(no subject)
I ask him which mantra he is doing - but he tells me
in Zen, you don't have to bother with any of that.
You can just play with the beads.
- Joanne Kyger
The spines of the grass tickled my neck, where I lay on the neatly trimmed soccer field, legs and arms scissored out like a crime scene chalk outline, and lapsing now and then to a convulsive giggle. The soccer field, vast and flat and empty, and the gently scolding sun of a midwestern July day. The green there was still lush, though prickly, effused with life and laughter, as we repeatedly stood, limped our bodies and collapsed onto the ground, trying each time to lose more control, trying each time to spasm more amusingly.
We'd snuck away from the soccer game in the other field, and hung out now by the goalposts, far from the less than avid crowd, murmuring restlessly at the game and pacing back and forth under the picturesque sky. We lolled in the grass, trying to teach the others the art of collapse. It's dependent upon the moment. You can't plan it out, but once it starts you have to let it happen. If one cell in your body goes stiff, the slosh is ruined. Listening fervently but skeptically to our instruction, he nodded, and pledged to try to. He threw his arms out wildly, then calmly sat down. We gaped in shock, and threw ourselves oozing to the ground again, rolling over in the fragrant green ocean.
Sitting there finally - and the crowd roared dully in the distance, we pulled our legs to our chest and mused about the number of blades of grass within a soccer goal. There's something about the stretching flatness, the silencing of faraway sound, that even the hottest day comes back as cool, still, breezy.
"Can I see them?" He asked suddenly. She frowned at me, and pulled her sleeve over her wrist. I pouted back at her, and wrapped my arm around her shoulders. There were times, a few, that I felt I knew what to do.
I'll always believe that deep down, the ocean is green. In its churning, a deep troubled green that folds over itself, losing itself. In the foam, a soft sparkling faerie green that smiles away the troubles. I visit the ocean late in the day, or early in the morning, when the beaches are empty. The ocean takes everything into itself, every person that ever stares into its depths and thinks it eternal enough to make a viable god. Every person that thinks it universal, inviting, all-consuming. The molecules of water whirr and blend and twist and ache, but the ocean doesn’t care - for all its turbulence, it remains, raging in the winds, smiling at the summer sky.
We drive through evergreen forests, my loves and I. Incarnations shifting, smiles easily lost. We drive up mountains and down again, we drive to the rivers and watch the waterfalls by railroad tracks. Watch the boats and ache to climb aboard, find out where the river goes, though we know it's not far. They've built so many dams. Maybe someday we'll just ride the river back and forth, back and forth, watching the shoreline change. We lose smiles, and never know why. We sit in silence, sometimes knowing it's okay, other times not so sure. For all our care to never make demands, we still depend on something, which remains as long as we never say what. They are few, my loves, and they are always there, even when no more words are found, and the memories fall like leaves, then wither away beneath the snow.
The houses leaned, crooked and old, with spearlike icicles dangling from the eaves. The streets narrow and sharp, up and down and skidding around - cobblestone walking nightmare. The fistful of loose snow glopped against my hair and drizzled down my back. I turned, grimaced and laughing, and tried to chase her down through the slippery streets. She won the fight, fair and square, both of us covered with specks of sparkling snow, glistening dazzling tints of cyan and green, the color of a cat's eyes, hinted in the crystals. Somewhere down the road we started singing, softly, so as not to disturb. The song trailed dutifully behind us as we marched along.
Days pass pale and lean, a withered figure of malicious intent. Pile upon pile of discarded time, distinguished by moments. A sparkle here, a melody there. Sometimes the scent of fresh cut grass, sometimes the rush of a windblown lake.
We trekked barefoot down the wooden stairs to the lake, grasping plastic swords, scarves around our waists like hippie buccaneers. Sunset was in full swing, the inconceivable chill of an oranged purpled swirl of colour stretching out above the murmuring waves. Our toes sunk into the damp soft sand, and we sloshed along. It didn't take much - a toe in the water, the scent of beauty in the air. "Avast!", we shouted, and charged the lake, fully dressed, sloshing in drenched jeans to glory in late summer giggles.
I had a string of lovebeads, dark brooding green, and I would roll them through my hands, frowning into the distance. We made religions out of impulses, out of oceans, out of moments. We made prayer beads out of anything we could, and life a patchwork of hopes and hatreds. Passing through the world as ghosts or Cassandras, as hopefuls or as snarlers. I pull back, I smile to myself, remember my loves, scattered everywhere to come together yet again, when the moment demands it. I remember the ocean, and try to love the world as I love the ocean, and forgive it the darkness of the chaotic emerald churning.
in Zen, you don't have to bother with any of that.
