. (An occurrence at The Martin Luther King Rec Center, Gainesville, Florida, the year 2000)


I am here, just like you,
a citizen of this state,
at a city pool.

My son is your age
and he plays here with his friends,
takes swimming lessons,
splashes in the same water with you.
And, yet, you are none the lighter for it
and he, no more dark.

How old are you, little girl?
Seven? Eight?
Who thought teaching you about Crackers
was a good idea?

There you were, with your friends,
And I, with my son,
passing by you, having just paid my fees
for his class,
and you talking to your friends,
pointing at us
saying how
You don’t like Crackers.
Never did like Crackers.

Little girl, I am not a Cracker.
My people were slaves, just like yours.
Go Down Moses, we sing at Passover.
Wade in the Water my favorite holiday song.

When my grandparents came here,
they were not white. They came from a ghetto,
moved to a ghetto. I can still hear them call me kike
like I’m in second grade.
Are you in second grade? What do they call you?


When Selma was marched upon,
My people were there.
We came from all over this nation
to beat back Jim Crow,
face the flame on the cross,
stare through the hoods.
Freedom Riders came
and in the obvious light of the Southern sun
we fought with you,
rode with you,
walked with you.
Our dead rotted in the summer swelter
just like yours.

Little girl, did you read
I Have a Dream?
I read it to my son.
Did your Mamma read it to you?

In Montgomery,
there is a memorial
to the many slain in the fight for civil rights.
Little girl, did you know there are Jews on that slab?
We lay next to you in memorial,
under the ground.

Little girl, I am not a Cracker.
Do not judge me by how I look.
I will try to do the same.

The Republic of Lakotah: An open letter of support to Russell Means

Since the writing of this letter, a new webpage has appeared on te net. The Republic ol Lakotah webpage is designed to discuss the need for, and assist in moving ahead with, what may well be called a two state solution.

My question is this: If secession is successfull, what will they do with the refugees who want to cross the border? I know what they will do with the Lakotah. What will they do with the disaffected non-natives? When citizens, black and white, come to the border? I Want to know. My wife may already be packing our things.

You can write Russell Means at treaty@plateautel.net

*****

Mr. Means,

I have been apprised of your movement for secession by an entry posted on a blog written by my publisher, Craig R. Smith of Smithcraft Press.

As an citizen of this country, as an American, I support this completely and applaud the effort regardless of the outcome. Further, I wish to know what I can do to make sure the outcome is as we both see it should be.

People expect assimilation. Cohabitation is not the same as assimilation. Far too much assimilation has taken place and far too much identity lost. Lost identity. Lost language. Lost land. Lost seeds. Lost rituals. Lost culture. Lost selves.

May your people regain all you can, all you lost, and stand as respected equals — the best you can be of who you are, not striving toward amorphism or an ambiguously defined version of what many Americans believe you should be.

I am new to this country. A second generation American, I am appreciative of the chances I have received, though can still remember being told by others I did not belong, being told I was not allowed here or there, being told by my family to fit in, assimilate, act like everyone else. What am I left with? A shallow sense of who I might have been. My children left to ask what we were and who they are.

My family, half of it, was in Germany. The other half in Russia. My family tree looks as though a chainsaw was taken to it and two thirds lopped off in jagged anger. Land taken. Lives taken. Identities taken.

And so, I can, in some ways, feel for what your people go through. But, I cannot imagine living with those who have done this to me. As you do. I cannot imagine seeing the land taken from me, knowing it is no longer mine. As you do. My reminders are in the past. Your’s are ever present.

And so, I wish to help how I can if such help is useful and desired. My time, effort and writing are here for the task.

My many thanks for your work.

Adam

(Adam Byrn Tritt, M.Ed, CHt)

What do Jews do on Christmas?

What do Jews do on Christmas? Well
in the United States,
at least,
we take walks,
move,
find a park
We go out to the few open businesses,
movies theater, Chinese food,
and know that most everyone we see will be Jewish,
or Atheist (though they may still follow comfortable family tradition)
or what have you, but not Christian.

Here, the temperature is in the 70’s
and we had a beautiful solstice under the stars
(we could see though the city-glow)
in our shirtsleeves
and on the 25th
we are at my sister-in-law’s
(Mother-in law, father-in-law, wife, daughter and son)
because she doesn’t want to be the only Jew at her home
as she gathers her husband’s family-
Southern Baptists all
and very concerned for the souls of the children.

We are there with my mother-in law
who was born Jewish
but who is sure America has made Christmas
a national holiday
we have to celebrate
or incur a terrible social wrath.
She wants to know if we are going to heaven.
(How the hell should I know?)
(Is it full of people just like this?)
Then the party is over,
everyone wishes each other Merry Christmas
over piles of presents given each other
in honour of the Christ child
and we gave one or two but look at all that stuff! And say goodbye.

