Saturday, June 28, 2003

The vocabulary words for today are:

endoscopy

and

colonoscopy.

Please use each of these words in a sentence to demonstrate your understanding of their meaning.

Sarah will be enduring an endoscopy on July 1st.

Sarah will be enduring a colonoscopy on July 8th.

Very good. The vocabulary word for tomorrow is:

fear.

Wednesday, June 25, 2003

The Reasons Why

by

Richard Cody

For

Sarah Cody

1

I love you because
when you hold me close
and I, in turn, pull you near


these silly distinctions, you and I,
fall away


and we know what we have always known
somewhere deep
beyond our bones:


there is only One here.

Monday, June 23, 2003

There was something in the air today. Or perhaps it's there everyday and I only recognized it this morning. Could be it's a seasonal thing, a sudden illumination caused by the Earth tilting during the time of Solstice toward the Sun.

I knew something was in the wind when I approached the 38 Geary stop outside of the Transbay Terminal, as I do most Monday through Friday mornings, and found something I never see on that concrete island:

a line of folks, my fellow commuters, some six or seven people deep, forming a tidy queue.

Usually there is a general spotting of people in this space, vague lines sometimes take shape but melt into impatient mobs as soon as the bus rolls up and opens it's maw for boarding.

Noting, as I am here, the strong and definite form of this queue, I duly took my place at its end, signing my name upon an invisible social contract.

Sure enough, the line held when the bus invited us in and we filed through those doors like civilized beings. A first, for Muni at least. Inside the terminal, on the AC Transit lines, a civil queue is expected and maintained by some organizing force that seems to disintegrate out in the streets of San Francisco.

Except for today that is. We'll see if the line is there tomorrow.

After I found my seat (single, window) and we were on our way up Geary, I realized that another first had occurred much earlier. As I slept, in some dim hour before dawn, I was visited for the first time (in conscious memory, at least) by a blogger in dreams. Like you, I'm sure, I often dream of people I know or have known. This, as I say, is the first time I have ever dreamt of somebody I know only as a blogger. The question of how much I know anyone I have never met in the flesh, or even spoken to on the telephone, is a good one.

The question of how much I know someone after dreaming about them is another, maybe. You'll have to supply your own answers, though, because I'm not tackling either of those questions now.

Instead, I'll tell you that the blogger who appeared in my head last night was Elaine, she of KaliLily Time. Elaine was one of the first on what I would come to call my blogroll just over a year ago. However well I do or do not know her (Hi Elaine!) I am glad to know the bit of her that shines forth from her blog.

Should a seeker not find a companion who is better or equal, let him resolutely pursue a solitary course; there is no fellowship with the fool.

- The Dhammapada, Chapter 5, The Fool, #61 -

This is good advice. This is also why I am glad to know Elaine, as I do, through her blog. She is a wise woman, a wise person, a traveler on this road of life who leaves, in her words, lanterns burning for the rest of us.

The dream in which Elaine featured went something like this. . .

Sarah and myself were packing a car, as for a trip, in the street outside of the house where I grew up from the age of seven - still home to my Dad, Step-mom and brother. It was night, or perhaps late dusk, and there may or may not have been other people present - the dream is tattered around the edges and not all memories are clear. As we worked loading the vehicle, a hatchback of some kind resembling no recognizable "real world" counterpart, Elaine approached us from the house next door or, at least, from that direction. Though, as indicated above, I have not met Elaine in the flesh, I knew it was her immediately and without doubt. She (Hi again, Elaine!) appeared just as she might in any of the various photos I have seen at her blog and, more than this visual identification, there was a general knowledge, common in my dreamtime experiences, that this was Elaine. Joining us at the car, she addressed us and it is here that the dream falls away into that vast blackness behind my eyes, incomplete or unremembered.

