150 Words: Proverbs

“Slow down…take a deep breath.  If you rush through life, life rushes through you.”

His friend frowned.  “What the hell is that?”

He smiled mischievously.  “It’s an ancient Chinese proverb…that I just made up…”

His friend sighed, shaking his head.  “Aren’t you clever?  If I don’t get this project done, my boss is gonna rush me right out the door.”

“But you’re running around like a chicken with his head cut off, what exactly are you getting done?”

His friend glared.  “I hate you.”

He chuckled warmly.  “I have that effect on people sometimes.  But you know that I’m right.”

His friend grinned wryly.  “Please enlighten me further, Master.”

He brushed off the sarcasm.  “A stitch in time saves nine.”

“Go to hell.”

“A watched pot never boils.”

“I’m not listening to you…”

“May you live in interesting times…”

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

“The early bird catches…”

“Argghh!”

Magic

A little girl smiled at me when I thought I was projecting bearish aloofness.  She made me smile despite myself and reminded me, yet again, that I believe in magic.  I sometimes forget that…I sometimes want to forget that…but, in my heart…the boy’s heart that shines within my man’s chest…I do believe in magic.

Magic doesn’t always seem to believe in me…but that’s not the way it works…you believe or you don’t, needing proof means that you don’t.

Magic is child’s guileless smile…magic is a hug from a man who seems too macho to give heartfelt hugs but in fact isn’t…magic is a song that instantly takes you to a place where memory is golden and love is real…magic is a hug from across too many miles that still warms and sustains you in gray, aching moments…magic is feeling intimately connected even and especially when you’re all alone…magic is…well, magic is real.

And I believe.  I believe in laughter and tears…I believe that there are true hearts and fake hearts…I believe that yesterday is gone, tomorrow will take care of itself, and today is where we live…I believe in the power of music and the power of an impish twinkle in an old man’s eye….I believe that it’s okay to feel sadness as long you remember how to feel joy…yes, I believe…I do believe in magic.

A Sometimes Useful Idiot

Despite my best efforts to be the best staff that I can, I am well aware that my feline overlords regard me with a whimsical mixture of razor-thin patience, haughty indifference, occasional affection, and withering exasperation (I’m pretty sure that they tolerate me as much as they do only for want of opposable thumbs and access to money….had they both of those things I am quite sure that my services would no longer be required…)

I don’t take this personally.

I endeavor to meet their needs to the best of my abilities (said abilities are sorely lacking in their eyes, of course, but hey I’m only human…) hoping to exchange that for the chance to be able to work sometimes without having to stroke a back, try to decipher a meow, or throw a ball.

It’s a fair exchange.

And so I serve them and express my gratitude for being allowed to dwell in their presence. And they accept my presence and my ministrations while regarding me as what they know I am: a sometimes useful idiot.

Again, it’s a fair exchange.

Where the Heck is my Flying Car?!?

There were supposed to be flying cars.

There were supposed to be bustling cities on the Moon.

And other cool stuff like that.

For those of us of the “boomer” generation, the world of the 21^st century was supposed to be a wonderful full of things that we could indeed imagine (heck we had 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Jetsons…we knew what was coming up by the time we reached a year with a number like 2009.)

But here we are…2009, almost a tenth of the way through the 21^st century…and we ain’t not got no flying cars! What’s up with that?

What we do have are wars and the portents of wars in far-flung corners of our world. What we do have are bleak financial clouds roiling from one end of the planet to the next. What we do have are people who seem bound and determined to hold fast to that which separates us…borders, languages, slights both perceived and imagined…instead of celebrate that which makes us all part of the same terrestrial family (which, of course, is nearly everything that is really important in our existence as living beings in the grand scheme of the boundless and wondrous universe.)

That said, what we also have is a world that glides gracefully through the cosmos as surely as it as for eons…what we have is the ability to embrace hope, to celebrate love, to dream of peace…what we have is everything that makes us magically, infuriatingly, incredibly, undeniably human. What we have is the wisdom of the past, the surety of the present, and the amazing possibilities of the future.

We still have the voice of the people making their desires known. We still have the laughter of children and the sighs of lovers and the soul-affirming majesty of music created and art of all kinds shared. We still have time to dream and hope…to laugh and to cry…to make love and to make peace. We still have time to…be.

It’s 2009…and, all things considered, I think we’re getting the best part of the deal.

I still want my flying car though...

Supergirl

We were lying side by side on a blanket in the backyard underneath a buttery moon and a sparkling canopy of early evening stars when the Little Miss chuckled softly to herself. This was, I knew from experience, the prelude to a grand pronouncement.

“I know who I want to be, Daddy,” she said resolutely.

I suppressed a chuckle. Last week she had decided on being a fire fighter; three weeks before that, she was ready to be a pop star, and a month or so before that, after a trip our family had taken to visit my in-laws, she was going to be an airline pilot. The perennial jobs…mommy, doctor, cowgirl, pet store owner, and princess…stayed in the mix no matter what else she was considering. “What’s that, sweetheart?”

“Not ‘what’, who,” she corrected me with as much patience as a five-year-old with a very, very active mind could muster. I thought I heard her sigh…sometimes she thought I was the most amazing man in the universe and sometimes she seemed to wonder how such a moron could be her father…but I wasn’t sure. “I’m going to be Supergirl.”

“Are you now?” I smiled. She liked to look through my comics…a childhood interest I had carried into my dotage…and sometimes we would read them together but I never thought she gave them much thought past that.

“Yes,” she said, “I think what this world needs a good super-hero.”

“And that would be you?”

“That would be me,” she replied without hesitation. “Somebody’s got to be Supergirl and why shouldn’t it be me?”

The logic was, of course, irrefutable. I looked up the lazy moon and smiled. “Why not indeed?” She nudged her little head against my shoulder in the shy way she did when she knew that I was giving her the space to dream whatever fearless dreams she chose to dream. “Maybe one day…when you’re not fighting crime and stuff…you could take me to the moon. I’ve always wanted to go to the moon….okay?”

I could feel her smiling at me but I did not turn my head. “Okay,” she said. “As soon as I have a day off…Supergirl’s got a lot to do, you know.”

“Yes I know,” I replied. “Thank you.”

She snuggled a bit closer and joined me at looking up at the bright and beautiful moon. “You’re welcome,” the Little Miss…my Supergirl…said before we both into the same waking dream…a dream of flying to visit that welcoming moon.

Share Hugs

There is something sublime and amazing about hugs. Maybe it's because they can be shared in so many emotionally intimate and emotionally satisfying ways.

Hugs are democratic expressions of love, friendship, concern, fidelity, celebration, sadness, empathy, passion, grace, understanding...they get through the barriers we erect around ourselves (if only for a few connecting moments) and bring joy and empathy and delight in ways that words often fail to.

So share hugs whenever you can...share them with your parents and your siblings and your cousins...with your children and your grandchildren...with people who who make you smile and with people who need to know that they're not alone. Share them with people you love and with people who've done you wrong but want to atone. Share them with people you know who are blue and with people you've done wrong and you need to atone.

Share hugs with your lovers and with people you want to be your lovers (even if you know they never will be.) Share them with your significant others (even and especially when you start to take your lover for them for granted.)

Share hugs for selfless reasons (most of us need hugs from time to time) and for selfish reasons (most of want to be hugged sometimes even if we pretend that we don't)

Yeah, it's a ditzy, flower power idea but so what? In our sometimes gray and cynical world, maybe we need a little flower power in our lives every once in a while...

So share hugs...they're good for you...they're good me...they're good for everybody.

Namaste, y'all.