You can just play with the beads.
- Joanne Kyger
The spines of the grass tickled my neck, where I lay on the neatly trimmed soccer field, legs and arms scissored out like a crime scene chalk outline, and lapsing now and then to a convulsive giggle. The soccer field, vast and flat and empty, and the gently scolding sun of a midwestern July day. The green there was still lush, though prickly, effused with life and laughter, as we repeatedly stood, limped our bodies and collapsed onto the ground, trying each time to lose more control, trying each time to spasm more amusingly.
We'd snuck away from the soccer game in the other field, and hung out now by the goalposts, far from the less than avid crowd, murmuring restlessly at the game and pacing back and forth under the picturesque sky. We lolled in the grass, trying to teach the others the art of collapse. It's dependent upon the moment. You can't plan it out, but once it starts you have to let it happen. If one cell in your body goes stiff, the slosh is ruined. Listening fervently but skeptically to our instruction, he nodded, and pledged to try to. He threw his arms out wildly, then calmly sat down. We gaped in shock, and threw ourselves oozing to the ground again, rolling over in the fragrant green ocean.
Sitting there finally - and the crowd roared dully in the distance, we pulled our legs to our chest and mused about the number of blades of grass within a soccer goal. There's something about the stretching flatness, the silencing of faraway sound, that even the hottest day comes back as cool, still, breezy.
"Can I see them?" He asked suddenly. She frowned at me, and pulled her sleeve over her wrist. I pouted back at her, and wrapped my arm around her shoulders. There were times, a few, that I felt I knew what to do.
I'll always believe that deep down, the ocean is green. In its churning, a deep troubled green that folds over itself, losing itself. In the foam, a soft sparkling faerie green that smiles away the troubles. I visit the ocean late in the day, or early in the morning, when the beaches are empty. The ocean takes everything into itself, every person that ever stares into its depths and thinks it eternal enough to make a viable god. Every person that thinks it universal, inviting, all-consuming. The molecules of water whirr and blend and twist and ache, but the ocean doesn’t care - for all its turbulence, it remains, raging in the winds, smiling at the summer sky.
We drive through evergreen forests, my loves and I. Incarnations shifting, smiles easily lost. We drive up mountains and down again, we drive to the rivers and watch the waterfalls by railroad tracks. Watch the boats and ache to climb aboard, find out where the river goes, though we know it's not far. They've built so many dams. Maybe someday we'll just ride the river back and forth, back and forth, watching the shoreline change. We lose smiles, and never know why. We sit in silence, sometimes knowing it's okay, other times not so sure. For all our care to never make demands, we still depend on something, which remains as long as we never say what. They are few, my loves, and they are always there, even when no more words are found, and the memories fall like leaves, then wither away beneath the snow.
The houses leaned, crooked and old, with spearlike icicles dangling from the eaves. The streets narrow and sharp, up and down and skidding around - cobblestone walking nightmare. The fistful of loose snow glopped against my hair and drizzled down my back. I turned, grimaced and laughing, and tried to chase her down through the slippery streets. She won the fight, fair and square, both of us covered with specks of sparkling snow, glistening dazzling tints of cyan and green, the color of a cat's eyes, hinted in the crystals. Somewhere down the road we started singing, softly, so as not to disturb. The song trailed dutifully behind us as we marched along.
Days pass pale and lean, a withered figure of malicious intent. Pile upon pile of discarded time, distinguished by moments. A sparkle here, a melody there. Sometimes the scent of fresh cut grass, sometimes the rush of a windblown lake.
We trekked barefoot down the wooden stairs to the lake, grasping plastic swords, scarves around our waists like hippie buccaneers. Sunset was in full swing, the inconceivable chill of an oranged purpled swirl of colour stretching out above the murmuring waves. Our toes sunk into the damp soft sand, and we sloshed along. It didn't take much - a toe in the water, the scent of beauty in the air. "Avast!", we shouted, and charged the lake, fully dressed, sloshing in drenched jeans to glory in late summer giggles.
I had a string of lovebeads, dark brooding green, and I would roll them through my hands, frowning into the distance. We made religions out of impulses, out of oceans, out of moments. We made prayer beads out of anything we could, and life a patchwork of hopes and hatreds. Passing through the world as ghosts or Cassandras, as hopefuls or as snarlers. I pull back, I smile to myself, remember my loves, scattered everywhere to come together yet again, when the moment demands it. I remember the ocean, and try to love the world as I love the ocean, and forgive it the darkness of the chaotic emerald churning.