My Grandmothers Came from the Ukraine

There seems to be quite a bit of traffic on my blog in the past few days. Much of it from Tel Aviv, a city I have never been to in a country I have never seen.

But I do have relatives there - relatives I see seldom, speak not much to and, most of whom, would not recognise.

*****

People tend to believe everything they read. Oh, they say they don’t, but they do. In newspapers, in books, in pamphlets, on the Internet. Especially on the Internet where it is easy to publish anything one wishes. And if it comes by email, all the more believable.

If it comes in an email, it makes no difference what the story, it is swallowed whole. Hoax, myth, legend – all true if it is found within your electronic inbox. And each time it arrives, it is true again.

Literature is true. Ask nearly anyone who reads a poem. They’ll tell you all poetry is autobiography as though no poet ever made up a thing, created a work of fiction, embellished, took license with a core of truth to make a whole that speaks the truth but did not necessarily happen. At least not how it was written.

My daughter complained about my last book. Not enough poems about her. Only two. In truth, there is only one. In truth, there are none.

My son complained there is more about his sister than about him. I told him there were exactly the same number of poems about him as her. Not one fewer.

I wrote a poem for a coffee company once. Skookum. About a man who is thinking of higher climes and better times as his wife of leisure rambles on and on. His coffee saves him. Once published, people thought my marriage was in trouble. I rarely drink coffee.

And so, the poem below is true. True for manyand truer for some and but it isn’t real. Parts are real, parts are made up but the whole creates its own truth from the parts that are not.

So it is about me, but it isn’t.

Except for the last line. The last few line. That, you can take to the bank.

*****

My grandmothers came from the Ukraine.
Each one
Pushed, pushed
By swelling Cossack waves,
Night pogroms, burning homes and hoof-print graveyards.
Scattered, scattered.
One to Vienna, the other, Buenos Aires, Boston.

My grandmother in Vienna met my grandfather
And became my father’s parents,
Pushed, pushed
By the waves of Hitler’s Reich
In the Holy war against the Jews, Gypsies, Whathaveyou.
Galacia, Gdansk, London, New York, Israel, Florida.
Scattered, scattered.

My grandfather removed himself from Lisbon
At the Catholic’s strong suggestion
And ended up in Amsterdam, London, Buenos Aires,
Boston.

And I am Boston, New Jersey, South Carolina,
New Mexico, North Carolina, Minneapolis, Seattle and Canada.
Israel, England, Germany, Philadelphia, Florida.
And in no place do I belong,
Each place I needed to move from,
Pushed, pushed-
Economics, education,
culture bade me leave,

Browning pastures left for green and I
Unhappy in the next as the last
Moved on again, unattached
Unrooted, uncommitted and still,
In the back of my mind I’m planning where next,
Wherever I am inferior to where I might be.
I’m sure it will be better.
Scattered, Scattered.

Yom HaShoah.
Day of Remembrance.
It should be enough to remember,
But it blows through my hollow bones
Like a winter bird in flight,
I scatter like a dried dandelion.
A personal Diaspora,
I shatter like crystal, dispersing light.

Gallipolis

We are driving out of Charlestown, WV. It is nearing four in the afternoon and my son and I have spent our day walking through the city. I have been walking. My son has been dragging. Sometimes a sinker, sometimes an anchor but never a balloon. Never a kite.

This is, on a Saturday, an amazingly vibrant small city. There is a literacy festival at the library, jammed bookstores all over, a chili festival along the waterfront, kids playing in public fountains as though they were waterparks. Families stroll slowly through the June early afternoon along the streets and riverfront. We have walked downtown, the capitol complex, seen The Mountain Stage, the Museum of Art and Folk Art. Everywhere people. From this small city I had not anticipated such a density of activity. I’d never had expected to see such life.

No more than I would have expected to see the dollies. So many people, for lack of working legs, pushing themselves along by gloved fists against the pavement. Some lack legs so fully I am reminded, uncharitably I admit, of a cartoon I had seen many years ago of a crowd of legless bayou frogs, all pushing themselves on dollies, with one asking another what he wanted for dinner. “Frog legs.”

We see so many fist-driven four-wheelers that, after the first few, we feel the need to take tally. Seventeen - after we started to count. We move twelve miles through this city in six hours, despite a lack of our dollies all our own, and have been having a wondrous day. At least I have been. My son – my son, at 14, is having his own experience.

We are ready to head out. Our target is Ohio, Gallipolis specifically, and our goal is to get there before dark with enough time, this Summer evening, to find a room and stroll the town before the sun sets. Gallipolis, for no good reason other than someone having told me it was close enough to our destination – P.S.G., Pagan Spirit Gathering - that we can stay overnight and drive an easy pace the twenty miles to the Wisteria gate by nine. Time enough to ride behind the Amish buggies and enjoy the experience and the word patience need never come to mind.

