Hula Hooping

This weekend I got to try my buddy's hula hoop. It wasn't like the ones I played with when I was little. This one was much larger in diameter and weighted instead of being a hollow tube of plastic. It had a satisfying heft that counterintuitively made it easier to keep it going than the lightweight kind. I gave it a whirl and found I was better than I remembered. Then I kept going, and when I stopped I was out of breath with a huge smile on my face. My joy came not from pretending to be a kid again, but from falling into the moment and not thinking of anything but the gyrating hoop around my waist--spinning meditation. That and the endorphin rush of shaking all around!

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Reading Aloud

Being an adult without young children in my life, I sometimes forget the joys of reading aloud.  I was recently reminded how satisfying it is, and now I'm looking forward to doing more of it, both reading and listening.  I'll admit that I have more trouble following the twists and turns of a plot when I'm hearing it read aloud to me than when I'm looking at the pages myself, but there's a special comfort in relaxing and allowing myself to sink into the story that a well-loved voice is bringing to life.  My mom and dad read to me a lot when I was little, so the whole experience reminds me of happy times.  It's especially pleasant right before bed to read aloud and be read to.  Gets the brain ready for good dreams.

Little Kids (Hunting Easter Eggs)

More from the Easter chronicles with the LDF-family.  Here's an overly hasty scribble depicting cute little kids on an Easter egg hunt.  We saw this one little girl who was almost lost in her voluminously fluffy pink dress, sitting in the grass, not quite sure what all the fuss was about.  A slightly older girl approached her, holding out an egg and communicating via the special means that babies have to talk to each other.  Finally she flopped down on the grass almost atop the pink dress girl and everyone happily snapped photos.  I love the way little kids will just do their own thing, regardless of what the grown-ups are encouraging.  "Go!  Get those eggs!  You can do it!  Go fast!" shout the parents, and the kids amiably toddle along, enjoying the cool grass between their toes, observing insects in flight and the angle of the sunlight through the trees.  They may find Easter eggs and they may not, and they couldn't care a whit either way, except that the world is a big, bright, beautiful place full of endless wonder, and they're happy to be in it.  I'm with the kids.

Schmoozing

When I was a kid, I was really shy.  Painfully shy at times.  I'm not sure what happened between then and now, but somewhere along the line I found I really enjoy schmoozing with people.  I love hearing their names and learning about who they are and what they do.  I was an alumnus representative at an event my college held tonight for interested/admitted students from the area, and I had a blast talking with the students and their parents.  It wasn't just schmoozing for the sake of schmoozing--I think people are endlessly fascinating, and it's useful and gratifying to learn their unique stories.  Everyone tells her or his story differently, so even if the basic arc is one I have heard many times before, I learn something new with each telling.  At the best of times, my interest in the person I'm talking to completely overtakes any concern for how she or he is perceiving me, and I'm able to relax into the interaction and the communication.  As far as I can see it, that's where the divine dwells, in moments of pure curiosity and exchange, unimpeded by ego.  Of course, they're brief, and my ego gets in the way all the time, but every so often I'll come close to that divine spark, and it leaves me feeling energized and hopeful and full of joy.

Unexpectedly Running into Old Friends

Dear friends, I tried to take a good picture of this drawing, and then I tried to edit it to come out clear and crisp, but it just was not happening.  I think it's because my pen was drying up, and the lines weren't bold enough.  Anyway . . . today I ran into some old friends from my childhood whom I hadn't seen in far too long.  It was quite unexpected, but not startling.  I find that running into people I'm really comfortable with tends not to be startling, even when they're out of the normal context.  And when the universe throws us together again, it's a reassuring reminder that our worlds are not so big, the distances between us not so vast, and the connections uniting us surprisingly powerful.

Late-Night Salads

Recently when I have that "kinda hungry but not really" feeling around bedtime, I'll make myself a salad in this large, blue-and-white china bowl.  I use normal red or green leaf lettuce, or whatever's handy, and dress it with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, red wine vinegar, crushed black pepper, and dried oregano.  Then I put a few drops of Salsa Huichol hot sauce on top for that extra zip.  Tonight I felt like I'd been eating poorly all day, so I kicked in a couple cloves of crushed garlic and some clover sprouts, too.  When I've finished the salad, I'll often drink the vinegar that's left in the bottom of the bowl, in accordance with my childhood tradition (seriously, I did this as a kid and loved it).  Tonight's duck is drawn with a big ol' charcoal pencil, and man, I'd forgotten how much fun those are!  It's like instant "Curious George".

8-Bit Video Games

Because the colors are so bright and pure.  Because the sprites and landscapes are endearingly blocky and indistinct.  Because the sound effects evoke the future and the past at the same time.  Because nothing about the goals and interactions really makes sense when you think about it.  Because prizes are hidden inside boxes and catchy theme music follows your hero everywhere she/he/it goes.  Because you get points for doing just about everything.  Because they remind me of some beautiful afternoons in my youth.  Because I should really go outside, but they're so much fun!  For these reasons and more, I salute 8-bit video games, which accomplished so much within such strict limitations, which gave us whole worlds of shared cultural reference points, which boosted our hand-eye coordination to the point where we can now use iPhones without hardly thinking about it, and which made us think that jumping on the heads of our enemies was an effective tactical maneuver.  Thank you, 8-bit games.  And thank you, 8-bit game programmers, whose Snickers Bars-and Jolt Cola-fueled coding binges brought us brave new worlds of adventure.  And Mom, who I know is reading this, I want you to know that I am not sitting in my basement playing video games tonight, but in fact at a coffee shop writing this post.  I feel so mature!

Watches

Watches are symbols of so much that I love and hate.  They stand for that darned American ethos of punctuality.  Time is money.  "I'll meet you at 10:15 a.m." instead of "I'll meet you in the morning."  Luxury watches stand for excess, waste, superfluity, and confused values.  But they're also really neat.  They stand for precision and craftsmanship, for ingenuity and creativity and beauty.  They're tiny miracles you can wear on your wrist.  Even the precision and reliability of a $5 digital watch is practically beyond comprehension.  Wristwatches are engines of awe.  And they're sources of comfort.  Not only because they let you relax when you're running early, but because they are your constant companion, a reassuring familiarity in the midst of the unknown that life brings each day.  When I was a child I had many digital watches, including one that played something like twelve different alarms, one of which was Dixie.  I bought it from a mail-order advertisement in a newspaper, and loved fooling with its many functions.  I remember a brief trend around that time of people wearing two, three, or more watches on their arms, just for fashion's sake.  This was probably the same time that Flava-Flav opted for a slightly more prominent timepiece.  For years I wore analog watches, finally retiring my last one for everyday wear because it was too heavy, and because the child in me longed for the comforting beeps and boops of a digital watch.  That's what I've got now, and it's on that watch that I press the snooze button every morning when the alarm goes off, hoping to buy myself just a little more time.