Kay’s Light

Hey Siri. Search for Dunkin nearby… One block past South Broad Street on Locust. Opening at 5:30 in 3 minutes, 6 minute minute walk. One cigarette. Chilly, but I have gloves.

First guy passed, arguing with himself, loudly, his face twisted up in some kind of deep pain.

Wherever steam rose through the sidewalk, a heap of human being lay to stay warm.

A few medical students rode by on bicycles in their scrubs. An apparent local rode by on his antique bike, holding a Giant grocery bag in one hand.

In the brighter lights of an intersection by some historical building, I checked my wallet to see if I had any cash in case I was asked. I liked the faux gas lamp’s faux warmth outside a church dwarfed by buildings on three sides…

“Your gigantic-est coffee please.” “What size?” Sheesh… “What’s the most gigantic size you have?” squinting at the menu, just now locating the undersized S, M, and L. But it wasn’t L.

She answered pleasantly, “Extra large… Cream and sugar?” Yes please. As I waited, the guy behind me in a long, dark raincoat and blinding white sneakers didn’t seem to want to talk, so I checked out all the Christmas decorations and hummed with the carol.

Three blocks, halfway back, she was strolling toward me, carrying a flatscreen TV in a clear plastic bag, talking out loud to no one. Crossing the alley toward me, “Can you spare a smoke, sweetie?”

“Sure… Need a light?”

“I got one. Thanks. Most people just walk by…”

“What’s your name?”

She was already three strides away, looked halfway back over her shoulder, “Kay.”

Kay lit up my dark morning. She doesn’t need a light. She’s got one. Me too. You too.

.

Neil D. 2022-12-02.
From the City of Brotherly Love

Depressed on Thanksgiving

If today you feel sad, anxious, or depressed, I do not urge you to look on the bright side of things to be thankful for, if that is no impulse you have. If you feel abandoned or rejected by the world, I do not further reject your sadness by veiled encouragement, aimed at soothing mostly me, not you.

Perhaps your depression is no signal of your brokenness. On the contrary, perhaps it is a signal that you are a functioning whole human being, in a plight that rightly calls for you to respond with despair and the deep-rest of depression. At a horrible time, you are not pretending to be otherwise. That’s to be commended as whole and functional, not to be condemned as broken.

I am not glad that you are depressed, but I am glad that you are here, witnessing that you are still whole in brokenness. That you are still you. That any notion about the depth of despair or the loftiness of joy are only notions, not a human being who can experience those and all in between, because in the wholeness of this moment, you transcend them while *being* in them.

If I could see you with *my* eyes, that is what I would see. A full human being, being however they are in this moment, and being full, whole, enough, and with me. Any way that you are in any moment is an ok gift to me. Sadness is ok, as ‘right’ as any other experience of you, and not broken at all.

Neil D. 2022-11-24

Thanksgiving and introverted pillowcases

At my age, with the blessings showered on me, it is gladly effortless to list things I am thankful for. I honestly find it more challenging to list things that I am NOT thankful for. But the top of that list is easy.

Before I launder my bedding, I do NOT stuff a pillowcase into the tight corner of a fitted sheet. But, in every load, there seems to be a shy son of a bitch who finds its way there. As if it likes to be the only damp item emerging from the basket. No way it can dry, all rolled snugly in the corner. You know who you are, you bastards!

Neil D. 2022-11-23

PS. I put the son of a bitch on a hanger and let it dry in the cold air we all have to breathe.

It might be shy, but the bastard is conceited – as if I don’t have extra pillowcases.

Voters are part of the problem

We have latched on to the simple phrase “the government” as a scapegoat, as if we cannot affect it. As if it is not us! As if “the government” has a life of its own and is not constituted by the lives of each citizen.

It is the egocentricity of each of us which makes us feel powerless. Since we cannot change the world ourselves, as an individual, fuck it. I can’t affect “them.”

Holy inflated ego, Batman.