We drive west along I64, out of Charleston, crossing the river over humming tangles of black-girdered bridges looking for I35 - the closest way across the Ohio, the easiest way to Gallipolis.

My son is mapmaster. This has not worked as well as I might have liked. I had thought map reading might be genetic. The only genetic tendency expressing itself at the moment is that towards frustration.

I glance over and look quickly at the map, unfolded on my son’s lap, as I drive. Taking another quick look away from the road I see his frown, his furrowed forehead, eyes turned toward at each other. The highway numbers are upside down. So are the names of the cities. Perhaps there are one or two other genetic tendencies expressing themselves we shall have to look into upon our return home.

I have been reading maps nearly as long as I have been reading words. I am fascinated by them. Where do the roads go, where do they start? I liked my late nights to extend far into the early morning tracing routs from origin to end. When our family took trips, I was in charge of the map, navigating from the front passenger seat. Exactly where my son is now.

We have a year old Rand McNally atlas, purchased not many months ago. I prefer actual maps to printed directions. Mapquest and Google can only go so far. What if we wish to change routs, see what we can see, drive where we might? What an interesting name. Look, there is a cave just ahead. See, there is a gorge down that road. Off we go. With an atlas I can find my way back again, back to the beaten track from off, back on the path and on to our destination. No loss. All gain.

We find our way, road upon road, I-64, I-35, headed toward the Ohio River, to cross into the state of that same name. As we approach the Silver Bridge at Point Pleasant there appears to be something missing: the bridge. There is no bridge. Now, there is the pitted rampart to the river edge, battered pillars from the water surface, confused us to the end of the road. What was, is not.

We pull over, parallel to the Ohio and perpendicular to where we had every reason to expect a bridge entrance which would continued onto a bridge.

The map. It shows a bridge. The land begs to differ. The water – a clear expanse bridge-free to the Ohio bank. Do not mistake the map for the territory.

We ask. The bridge fell down. Recently? No. 1967. Have you ever heard of the Mothman? Seen the movie? No. The one time it might have done me some good to have paid attention to popular culture.

A bridge, off the Earth thirty-five years, still on the map. If you can’t trust Rand McNally, who can you trust?

We travel further south, a half hour more distant of our evening’s destination, to where another bridge is shown, fully ready for that to be gone as well but gone it was not. It exists, as the map shows, and over the Ohio we go. Once on the other side, we follow the river again and Gallipolis is near.

It is small, sparse, quiet. We drive past the fringe Wal-Marts and K-marts, pass by the motels on the outskirts and plunge into the town itself. That is our goal: to find a room where we can park the car and spend the evening walking to dinner, walking to the shops, walking, walking, walking and no driving need be done. My goal. My son’s goal fixed firmly on tomorrow morning. That the youth exist in the here and now and age dwells in the past and future is cliché, not axiom.

We find one hotel. Just one that fits our bill. Just one in town. The William Ann. We could not happier. Older, quaint, friendly and directly in the middle of the town. We put our bags and baskets in the paneled room and set out for a walk.

Dinner comes from a small local grocery store we stroll past. We are stunned by the contents. It is appointed very much as one would expect a small grocery in the inner-city: no fresh vegetables, a deli counter of prepared animal or creamed products, a surprising amount of space devoted to chips and breads, sodas and snacks. We purchase some sandwiches and two apples well past their prime and eat as we walk into the town commons.

In the middle of the commons, on the southern side, the side closest to, within a stone’s toss of, the Ohio River, is a statue that commemorates the bringing of yellow fever to the town and the fifty-seven killed when the disease made landfall in 1878, brought by the doctor who was on that south-destined barge specifically to treat the disease already being carried by those on board; people looking for a new, better life downstream. An agent of mercy, he boarded it upstream so the victims would not need to disembark for treatment or supplies and risk infecting others. Until all aboard were well, only he would have the infrequent necessary contact with the off-barge world.

The rudder arm broke and the ship drifted ashore at Gallipolis. So did the flavivirus.

A four sided post about five feet high, each side is inscribed. One side tells us it is in memory of the yellow fever victims, another has the fifty-seven names on it, yet another lists the barge crew and another side tells us who bestowed the memorial upon the town. Atop the post is the rudder arm. That I know of, this is the world’s sole memorial to viral hemorrhagic fever.

The Scioto Company ran an ad in Paris attracting middle-class French to America with cheap Ohio land. They bought the deeds, sold their goods, and made the long voyage to America and into Midwest. They found nothing. No homesteads. Worthless deeds. It was 1790 and they petitioned President Washington for land. They got it in The French Grant. On the Banks of the Ohio River. Gallipolis. City of the Gauls.

The town failed to thrive. Mining did not quite take off, agriculture was a plan that came to little in an area more swamp than soil.

