at the end of the day you're another day older

At night when I'm standing at the bathroom sink watching myself in the mirror brushing my teeth, I think about how only 24 hours prior I stood there doing the same thing, and what have I done between then and now? Sometimes I'm crushed that all that time has gone by and I've nothing to show for it. Sometimes I reflect on a day well spent. Sometimes I lament the quick slippage of time, regardless of how I filled those 24 hours.

Then I think of Buddha. Well, only now have I thought of Buddha when I was surfing the 'net for an appropriate quote and came across this one:

Do not dwell in the past.
Do not dream of the future.
Concentrate the mind on the present moment.

So much of what I do is repetitious: brushing my teeth each night; waking in the morning and shuffling out to the kitchen to put the kettle on for coffee; walking the same path with my dog Cassie and the same music on my iPod; driving Jack to school, then backtracking myself to work; emptying the dishwasher; folding the laundry. Even right now, wracking my brain for something to take down here: how many times before have I done this?

None of that matters, really, because here I am right now. Here I am clacking at the keyboard, sprawled on the sofa with Kismet curled against my legs, Jack snacking on pizza on the living room floor while watching Monty Python Season 1 Episode 7 for the fourth time because it's so funny. There's no reason to lament anything, nor even to reflect on anything. The lamentation and the reflection are part of my story, building blocks of who I am.

It doesn't matter that I've done this countless times previously. What matters is my Self, the person who does this now, is not exactly the same person who did this before. Did I pay attention to what happened between now and then? Not always. But I can pay attention right now.

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doesn't take much

This afternoon I went to Starbucks. I don't go often because they're spendy and they've monopolized the coffee business and most of the time I just want black coffee. Part of our Thanksgiving tradition, though, is going to Mom's Target and Starbucks on Black Friday. This year we made it to Target but not to Starbucks, nor did we make it to Starbucks on Saturday, as we said we would on the way to the Deer Valley Goodwill. I have a gift card smoldering in my pocket so today, after buying spray paint and water marbles at JoAnn, I pulled up to the drive-thru at Starbucks. Usually I get some kind of blended iced vanilla chai thing. At the orderboard I was distracted by all the holiday drinks and opted for a white chocolate peppermint mocha, grande. One thing I will say for Starbucks: the employees are always uber-friendly. After ordering from the chirpy counterperson I pulled forward slightly, plugged in my ipod, and started a game of solitaire while listening to the White S...

memory

monday melee

Photo credit goes to xeriscapeaz.org On Monday morning Jack woke early and had plenty of time to play with Cassie in the backyard before school. I was inside making Jack's lunch when I heard Cassie's Alert Bark, so I went outside to investigate. She was barking ferociously at the resident herd of javelina, passing through the wash behind the house, trotting on their ridiculously tiny hooves. "Jack! Come see the javelina!" I said. He ran over and leaned against the wall by the lemon tree, where the wall runs shortest. "Here pig pig!" he called. And what the hell? The big ones started coming over, and the little ones followed. "Oh-ho!" Jack was delighted when the entire herd of seven javelina---five adults and two babies---walked over to stand just on the other side of the wall, lifting their round wet snouts and sniffing our air. "Someone's been feeding them," I said, over Cassie's barking, and turned to go inside to get the camera...

chock-a-blog

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