“Look Neil, I tell everybody to vote, and I vote myself, and I stay informed, etc.”

I, I, I…

When was the last time you asked someone why they don’t vote, and listened without interrupting to tell them they’re wrong because they aren’t you? They aren’t your ego.

YOU are part of the problem. Why would someone else expect “the government” to listen when the person standing in front of them will not?

You want action right now, because YOU know all the answers. The answers are simple. Because your ego is simple.

You are not powerless, and either is any other individual you might talk to. But you do not have the power to overturn current institutions in an instant. So your ego gives up. You are part of the problem.

Truthfully, everyone is part of the problem, aren’t they.

That’s not something hard for your ego to swallow. It’s just that your ego-mind doesn’t include you among everyone. This is true of the individual you are talking to also! Are you including them in your world? It is prior “government” that hasn’t included them, and that’s why they don’t believe in institutions, in you, or in themselves.

If you’d like to fix the world, stop aiming to fix the world.

Right-size your ego, for crying out loud. And recognize that your ego is not a small thing, but is more powerful than you ever realized. Think honestly about how conflict evolves. It doesn’t come out of nowhere. It comes out of each way individuals think, act, and speak every moment.

So, if you want to unfriend your adversary today instead of hear them compassionately, future generations can thank your ego for its contribution to their wars. Nice legacy.

You are no insignificant agent at all. There’s nothing you do that doesn’t matter eventually, in enormous ways.

“Election Day” is a day. That’s enough to satisfy your ignorant ego? “No, Neil. I am an activist all the time.” Your thoughts, words, and deeds affect other human beings every moment.

You may not affect a policy today, but you will absolutely affect other human beings a dozen times today.

Your power is – in very real reality – unfathomable.

Neil D. 2022-11-09

Vanilla Paige

From the moment I recall noticing her after the 8 of us entered the air-conditioned Moroccan Treats in Busch Gardens, her aged eyes twinkled above a dormant smile. She wrestled the hard ice cream with her wetted scooper, as if she’d rather be doing absolutely nothing else.

Paige was probably Rob’s age (68; https://feelwithneil.com/2022/09/16/uber-hippie-rob/) or older. When my turn came, I greeted her with a goofy face, then it did: That smile finally burst into its fullness. “And you, young darlin’? Plain or fancy waffle cone?”

Plain.

“I’m a plain fella:)”

“Oh, I doubt *that* very much {wink}…”

On my plain cone, I requested a scoop of “plain chocolate” and a scoop of “plain vanilla.”

Paige’s smile got even bigger:

“Vanilla bean, or French vanilla?”

Friends with me giggled at the show unfolding.

“Well now, Paige, YOU seem to be the expert in this popsicle stand, so I’ll take your recommendation:)”

She dug into the French without a word. And, my, she *was* the expert artisan, pressing the chocolate ball to a depth just shy of cracking that plain waffle wall. Ok, that’s experienced – but the expertise shone next.

She dipped that scooper into the water an extra long while, looked me in the eye, and winked again – irresistibly, so I peeked over the sneezeguard glass.

Paige withdrew the warmed scooper, flipped it with a stage-master’s flourish, and into the tightly tucked chocolate scoop, Paige seared a dent deeply enough to ensure there was no way that French vanilla ball was gonna roll off its plain chocolate tailored seat.

My personal ballerina has done the next move many times I’m sure – with effortless grace. Some silvery locks escaped from a hairnet, she drops the scooper into the water with a dainty two-finger release, from a height for the perfect, splashless “glubb” – despite the swollen, gnarled knuckles. Paige had to free her scooping hand, because, with my treat in one hand, she needs that second one to grip the top of the seenzeguard while she stands on her tiptoes to hand me my sacrament over the just-too-high glass, assuring me:

“You’re gonna LOVE this, darlin’!”

.

I have zero recollection how it tasted. But zero doubt I loved it. Zero doubt I love Paige, because Paige first loved me. Seems how God tricks us into loving, doesn’t it?

