Chance Encounter

The late hour kept me running a brisk 50 mph (the maximum controllable speed on gravel), so that an apparent chunk of slate in the road nearly slipped beneath my radiator before it caught my attention. Grinding to a halt, I stared at the plate-sized rock in the rearview mirror. Sure enough, it sprouted two yellow-striped forearms and a matching head, with acid eyes that glared at me through the pall of dust I'd raised. I snatched my camera and jumped out, thinking to bag a quick photo, then chase my chelonian friend off the road before a less attentive traveller squashed him flat.

But on my advance he sprinted into the undergrowth, with scornful disregard for my species' reluctance to apply that verb to his. I was left to herd him with stomping boots, back into the fading sunlight, to get my portrait. He appreciated none of this - not the running over, not the dirt bath, not the brisk jog, and most particularly not the herding. When the slides came back from the lab, I found a study of one seriously bent Western painted turtle.

Still, I had to admire the guy's pluck. We were a hundred yards from water. Wherever he'd come from, wherever he was going, he'd earned his rest in that place.


(Adapted from Rough Around the Edges: A Journey Around Washington's Borderlands, copyright RK Henderson. Photo of Chrysemys picta bellii courtesy of Gary M. Stolz, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Pondside meditation site

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Street Level Zen: Age

Don't write anything till you're 25.

Don't write for the high school yearbook; don't write for the college literary magazine.

Don't write that stuff.

You've never had any experiences. Just shut up.

I did not have anything to say until I was 35

and even then, not much.

– Joe Queenan

(Photo courtesy of Ilya Ilford and Unsplash.)

WW: Sesshin lunch

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Recast In My Own Movie

Back in the 50s, writer and comedian Carl Reiner pitched a sitcom based on his own life, starring himself, to the new CBS Television network. When the pilot failed, Reiner sadly told producer Sheldon Leonard they'd have to drop the project.

"Nonsense!" replied Leonard. "We'll just get a better man to play you!"

Once that better man – Dick Van Dyke – was secured, the show went on to become one of the foundational classics of American television.

This anecdote has so many Zen ramifications it counts as a contemporary koan. How many times have I felt that my life would have played out better if somebody else had lived it – if karma had simply recast the role of me.

Such speculation isn't solely the product of our own delusional minds. We also get told this by those around us – that the problem is we're us, and that's what needs to change. Generally by people looking to profit in some way. It's rather a perfect storm of co-arising – our delusion playing off their delusion playing off ours.

The essential fallacy of this proposition is that if someone else had starred in my life, it wouldn't have happened. Nor would I. Nor in fact would they; a person living another person's life is… that other person. (And now we're back to Jason Pargin.)

Anyway, this notion that the only thing wrong with my life is that I'm in it, is the sort of image the Ancestors used to pitch to smash our brains out of their worn grooves. Is the suggestion a paradox, or is it me? Is there some deeper intent, or am I supposed to use a different part of my mind to understand?

Is it so obvious I can't see it? Or is it such nonsense that it appears plausible?

Or is this where I kick over the bucket? Because that part's fun.

By the way, Reiner had no hard feelings about the recasting. He completely agreed with Leonard's analysis, and was happily demoted from leading man in his own life to the role of Dick's boss.

In which character, being entirely unlike him, he excelled.


(Photo of the better Carl Reiner courtesy of CBS Television and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Old and new trillium

(Two Trillium ovatum - iconic wildflower of the North Pacific spring - apparently growing from one bulb. The clean white blossom is the newer; they often turn purplish with age.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Orientation

(From the pen of one of my most influential teachers.)

WW: Tomatoes from heaven

(A few days ago the tide left these two luscious giant tomatoes on the beach. They'd washed up about 50 yards apart, in perfect condition, and did I mention they're huge? I have no idea how they ended up in the bay, but I'm glad it happened here, where water temperatures remain at refrigerator levels year-round, and not, say, Australia, where I probably couldn't have made several meals of them. In fact, I still have half of one in the fridge.

A lifetime in, on, and by the sea has left me with countless memories of similar blessings. Some edible [and sometimes highly timely, appearing when I badly needed them], others material, but all of them delightful and welcome.) Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Good Article on Depression

It's old now – 2012 – but still entirely germane. In a nutshell, Psychology Today author Alison Escalante's position is that depression is a logical response to environment, not a medical disorder. And as I've often mentioned here, that's my belief as well.

Says Dr. Escalante:

"When we think of depression as irrational and unnecessary suffering, we stigmatize people and rob them of hope. But when we begin to understand that depression, at least initially, happens for a good reason we lift the shame. People with depression are courageous survivors, not damaged invalids."

Have a look:

We’ve Got Depression All Wrong. It’s Trying to Save Us.


(Photo courtesy of JJ Harrison and Wikimedia Commons.)