And so on the evening of August 6 in Santa Clara, thunder rumbled. Susan encountered rain on her way home from the Zen Center. On Channel 5 our weatherman trembled at the prospect of dry lightning, up North there in the dried forest with all the fires burning, called unprecedented in scope, furious and unpredictable, creating their own weather, and Governor Brown declaring a state of emergency.
Susan's brother is staying here tonight. Tomorrow the truck goes to Ace Fuel Systems to have the hood repaired. After clearing what had seemed insurmountable hindrances, three days ago my book was accepted for publication. I like to wiggle my toes.
The back yard – still there and no one seems to notice. Tabitha comes to sit on my clipboard. The Creek Talker is out (inter-telepathy-net), so maybe a good night's sleep. Perhaps to dream --if lightning doesn't strike.
The back yard – on this side, the patio door. Inside: TV, kitchen, family karma. Out the front door is the beyond, with delivery trucks, neighbors strolling. Every once in awhile a leaf tracks in so it could be said, truthfully, that the yard never ends. Nonetheless, birds sit on the fence to watch while I write; the house might be a container when the doors are closed. Through the wail of sirens, maybe fire trucks on missions, as the boom of thunder rattles windows, levels of existence find names, and indeed, they're all within the mind. Where wordless greed and desire for dominion mock ideologies.
Ideas strike like lightning and refuse to be indexed, not being defined by their relations. They did not arrive in a taxi. Naturally everything is inter-related. Yet still my writerly instinct longs for a review, organization, topics, subheadings – an index!
But whatever prods in the first place has no time for such scholarly pursuits, realizing the way through eludes capture. Categories are locks in the canal, establishing levels that do accomplish something. -- for a container ship, of which enough has already been said. Ideas fill everything up, floating words that are simply reminders of what is already there, and manage to pervade minds that await an inquiry unburdened with . . .
Al at Ace Fuel was ready with just the right two bolts, the hood latch fixed in a matter of seconds. With a tinge of sadness I said, “Maybe I won't see you again.” To which he replied, “Oh, I don't know . . .”
Next I drove up one block to Castro Body Shop. On a day when he had expertly welded an irreplaceable door, Fernando had said, “If you ever want to sell this truck . . .” But this day when I arrived he was out having lunch. His helper picked up a cell phone. Fernando said to come by Monday, after nine . . .
On my way back waiting at a light, this guy in a white truck pulls up: “Your brake lights don't work” I thanked him.
The story never ends. But things string out that way. It can't be helped.
I explained to Al and his new guy Lyle why, some forty years ago, I had bought the truck in the first place: To get going on switching from technical writer to gardener. They could sense that motion. When it finally got to The Creek Talker (the what? well, you know, Creek talker . . . babble, babble!) and what's it about? Well, hard to explain. Words just won't fit. But get the book and, can I make a suggestion? Read it all at once. Maybe in half an hour. Then forget about it, wipe it out of your thoughts. It'll come back. And what couldn't be words will find a way through. “It's for you,” I said, and their eyes told me they understood.
There are times when nothing happens and that's just fine. No plans, retrospectives, no zen devils with forms from City Hall to fill out. Well wishers, thank goodness, having discovered other beneficiaries. When quiet moments find a quiet mind, the well runs deep.
All my books and sheets of printed music a few years back have met the same fate. I have been preparing, now it seems, to pick up where I left off --in the mist of being convinced that something better was necessary. Now is the delightful absurdity of doing nothing. No need to drag any other life through this blephimerous, gateless gate. (The word did not exist formerly.) Now it rings down the halls of unpronounceable silence.
There will be no autographed copy. All these words which have dragged themselves into ghostly service. Nothing better is necessary. And at my age it's easy to beg off an arm wrestling match, a display of lightning notes, creation of a rhythm that will let no one rest, ponderous weight of religious nonsense that stifles the ordinary pursuit of nothingness or perhaps a few diddled notes that beg no theme. No tune longer than the duration of a cup of tea.
See how it's slightly green? Somewhere the crack of a whip forks up uselessly, a fakir's enchanted snake, severed ends of countless habits squirming like poisoned microbes in a Petri dish. They're greeted with silence. The same which cut them off in the first place. And doing nothing is stronger than imagining it.
Tabitha waits patiently, opening just one eye to see if I am done yet. Finished with this nothingness so we can go to sleep. Which of course begs a question that can wait
til sunup.
And so it got here. “Told you so” comes the lilting echo, minion of the masses clinging desperately to a fading facade, who fail to see just a bit further than the next car ad, line of coke. Some claim to. They have The Book, which portends the realization of our nuclear potential. And so there's a big argument about whether The Big Fish Fry will be Man's crowning achievement or God's. There's danger ahead before we taste our karma.
Right up til the final zzitt! people will be hawking tickets for the final concert at Land's End. Arguments over concession rights, refunds, &c. Only True Believers says one booth. And right next to it a booth handing out flame throwers – for free – sponsored by Viewers Like You. And of course the cops trying to arrest dope smokers because That Isn't Right, though there are not enough paddy wagons to arrest the whole crowd. In the outer darkness somewhere east just beyond the lights, where screams pierce the gloom, urine runs down a dirt road.
Yes, the sun did rise today. But no promises. Tomorrow may not be another day. Get your tickets now, while they're on sale. The savings will be enormous. Bank on it. Draw interest because it's owed you just for being virtuous enough to have foregone pleasures, saving your bits of leaf like a thrifty ant. Forget the stage may collapse any moment. And do, do pay your taxes! Remember banks print the tickets (though they say it's the government does that). Feel the breeze in the trees, though August has barely begun. Poetize. Sing praises.
My, my, how it all fades to nothingness. Here in the back yard.
On the kitchen table is a red filigreed tin: “Handmade Peppermint Bark.”
It's decorated with golden snowflakes reminiscent of the ones we cut out of folded paper as kids. “NET WT 11OZ (308g) Layers of Dreamy White bark and Dark Chocolate Topped with Crushed Peppermint Candy Cane.”
On the National Weather Service: “Last update on 09 Aug 10:53am PDT Extreme Heat continues Sunday from the Mid-Mississippi Valley to the Gulf Coast Dangerous heat will continue from portions of northern Kansas and Missouri southward to the Gulf Coast where widespread heat indices will be over 100F. Locations through the Lower Mississippi Valley could see heat indices as high as 110F to 115F.”
Here in the shade of the silver maple it is 72F, with today's forecast set at 85F. The chocolate chips in my cookie will not melt.
Lady Hummingbird hovers in for a brief hello, ignoring the feeder. The blue sky is absolutely clear and a jumbo jet in the distance seems to be about the size of a toenail clipping, gliding almost imperceptibly.
The consuminoid experience of weather, so far, is about as relevant as Mark Twain's Huck Finn was to slavery. Most Americans are not conditioned to see it. But reality will soon be getting undeniably physical. We will end fossil fuel or it will end us.
Bottom line.
As a good writer, novelist, consuminoid whatever, I might be expected to glorify this backyard. Here amidst the humble composting of leaves, visitations of birds and squirrels, a retro image, perhaps sepia toned. As a matter of fact my camera anticipates that with a Creative option. And certainly I can shepherd the rhythm of words, pluck the harp strings of minds. It's all there in the heritage of our civilization, right on down to the options embedded in my camera.
But I decline. My harp a simply reminds of what has been said about nothingness.
