Imitating Superman

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The snow turned to rain.

We've had ten inches of snow. It dresses the trees in a thick layer of white. Their branches are drooping with many of them almost touching the ground. The electricity wavered last night and flickered during breakfast. Snow like this, entices us to harness our snowshoes and trek to the Aspen grove about a mile east of our back door.

Zivon was excited for his first snowshoeing of the season. While we're getting into our snowshoes, he wandered down the plowed driveway looking out over the berm. When we were ready, I called, "Hey, Zivon let's go!" He came at full speed, and where we left the plowed area and snowshoed into untracked snow, Zivon launched himself in his best Superman imitation. Little did he know that the snow was wet, heavy, and sticky. It was like he hit a brick wall. He tumbled, mixing with the wet snow then he popped up, surprised, looked to see if anyone was watching. Then as if nothing had happened, took off towards the Aspens.

For thirty days, I've found something I was interested in writing about. But today, I've given distractions priority over writing.

Each moment in the day has a different character. Noticing the character of the present moment is being aware. Not noticing the character of the present moment is to be lost in thought, to be thinking without knowing you're thinking, to give distractions priority, and being at the mercy of the next thought. Noticing has the character of past tense. You can only notice from the place where you're aware of the noticing. You notice you were lost in thought, were thinking on autopilot, were listening to your mind's audio track. Noticing is what brings you awareness.

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What Would You Tell Your Twenty-Something Self

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After mom and dad divorced, dad moved into Vivian's apartment. One of my visits stands out. He would have been younger than I am now. He was a nervous man, suspicious and gullible. It is a family secret that I'll never know why he never went back to school after the third grade. He was living with a crazy woman who acted as a dependent sick, bedridden child. Her two grown boys were stealing dad's money to buy drugs. His fashion style was like Archie Bunker's, same white shirt and 50's vintage hat.

I remember feeling obliged to visit and not feeling comfortable in such a turbulent environment with all the shouting and arguing.

Dad asked me, "You want to go with me to the store?"

This I learned was code for let's go to 7-Eleven and play the lottery. He favored the scratch-off games and knew them all by name. The games had names like "Treasure Hunt," "Set for Life," and "Money Rain," The colorful cards were splattered with flamboyant messages designed to lure the gullible. He acted like a kid, like he studied the candies in the concession counter at the Saturday matinee.

He carefully took yesterday's cards out of his wallet and presented them to the store clerk. He'd already calculated his winnings and wanted the clerk to run them through the official lottery scanner and place his cash winnings in his hand.

He smiled and said, "$23.00. Yesterday was a good day."

He gave the twenty-three dollars back to the clerk and said, "We'd like 10 Treasure Hunts, 10 Set for Life, and three Money Rains for my son."

Those little scratch-off cardboard possibilities made him giddy with excitement. Out to the parking lot, we saddle up on a retaining wall with our bounty. That day was not our lucky day. As I remember, we had zero winners. I remember my dad being sad and frumpy. I said nothing. He tried to show me part of his world, which gave him hope. And I remember feeling embarrassed by how he acted.

Now it is too late. Too late to be tender. Too late to express love. I let my chance to soothe my dad's suffering slip away. I regret not hugging my dad in that 7-Eleven parking lot.

This short flash non-fiction essay is meant to help remind our future selves to be fractionally better than before. It points to where I want to work on my mental fitness. It is a reminder to operate in the world with love and compassion and includes a tip to help when caught up in the world’s uncontrollable chaos. Please, continue the conversation anytime: will@kestrelcreek.com.

Lucky

I never intended to end up this way.

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The meager skills I've acquired and have used to build my character come from stealing ideas. I can't claim any originality. I try them out and see how they feel. I keep those that feel good and jettison the rest. Those that I kept have molded me into the creature I am today. The building of my character has been undirected by me. It has been a slow process with many detours and dead-ends.

It wasn't my plan to become the way I am. It just happened, without me noticing the changes as they progressed incrementally. They piled up like a train derailing in slow-motion, culminating in a mangled, unrecognizable stack of rubble.

Okay, that was a little bit of overdramatization. I don't think I have turned out to be a "mangled stack of rubble." Yet for as much thought I put into planning my day, I confess there has been little forethought into a plan for life. I stumbled into a great career with a super boss who fostered my talents. My most extraordinary stroke of luck was 30 years ago meeting Mary, who's still my sweetheart.

Life just happened, I've been lucky.

The big round dog bed

"The vet said he was eighty-three pounds."

"He doesn't look fat."

"She said she couldn't feel his ribs but in the same breath said he looked great."

"She must have a different concept of "can't feel his ribs" than I do."

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Resting on his big round dog bed, Zivon is curled up on his side like one of those 'potato bugs,' his hind feet tucked next to his front feet. He is peacefully sleeping and dreaming dog dreams. He quivers and whimpers as the adventures and players in his dreams become more and more animated. Is he chasing the local rabbits? He never catches them in real life, but all bets are off when his legs run in his sleep. His tail will tap the floor in a steady rhythm as he dreams, dreams of meeting us when we come home. I imagine that he dreams of frolicking with Molly, the black lab, and Mabel, the yellow lab. Or maybe he's trying to get Fred's attention. Fred, a border collie, is too interested in playing fetch with a pinecone and shows no interest in Zivon. He stands up in his dreams to the bull moose we saw yesterday down by the mailbox. The moose followed us for a little while, and Zivon was interested in meeting him, but the leash kept them apart.

A whisper of a W-A-L-K, and he's ready. He jumps up, leaving the dreams on the big round dog bed so he can rejoin them later.

Practice Flash Non Fiction

Smiling Meditation

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A smile is the happiness you find right under your nose. The moment you smile, the universe smiles back at you.

(If you want to uncover the secrets of how to put your smile to work for you, skip to the last paragraph below.)

When you meditate, you practice with your present moment awareness. As soon as we get off the cushion, we get captured by the day's flow and can't connect with the awareness we had while meditating. How do we bring meditation awareness into the rest of our life? Most meditation instruction doesn't usually model this, yet this is the vast majority of our life.

1.4% of my day is spent in formal meditation.
98.6% of my day represents the rest of my life.

Even if you two hours every day meditating.
8.3% of the day spent in meditation.
91.7% spent in the rest of life.

We have to find a way to undermine the boundary between a formal period of practice and what happens in ordinary life. It's helpful to be less precious concerning the formal sessions and less cavalier about the rest of your life.

Bring happiness to your day by putting your smile to work for you. Let smiling be the queue that starts the cascade of falling back into awareness. Throughout the day, every time you notice you are not smiling, smile. Let your cheeks rise, stretch your lips, let the energy of your smile move about your face how it wants. Notice that this energy can move down your throat and into your chest and belly. Notice the energy as it spreads out into your body. You need only a half-second for this. At first, the feelings may be vague. You may only remember your smile a couple of times in the day. With practice, smiling will become a superpower, instantly connecting your awareness with the present moment.

This post is meant to help us renew our commitment to caring for the world and remind our future selves to be fractionally better than before. This post points to where I want to work on my mental fitness and ‘adulting.’. It is a reminder to operate in the world with love and compassion and includes tips put together in moments of clarity to help when caught up in the world’s uncontrollable chaos. Please, continue the conversation anytime: will@kestrelcreek.com.