In 1818, a few families from Wales set sail from Liverpool to Baltimore and traveled by horse and cart to Pittsburg. Tired of the trials of over-land travel, they opted to trust themselves to the Ohio River, counting on it to take them the rest of the way to Paddy’s Run - a frontier town near Cincinnati.

The barge would abruptly, constantly, run aground on the shifting sandbars of the river. The men would jump out onto the dissipating sand and often require rescuing.

The journey taking longer than anticipated, and needing to reprovision, the water-borne pioneers set ashore in Gallipolis, a settlement then with fewer than one thousand people and barely hanging on.

Everyone got off the barge for a night on dry land. Fresh and full, they would shove off again the next morning.

The stories run two ways. Townsfolk got the bright idea the Welsh provided an immediate increase in the population, workforce and gene pool and, like it or not, would be staying in Gallipolis.

The other story is the Welsh women, tired of the river, fatigued from life with no home, weary of seeing their husbands and sons risk their lives, conspired to make Gallipolis their final destination.

Either way, the next morning, the barge was gone. All that was left ashore was a bit of rope.

And five new families.

It is dusk and the summer light is fading. Alek is asking for food again. We walk back toward The William Ann and to the malt shop across the street. It seems everyone is here. The outside is packed and, from a distance, the crowd hides the glass walls but, as we approach, we see through the people, through the panes, the inside is packed as well. We enter and get in line.

He has a milkshake and fries. We linger and he eats. The end of his long day. We go back to the hotel but I am not done. I want to walk some more. As he watches TV, I set out again.

There is music in the dark. I walk parallel the river. There is a wedding and the music is heard blocks away as a party is held under canopies beside a church. I walk on, walk by, music fading. The street ends and I come upon the bank of the Ohio.

I had passed slips and docks but they did not draw. The bank, though: the bank, the natural boundary, does.

It is a slope. Grassy and steep in the dark, I am drawn to the bank, to the brink where land ends and water begins. Through the trees.

There, in an opening between the trees. Steps down through the thick. It opens out. I enter a field of stars before the watery black.

Grass, trees. Fireflies. More than I have seen in, perhaps, all my childhood years together. All my adult life since. Flittering light, bright movements of starlight on wing. Filling the grass, trees, bushes, hovering over the ambiguous bank.

And there is a swing. To the right, hanging from a tree, next to the river, a smooth board on two knotted ropes. I sit, rock, glide. I am a body in motion, surrounded by light.

Prayer to the Earth for Yom Kippur

We open our mouths to proclaim how beautiful the world is, how sweet life is and how dear to us you are, Lady, Mother of All Living.

We stand here today to remind ourselves that we are all part of this web of creation. We are all linked, so that what any of us does affects all of us, that we are all responsible for the Earth. That we are all responsible for each other. We have chosen to be here today as a symbol of our commitment, our awareness of this connection.

Even so, we forget our promises and our duties.

We gossip, we mock, we jeer.

We quarrel, we are unkind, we lie.

We neglect, we abuse, we betray.

We are cruel, we hate, we destroy.

We are careless, we are violent, we steal.

We are jealous, we oppress, we are xenophobic.

We are racist, we are sexist, we are homophobic.

We waste, we pollute, we are selfish.

We disregard the sufferings of others, we allow others to suffer for our ignorance and our pride.

We hurt each other willingly and unwillingly.

We betray each other with violence and with stealth.

And most of all, we resist the impulse to do what we know is good, and we do not resist the impulse to do what we know is bad.

All this we acknowledge to be true, and we do not blame the mirror if the reflection displeases.

Lady, help us to forgive each other for all we have done and help us to do better in the coming year. Bring us into harmony with the Earth and all Her ways. So mote it be!

Adamus on the Air

We shall be taking our blog to the air. Tuesday, 9/25 at 11:35 EST (8.35 PST)

Do you live in California? In Australia? Have a streaming Internet connection?

KZSB AM 1290. The program also airs in Santa Barbara, Goleta, Carpinteria, Ventura, Thousand Oaks and Los Angeles County.

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Tune in on the radio or on the web.

Six Away from the Dead

Six away from the Dead

They were common as mud
And joined it,
Stories raining from the sky.
Feeding the Earth
Returned to air
Souls to rise
To drift as wraiths
Through dreams and lives
Omnipresent in a way
Only the dead can sustain.

One day we did not know them.
They were not our loved ones,
They were not our friends
But now
They are the colors of sunset,
Soot on a windowpane,
Ash mud on a lugged boot,
A cough in our lungs,
Threads of their flesh
Woven tightly into our
Communal inheritance,
The myths of a young country,
Repeated, repeated, repeated.

And we mourn them,
Not despite their commonness
But because of it.
Because it was New York,
It could have been Charlotte, Chicago, Philly.
Because it was D.C.,
It could have been Boston, Miami, L.A.
Because it was Shanksville,
It could have been Durham, Melbourne, Santa Fe.
Because it was them,
It could have been us
And we are made of the common,
We Americans,
And not one of us
More than six away
From the dead of that day.

