Sunday morning, I followed my scheduled routine, preparing for my ride with the Sons of Kauai. For as long as I can remember, this was the morning that always broke my routine of the past decades. I believe they would be referred to as ablutions, a word that always makes me laugh, just like flan, which I ate once, but it just sounds so ridiculous for a dessert name.
With the exception of the day that God rested, I fall out of bed in the morning darkness to do my twenty-five minute Zen sit. After a prolonged stay on the computer, which begins with a prayer that the idiot has done nothing more stupid than usual, always accompanied by a cup of black coffee. Then, I do my fixed, half-hour yoga practice, my tunes in the background. I then reluctantly get into my running costume and pound the pavement for just shy of a half hour. In deference to my profound religiousity, coffee is all that survives as I rest on this day.
I have always gone without any kind of breakfast on the Seventh Day, which I really can’t explain. After firing up Flaming Lips and synching my bike speakers with a phenomenal collection of diverse music, invisibly stored by Pandora, I end up at the 7/11 in Lihue. After a series of aloha infused embraces with my old friends, on this Sunday, I decided to go in the store to buy something very sweet and frivolously unhealthy.
With a painfully sweet, strawbery flavored turnover in hand, I stepped outside, to return to the group. At that moment, I had a feeling of complete comfort, being exactly who I wanted to be, as close to me as I could ever get. When you are home, whether under your feet or between your ears, you disappear and seemlessly blend into a world just outside of your metaphorical skin.
One of the wonderfully tricky ideas in Zen deals with Big Mind and Small Mind. While they both belong to all of us, we have a propensity to get stuck in the “Me” of the smaller version. This revelation in the holiness of the parking lot, set me on a wonderful journey I kept visiting throughout the day.
Right then, I started thinking about my incredible journey and those times when Big Mind completely embraced my sensibilities. You don’t get lost, but you embrace a spiritual camouflage, blending into whatever place you happen to find yourself. This morning, I was doing exactly what I wanted to do and it seemed to flow all around me.
It is amazing how much distance mind can cover before the second hand even quivers on the clock face. Holy shit! I am on a small island in the middle of an infinite sea, cataloging my entire history. I am walking around like I’m completely at home. I know damn well one of the reasons I fell deeply in love with Kauai was because of her elusive beauty, visible to Big Mind. She is more than what you see.
I started thinking about those times when I was blanketed by a feeling of being home. My romance with Kauai began on my virgin visit, when I viewed her from the window of the plane, as it apprached her open arms. It was the first feeling of knowing I would be home here and what a blessing it was.
My initial visit to Santa Fe, NM in ’86 was equally as stunning. I came from NYC on a mission of the heart and remember to this day, getting out of the car, parked on the art street in the town, called Canyon Road. The warm, flesh colored, adobe architecture felt like a cocoon of comfort to me. I remember my very first step from the car and I had a Fred Astaire moment. I was suddenly invisible, instantly consumed by walking into my home and all my moves felt perfectly orchestrated, without one misstep. The never before scent of pinon lighting up the ever present fire places was a cologne for Big Mind.
While living in and around NYC for around forty years, before the southwest, it would be hard to say I ever felt terribly at home. Now, it would be easy to blame the City, but that’s not fair. I am not sure when these kind of thoughts arise, but I believe it takes quite a bit of life to give a shit.
When my sons were still little boys, we had a farmhouse in Honesdale, PA for a couple of years. The Kennedy’s had a modest size dairy operation and I rented a house on their land. During those summers, every Friday afternoon, I’d get in my yellow, aging AMC Gremlin, praying it would make the round trip, leaving the City for a different world, one that felt like home to me. it was a very comfortable familiarIty. I remember getting up before the light to go sit in the fields, the beginning of my ragged, meditation practice.
It is amazing the power of a strawberry turnover.