Eating ice cream *is* divine [https://feelwithneil.com/2020/04/29/eating-ice-cream-is-a-divine-experience-soul-and-ego-love-and-like/]…

Like Paige. Like you.

.

Neil D. 2022-09-16

Uber Hippie Rob

(not his actual name)

He ignored all the directional cues popping up on his phone screen. He could drive the 45 minute route to the airport, eyes closed. Came here to be back by his mom after his life in California began to crumble. She came here from New Jersey when his dad died, to be near her grandparents. When Rob was about 12, he caught an eel at the mouth of a New Jersey coastal inlet, and cooked it on the fancy new gas grill in the backyard. Pretty unpopular with the family 🙂

Snook season started with September, but he doesn’t have friends with a motorized boat anymore. He just puts his pole in his “pedal boat” and stays around his house on the water to fish. August and September are pretty slow here for Uber service, so he hasn’t made enough money yet to take a day off and fish. “That there Uber app” tells him how much he has made in the month so far. Maybe later this month, he’ll take a day and drive to one of the fisheries he knows will be rich with snook. “They are the prize fish around here.” They used to be called soak fish. They got a layer of bitter oil between their skin and flesh, but somebody figured out that if you fillet them a certain way, they are delicious, though some people find the dense texture objectionable, like snake.

Where am I heading? Back home to Pittsburgh. Rob used to work at a burger joint on the hillside in Coraopolis. It was a clown face and something else he can’t remember, on the sign. Wasn’t even an airport then. Stayed with parents of a friend he met in California. He had another friend whose family lived along the Lake Erie coast in Welch’s orchard/vineyard territory. Rob was a scrawny long-haired hippie, and the old man three times his age was wearing boots that he also wore for his other job on a pig farm. They were cutting open big sacks of frozen cranberry, shoveling them onto a belt, which carried the berries up into a steamy pool that looked like a water treatment plant. The old man without a full set of teeth just busted the bag open and the frozen berries tumbled around his boots… Kind of ruined Thanksgiving for Rob after that. No more cranberry products seemed palatable. He remembers when he over-ate once, made him feel uncomfortable, so he just hasn’t done that since, even minus cranberries.

Rob’s dad was a correctional officer. Those “types” didn’t have a lot of friends, but the ones they had were pretty close. Billy Jackson (not his real name) was the only one who would ever talk to the kids when he visited. Billy helped Rob’s brother sell his dad’s guns for a fair price so his mom could get a little money out of them when dad passed. Parts of the guns were gold. Rob just found that out when his brother visited recently. They talked a lot because his brother didn’t have much to do while his wife was scoping out a job. They can’t move here though; benefits not good enough for some medical needs.

The left two of four lanes on the bridge used to spook Rob when he drove across it. Back when he drove taxi, those two lanes ran in the opposite direction, but they widened the bridge. Before, signs used to say flat tires couldn’t stop on the bridge. You had to drive all the way to the end. Nowadays, Rob drives in those left two lanes because they’re smoother. He doesn’t remember when he heard the explanation, but the story is, trucks used to take the bridge in this direction, but not in the opposite direction, so those left two lanes are smoother.

As we waited to turn onto the bridge, a dog had his head out of the window in front of us. “He’s a beagle…” He was barking at the air. Rob put his window down and hollered “Scream it to the mountains, brother.”

.

The 45 minutes went quickly.

I like Rob a lot.

I doubt I’ll ever try snook – but who knows? I hope he gets to fish this month. He’s 68, and I hope he’s around as long as the 81-year-old woman who shoveled her 80 foot long sidewalk during the winters on that cranberry shore of Lake Erie. Rob makes the world a better place. The world of rushing and stress, illness and benefits, sadness and death, fishing and eel-grilling, In fact, a magnificent place.

.

Vanilla Paige scoops ice cream at Busch Gardens… https://feelwithneil.com/2022/09/16/vanilla-paige/

Neil D. 2022-09-16