The content of the verbal exchange between Elaine, myself and Sarah seems the most important part of this dream, yet it is a mystery because it was speech and sound is not a factor in the memory of the dream nor, I think, a part of the dream itself. This seemed to be a silent vision. None the less, words were spoken, and I unable to read lips.

The general tone of the dream was one of casual amiability and, I think, quiet expectation with the packing of the car indicating travel or departure.

Hmmm, if I could only go back there and write it down. What did you say, Elaine?

Sunday, June 22, 2003

The following all took form this past Friday afternoon (6/20/03) in the space of a single hour, the first entries in my haiku journal since the 11th. The dry spell in my journal is hardly surprising considering the bad weather blowing around my skull of late.

Downtown San Francisco (from the 38 Geary)

Cigarette in hand
She stands talking to the trees.
Do they reply?


***

my ears enchanted
(lord knows he's a voodoo chile!)
electric mojo


-for Jimi-

***

Old man with a leash -
at the other end a boy
kicking windfall nuts.


The journal has a title now:

The Jewel In The Moment, random observations in haikuish

Haikuish is Sarah's word, Sarah speak if you will for what I have referred to as haiku inspired forms.

Haiku written in English is not haiku. It is, however, haikuish.

Tuesday, June 17, 2003

No, I'm not dead. Nor am I retiring from the glamorous blog life on either a permanent or indefinite basis like some on my blogroll (some like David and George, for instance).

I have been dancing this past week or so with an old flame of sorts, a black flame that I call, for lack of a better word, depression. I have mentioned my acquaintance with depression in this space before and I hope to elaborate on this most recent climate of bad inner weather in a future post (I'm sure that will be fun reading. . .).

As for right now, it is late, I am tired (6:30 a.m. rolls around far too soon) and I want to share one very good reason I am happy to be alive.

Sarah,

Bent over the sink,
your round bottom in the air
as you brush your teeth -


how glad I am to be your man
as I approach from behind.


Monday, June 09, 2003

Some of you may recall that Sarah surprised me with a trip to Deetjen's Big Sur Inn on the occasion of my 36th birthday back in March. Some of you might also recall that upon our return I hinted there might be some photos from that excursion forthcoming.

Well, here we are making our way into mid June and I finally have a few of the 27 photos we snapped to share with the world and, of course you. Why has it taken so long to post these tiny glimpses of California coastal beauty? That, my friends, is a dull story and one I shan't tell here. The hero, or heroine, of that story is the office manager at my place of employment who graciously scanned the photos below.



- Sarah in front of Deetjen's Big Sur Inn (taken from across Highway 1) -




- Sarah sitting at The Bench, a favorite spot overlooking the Pacific behind Deetjen's. Note the Century Plant penetrating the air - the only time we have seen this plant blossom in the 13 years we have been visiting Deetjen's together. No surprise there as it is called a Century Plant for a reason. -




- A View from The Bench -




- A view through windchimes from the patio of The Phoenix shop at Nepenthe on Highway 1 -

Thursday, June 05, 2003

I would like to offer belated birthday blessings upon Gautama Buddha. Though I know you require no apologies, oh great soul, I am none the less sorry for my tardiness.

Buddha sits and knows
Nirvana
legs crossed, I just sit


Also, the best and brightest of birthday wishes this June 5 - respectively, jointly and quite sincerely - to three people who have made my world a better place:


Bill Moyers

Laurie Anderson

Spalding Gray

And a heartfelt CONGRATULATIONS to Ed Rosenthal!

Tuesday, June 03, 2003

Poor little pigeon,
wings untested by air - ants
will carry you now. . .



Monday, June 02, 2003

If I had some happy pills
I�d swallow them right down,
then they would work their magic
and turn this frown around.
Yes, I wish I had some happy pills,
that�s what I�d like most,
and not just one or two
but a fucking overdose.


. . .Originally appeared in the newsprint pages of Half-Truth, #13, 1993. Actually, it originally appeared, no doubt, in a Mead spiral bound notebook, sometime between 1990 and 1992.