Progeria: An Exercise

Progeria: An Exercise.

I had thought I had written about a singular experience. It certainly was for me.

I sent this essay to a friend, Craig Smith, to look at. A fan (I am delighted to say) and a trusted editor and critic, I wanted him to take a look. I expected advice, suggestions, some way to fix a grammatic gaff. I must have expected, or suspected, something or I would not have sent it.

It's good. I think the revelation of the progeria was a little overdramatic; so many people have seen kids with progeria on talk shows (Maury Povich had one on nearly every week, it seemed) that your shock--or your character's?--while
understandable, doesn't need quite the big build-up.

What? On TV? So popular culture and the media has desensitized America to what, in my life, was an experience that sat upon my memory in a way unlike nearly any other.

What did I reply?

Hmm… Interesting as I have never seen a child such as this since. This is the only one. So it feels real to me but will not translate into the culture because of talk shows have widened the exposure of most people to things that I have little exposure to.

In other words, what I find a novel and shocking, many people have become inured to. So what seems overdramatic, to me, is actually my process of realization. But it is not reading that way to those who have more experience than I.

What else has pop culture ruined? Now wonder we no longer shudder at gross injustices and horrific torture. No wonder we have so few heartstrings left to pull.

But, still, I felt I could pull the essay off. I’d like for you to be the judge.

Please read. There’s a quiz at the end.

*****

I don’t remember what year it was. The mid nineties, perhaps. I was working as a skip tracer, finding people who had run out on sizable debts, dropped financial responsibilities, were hiding mobile homes, trailers, boats and whatnot-of-size from repossession. I found them, someone else hauled ‘em, arrested ‘em, collected ‘em.

It was a great job. Lots of day trips, I nearly never got a Doberman set on me or a shotgun pointed at me. Rarely was I shot at.

I was chasing a trailer. I think it was in Florahome, or nearby, where we would go to pick blueberries and scuppernogs. Where the sandpears grew. East-central north Florida. I was on the hunt. I scammed the records, recorded the address, and found the narrow washboard road in a short space between the live oaks.

It was a long slow drive. I stopped from time to time to let the newly-hatched wild turkeys follow their mothers across the road. Slowed to watch the dear in the thick. At length, in the distance, I saw the trailer. Continuing slowly, I pulled into the small space in front and checked the description. It fit. I got out, went to the door and knocked.

It was a singlewide and shorter than the norm so, after the initial knock, it took no more than a few moments for me to notice the creak of approaching footsteps. The door opened and I was greeted by the smallest old lady I had ever met, saying hello, puffing though stringy white hair and wrinkled mouth, in the voice of a young girl. Resting on the knob, an ancient hand.

I asked to whom the home belonged and she answered in words a child would use. From behind her, a young woman approached and, as she neared, spoke to the elder as though she were not aged, not senior, but barely of experience. As though she were her child.

And the old lady answered as if she were, indeed, a child. Her child. Then, I knew, this was not right. So far from what I could have possible expected, I did not grasp the facts through the seemingly paradoxic cues. Something was wrong in an order of magnitude I could not comprehend in the scant time I had. But my body reacted even as my mind slowed and halted. Perhaps I could not keep my face. I remember my stomach tightening, my diaphragm rising toward my chest. My body knew.

The taller woman was her mother. The first person to the door was her child. This was an old child. She looked ninety. She sounded ninety. Her words and behaviour were nine.

Her mother asked her to go back inside while she remained to talk with me. I could require no explanation but needed one. What I had just seen did not fit. It was something I could have thought would come from a horror movie, from a science fiction film. Here it was. I could not ask but needed to know. She could see that.

She was nine. She told me this. She started aging at two. She would die of old age by eleven. It was called progeria. They moved out of town because they could not stand the idea she would spend her short life growing old to the cruelty of children, the whispers of adults and the stares of all eyes.

And so here they were - out in the country, one fewer job, a family, a ninety year old child.

I could not say don’t worry. I could not say everything would be ok. There was little I could say but good bye.

I know she expected, in the next day or so, to lose her home in the forest and the anonymity of the woods. But, that I know of, that never happened. The records were lost. Markers disappeared. Officially, I never found the house.

I was reminded of this today. I cannot say quite what the connection was but it came to me of a rush, strong and vibrant. I, of limited visual memory, have the meeting of that child as one of the few clear visions I retain. I feel it as though it were fresh, new, shocking. It remains one of the staggering moments of my life. It was important in a way I cannot still fully appreciate. It lasts.

It came to me last week. When my mother was telling me she might have herself trepanned and electrified to fight her Parkinsons. That she might have breast cancer.

And it came to me again today. I held a rabbit in my hands. In the overbearing heat, in my yard, a rabbit, running, running, then not, small tongue, darting in and out and then still. Then stiff. In my arms, how much it seemed sleeping.

Good night little girl.

*****.

So here are the questions:

Do you think pop culture has experiential essays, such as this, less effective?

Does your knowledge of the disease lessen the impact?

What worked and what did not?

Is there anything you would change?

Comment please.

On My Walk this Morning, about Forty Minutes

First half of my walk, away from my home.

“I haven’t seen him in days. I just hear the dogs.”

“We need a unit on Bianca.”

“Danny, it was great.”

“It was just like the bar. Miss that place. Most of them are dead now. Nut’in but friendly faces.”

“You ain’t said you loved me. You ain’t never said you loved me.”

“A child of god. I am a man, what else am I supposed to do? We have the owner of Suntrust kneeling every Sunday in front of that altar.”


Back home again.

Wind.

A New Set of Malas

I miss my bones.

As a sign of impermanence, of the temporary nature of life, few objects are better, more universally recognized, more viscerally understood than bones. As a sign we all come to an end, bones do it every time. The rich, important, beautiful. Loved and valued, we all end up bones. Bone.

Perhaps there might be some things, now that I not that I take the time to consider it, to better represent the transitory nature of life than bone, but anything else I can think of, and I have never been short on imagination, would not be quite as understated as bone. Bone drives the point but can still appear clean and acceptable. Bone is body but not blood, flesh but not fleshy. It states itself plainly and clearly without comment. Understated. A bracelet of intestines would be noticed in the company of even the most impolite. People will talk. Wear one to your local grocery store or temple and you would see my point.

Bone.

Of course, there was the fellow I knew who made a necklace of his kidney stones. It seems like so much trouble to go through and the total cost rather exorbitant. It took him four bouts before he had enough material. Still, as far as custom made jewelry, how many people can claim to have created their’s from scratch? How’s that for betting material.

But beads of bone. Unobtrusive. Understated. Inoffensive. Much less expensive than lithotropy.

And so, missing my bones and not wanting to use any of my own, homegrown material, I set out to shop for malas.

I had a set I had recently given up. They were a gift to me by monks from the Drepung Loseling monastery. Deprung Loseling has been around since the 1300’s. In the 1950’s the Chinese government destroyed nearly all the monasteries in Tibet including, Deprung Loseling, and left alive only two hundred and fifty of its nearly three thousand monks. This who survived escaped, walked though the Himalayan Winter to India, were welcomed and settled in the south of that country where they rebuilt from nothing.

For several years running, while I lived in Fort Lauderdale, the monks would fly in from India to come to town to create sand mandalas. Not just Ft. Lauderdale, of course. We were but one location in a tour of several months – a welcomed stop each fall. Each November the monks came to Piper High.

I was teaching English at Piper when the email call went out. They would be there, in our auditoriuam, nine Tibetan monks, and we needed to find them places to stay. We lived, myself, my wife, Lee, my daughter of eighteen and son of thirteen in a small trailer. I asked my wife is she would mind.

Lee was in medical school then and in class or clinic each day and spent her nights in study. On the couch, sci-I on tv, she was inside an oversized text of some four inches thickness each side when splayed open on her lap. I could see her body but her mind – her mind was in the book.

“Do you mind if we have some monks stay here? They will be at Piper and we are farming them out and...”

“Do you know how some authors write like they are talking to you? How they are easily understood because they speak to you as though it were a conversation? How even the most difficult subjects, like this, for instance, the physiology of disease, can be simple when written like that?”

“Yes”

“Well, this isn’t one of those authors. If you need to do something for school, do it. And would you get me some apple juice please?”

Excellent.

I agreed to house three or four of them. In two weeks they would arrive.

The day came. This person petered out, that person became unavailable, rides dried up. I arrived home followed by a van with nine monks from Tibet and one translator of questionable ability.

This was when I discovered what I had chosen to be unaware of. My wife had not listened to word I had said. It was, obviously, the lack of apple juice.

She made that very clear. After the shock.

They would be with us five days. It was Chanukah. That came to forty-five presents.


It is dinner
and Nine Monks from Tibet
are sitting down to lentil soup, bread,
halva, fresh cranberry tarts
and a steak.

One has just tricked another guest
into eating a fire pepper,
one has told an extremely unkind joke about the Chinese
(who can blame him?),
Lopsang is playing with my Wheelo®
(manufactured in China by twelve-year-olds),
Soman is tapping his forehead with a spoon
for nearly five minutes now
and Dharma is standing silently behind my son
ready to pull his ear,
again.

In saffron and cinnamon puddles
they pour onto the couch,
absorb into the cushions and
turn on the TV
wondering if the obvious
grand gestures and laugh track
mean the program
about two homosexual guys and a straight girl
is a comedy and
two are checking their email.



As the week ended, the last night came and the Rinpoche had learned the prayers, in Hebrew. for the lighting of the candles and would do it with us. It took ten seconds but the gesture, the effort was an honour for our household.

Barukh ata Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha‑olam, asher kid'shanu b'mitzvotav vetzivanu l'hadlik ner (shel) hanuka.
"Blessed are You, Lord, our God, Sovereign of the universe, who has sanctified us with Your commandments and commanded us to light the Hanukkah candle[s]."

Barukh ata Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha‑olam, she‑asa nisim la‑avoteinu ba‑yamim ha‑heim ba‑z'man ha‑ze.
"Blessed are you, Lord, our God, Sovereign of the universe, who performed miracles for our ancestors in those days at this time."

He then led three monks in a prayer for us. That took five minutes. And the presents. Dreidles and chocolate gelt, whistles and small toys.

My daughter was offered to come to India and paint tankas. They had been amazed at the collage tanka she created of magazines, shower curtains, old shirts and beads. They gave her an invitation and a Khata – a white silk scarf of welcoming, goodwill and compassion.

To my son they gave a khata as well. My wife, a khata and prayer flags and a picture of our monks at their monastery. OUR monks, I say, as the Rinpoche told us, from now on, they would be our monks. To me they gave a khata and wrist malas of yak bone.

Rarely did it come off. I used it to breath. To meditate. To count beads on when what I thought what I really wanted to do was throttle someone. When a student or administrator was, in the depths of my mind, being separated neck from torso, I would be smiling, in seeming equanimity, counting beads. After a few bones had slipped between my fingers I knew I really didn’t want to throttle anyone. Everyone thought I was so happy.

It would come off when I was mowing the lawn, digging the garden, washing dishes. When I felt it might get caught on something.

After a while it started to slip off on its own. But so had my watch. So had, for that matter, my pants. I had lost a good bit of weight and the malas needed to be smaller if I was going to keep them in use.

I tied a knot in the cord. It didn’t hold long. I tried to restring them but that didn’t work: the cord would not hold, the knot loosen, the malas slip off. I brought them to bead shops and they seemed not to know what to do with them either. I even showed them pictures but each shop I left, baggy bones clanking around my wrist.

Then Carol visited. She brought with her a necklace for me, beads, done beautifully. Her new hobby. I showed her my malas, let them fall over my hand and into her lap. She thought she could fix them. No problem.

Carol lives in Boynton Beach. That is in Palm Beach County, Florida. I am a little under two hours north of her. My malas went on a trip to South Florida.

I thought it fitting. They are, after all, a sign of impermanence. Nothing lasts. But Carol is my oldest friend. Nothing lasts, ‘tis true. But friendship, in the span of a lifetime, is as close to permanence as one can get. A strong, close, real friendship. The malas of impermanence fixed by one of the most permanent things of which I know. A friend. I let them go.

That was about a year ago.

I miss my bones.

Time to go shopping.

While in Asheville, I looked. While at Pagan gatherings, I looked. In Austin, I looked. At gem and mineral shows I looked. In New Age shops I looked and was frequently lambasted for wanting bone by shopkeeps playing holier-than-though with Tibetan monks. I found nothing.

On eBay I found plenty but nothing that struck me, nothing that spoke to me, called me.. It would need to be something I found in person. After all, the last set was a gift. It was the universe telling me a truth.

I was thinking to myself. Ruminating. Circular. Maybe I just need to be patient. Maybe a set will come to me. Maybe I don’t need them anymore. Maybe I am playing monkey in the middle with my mind; what is being tossed and doing the tossing the same thing. Maybe… What is that? It’s them. There they are.

I had looked up bone malas on the Internet. I am not sure why I did this after having decided to forget about them. Perhaps it was a discussion that morning with the Abbot of the local Thai Temple, Wat Punyawanaram.

I was there for the festivities commemorating the opening of the new monastery, for the blessing of he grounds by the community and the blessing of the community by the monks, for the long period when monks do not leave the temple and the laity gathers to bring them the materials they will need for the coming year.

I was there with several people from our local Unitarian Universalist Church. We had raised enough funds to supply the monks ten sets of robes and it was my honour to present several of them during the ceremony. I sat with the abbot in a large sanctuary, peopled to capacity, feeling very comfortable - uncommon for me. But I walk into a Buddhist temple and I feel immediately calm, at peace and at home. He asked how my meditation was going. I imagine that is what he said. He speaks only slightly more English than I do Thai. I speak no Thai.

He had helped me quite a bit in the last year as I worked teaching, feeling as though I was forcing students to do that which they did not wish, feeling as though I was doing harm, at odds with my vows. I understood him. Common spoken language or none, it did not matter.

And, suddenly, I missed my malas.

Open Google. Malas bone wrist. I found several pages that felt unsatisfactory. I expected nothing. Then one struck me. What I noticed first was the different materials, seeds and beads and stones and bones of which malas may be made, were explained. Here was a person who understood why I wanted what I did. Secondly, it was set up on a blog. A catablog! Ingenious. He even included a video of what malas were for and how to use them. This deserved a further look.
I found what I was looking for, almost. I found a price I could well afford and it was so terribly close to my birthday I didn’t experience my normal need to resist my own wants and trivialize my own desires. Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I did. But the perfection, price and proximity of my natal day won and nearly sealed the deal.

What did I do? I hesitated. I wrote him from a link on the catalogue. If this was anything like most email communication, and I was sure it would be, I would log yet another birthday past this present one before I seeing an answer. But here was a man making malas. Making them as they were ordered. For specific people. Not beads sitting in a case. I had to try.

It was 4:22 on a Sunday evening. Here is what I wrote:

Hi,

I was looking at your page and was wondering if I had missed, or if you could make, a bone wrist mala?

I am looking for yakbone with the pulltie as opposed to elastic (which keep breaking). I guess they would be 27 or 18 beads. I'm note sure of a lotus seed or bodhi sead could be incorporated.

Thanks,

Adam

The answer, by email standards, was nearly immediate. It came in the early evening and included links and suggestions as well as an offer to answer any question I might have. So, at that invitation, I replied and questions I had. Can this be used, can that be used, will the bone change colour as I wear it (I hope so), can I change the string colour? I wrote, further:

I do wish there were a way to work the bodhi seeds in as well as the Lotus seeds onto the ends/tassels. Perhaps the last two beads before the slipknot bodhi seeds and the tassel-ends lotus. If not, I would prefer lotus.

I want the bone for impermanence. I want the bodhi sead to remind me to sit, to remind me there is nothing to be done about that impermenance. I want the lotus seed so I can remind myself I need not be mired in this, that beauty comes from the mud. I want. Maybe it is because I am an American., but I am suddenly presented with a choice and I choose not to choose.

His reply:

Sure. That sounds like a plan. Bodhi will be the last two at the slip knot and the tassel beads will be lotus. On thick red string. Perfect! The bodhi may be of a different size but not TOO different.

The bone does not get darker as time goes on...the oils from your skin will give the bead a translucent quality to the beads over time Great. Would you like a pic of the wrist mala to be sure you are happy with the design before it gets shipped tomorrow?

Thank you.

A picture? A picture? Was he serious? And not ten minutes later that is what I got.

And then we were positively chatty:

The mala looks incredible. I can’t imagine not being happy with them.

I spent the day at a Thai Temple. The only game in town, as it were, and where all the Buddhists tend to go regardless of being Thai, Tibetan, Cambodian, Chinese or from wherever. In my talk with the abbot I was reminded how much I missed having my malas.

So thanks so very much.

Adam

From: Destination OM - Custom Malas [mailto:destinationom@yahoo.ca]
Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2007 11:34 PM
To: Adam
Subject: RE: Bone Wrist Malas?

I learned my craft in Bodhgaya and make malas for many traditions. It is a blessing to serve practitioners and in turn help support friends throughout Asia. I collect supplies by traveling to Asia and hire friends to purchase supplies for me later. I make all malas here on Saltspring but will be returning to Asia for one year in November and will be making malas in Bodhgaya in April next year for six months alongside my teacher to learn more about the craft.

Actually today is the most auspicious day of the calendar year to purchase a mala as it is GURU PURNIMA (The full moon of the guru) and on this day we spend the day reflecting on the guru and connecting ourselves to the infinite wisdom. I spent the day with a Rinpoche who blessed the malas and wrist malas so you are triply blessed today :)

Thank you for the payment. This will go out tomorrow.

And it did. And it arrived today, seven days later.

It is in a yellow package. Eight by five inches. It is oriented vertically and labeled “Small Packet Petit Paquet” The entire package is labled in English and French. The return address tells me it came from Saltspring Island, BC in Canada. My address is below it, highlighted in yellow.

Immediately below my address is a space for the listing of contents. It says “Buddhist/Hindu Rosary. On the next line there is a star and the words “Made in Canada.” Below that, a star and the words “For religious purposes.” Everything is in capital letters. It arrived at about four this afternoon.

I didn’t open it. I opened the package from Bookmooch. I opened the DVD from SWIM. All this with the sealed package beside me.

I read the article in Poets and Writers titled “Will Write for Free: Why Is Asking to Get Paid So Difficult?” by Steve Almond with the still-sealed envelope inside the folded magazine.

I had tried to open it. I began, gingerly, to pull back the adhesived fold. It started to give with little pressure and I stopped. I simply could not. Not until I… Not until what? Not until I wrote about it. And now I have. Seven hours or so later, I am here, at the end of this essay. This envelope and me. And now I will open it.

I reach my hand in. They feel cool. I pull them out slowly. They are gorgeous. I can’t wait to sit, to count, to breath.

All there is to do now is to say “Thank you.”

Thank you.