the secret

'you know secret to chinese cooking?' wu-seng's dark chocolate eyes bored into mine.

when loret was a grad student at ucdavis, her classmate and his wife had invited us to dinner. after hearing their daughter wendy give a stirring rendition of 'lightly row' on the violin, we sat sipping our drinks: water, lemonade, tsingtao beer. sun poured in the window of their tiny married student apartment. having tried to stir-fry for years - skinny idealistic vegetarian that i was - i'd usually muster something vaguely edible, occasionally even 'not bad.' without a doubt, his question intrigued me.

'no, i don't; i'd love to hear it.'

he got right to the point - 'bean sauce: that the secret!'

i nodded, smiling, then narrowed my eyes. bean sauce? sounded like some kind of delicate and savory condiment you could only find in chinatown: just go down the alley between waverly and stockton blvd., open the iron gate on your left, rap a secret code on the door. ask for taitai lin. cash only.

before i could ask, he pointed to a bottle on the table: 'kikkoman.' of course, soybean sauce. ba dump bump.

'thanks wu-seng, now i know the secret!' i reached for another beer.

later i heard the wok tool click-clacking; i went back to the kitchen, perhaps i could learn from his technique. as he scraped and stirred with his right hand, his left occasionally took a spoonful of granular white substance from a bowl on the counter, and tossed it in.

'so, are there really bicycle traffic jams in china?' davis claimed to be the bicycle capital of the u.s., but i imagined our transit system was even further from the chinese variety than my bland stir-fry was from the meal he was about to serve up. he stirred in another heaping white spoonful.

'every day, sunday too! bicycles -very slow - cars better. american system, much faster!' bright smile, one silver crown on each side of his mouth. i kept my dark cloud opinions from raining on his automobile exuberance. and i continued to wonder about the mysterious white substance. msg is white, i knew, but i thought it was much finer - a powder. i could no longer resist the temptation and took a pinch, sprinkled it on my tongue.

'sugar, you like? wendy very likes candy, much sugar!' he said.

'sweet jesus!' i felt like columbus sighting land, i'd just discovered the real secret: so hidden the chinese didn't even know it was secret.

the meal was fantastic, especially the deep-fried tofu (another good secret). i've learned from dining at chinese restaurants - certainly not by my own cooking efforts - the art is to find a balance of flavors salty, sweet, sour, and bitter. a balance, or middle way, emblematic of chinese philosophies through the ages, from confucianism to buddhism. a balance that, with the ascendance of maoist-industrial-capitalism, seems to have been lost.

hopefully it's not too late to get it back: maybe a bit more sugar would help? or maybe less?

jackpot

this probably happens all the time, but in my years of metro travel, it had never occurred quite like this: on tuesday morning, i fish out the rail ticket from my jacket pocket, hobble up to the turnstile and feed it in. at that very moment a person on my right walks up, and an even faster woman to my left does the same. all three of our cards pop up simultaneously, we take them out in unison, and enter the metro. no big deal, certainly, but it felt just a little bit remarkable, like a tiny slot machine with triple cherries. i start humming, and singing 'oh what a beautiful morning...' it actually doesn't take even half that to set such a song to my lips.

even half that. but of course, so many moments pass me by, i close off to their invitation. splendor, beauty, climax - these are the easy ones. not that we catch all of them - for long. but the little ones, they are the miracles we are likelier to miss: stirring some orange blossom honey into a steaming cup of green tea in the morning. where am i? more than likely going over my plans for the day, maybe listening to the radio, or regretting what i said to my teenager last night, or to a friend a decade ago, or any number of things that take me from right now. the everyday, the quotidian, how could we miss it? and why would we even want to be present for it? of course sometimes there is wisdom in making plans, or going over lessons learned from past mistakes. or getting lost in a good book. but the seemingly endless chatter can overcome our days, and block out the miracle of touching in. maybe to a loved one. 'i'm busy right now,' we might tell a child, and certainly there are times when this is undeniably so. however, i think i fall into that mode of shutting out the present, almost as a default. opening up to it, that is the path to freedom as i understand it. is it a path as thin as maugham's razor's edge? or is it, as the wise men say, our birthright, just what we are designed to be? our beginner's mind, our buddha nature? can we fall into that, right now, sitting at this keyboard, ignoring the growing need to take a potty break?

[back from the bathroom...]

back to tuesday: on my way home from lunch with my niece and sister, i ride the local circulator bus from the metro stop. i see miller walking down the street - a first - as he does each afternoon from the city bus stop at the same station. just as i step off my bus, i see eli go in the front of the apartment building in front of me, as miller approaches from my right. the three of us ride the elevator up together, another first on this day.

who wouldn't notice that?

warm fusion

had my monthly infusion this morning; only one needle prick, not much pain.  

sometimes, no usually, i find it helpful to breath into the pain, be fully present to it just as it is.  don't proliferate the stories of 'why me?', 'not this again,' etc.  a friend likened such an approach to what she had learned in lamaze class, and has found helpful through the years.  this morning however, i was busy telling the nurse about my chapulines (grasshoppers) from last weekend.  my girlfriend says, of our valentine's dinner, she had tapas, and i had 'hoppas.

toward the middle of my three and a half hour sit by the iv pole, my roommate arrives as i doze.  i 'roll' over, mindful of the iv line, to say hello, and try unsuccessfully to fall back to sleep.  attractive woman in her late fifties (our privacy in these and other matters is, at best, negotiable:  she is asked 'is this - something something 1951 - your birthday?', a question we all must answer to identify the small bladder of drug as correctly intended for us); she is slight, has sandy blond shoulder length hair, a dash of long white bang, maybe an inch wide, flowing over her left ear.  her eyes are strikingly blue - i imagine they are contact lenses.  (because i'm a guy, i have no idea what she was wearing.  the latent writer in me could make something up, something with symbolic significance, essential to this narrative.  however, i've no idea where this will lead, what might add to it, what might foreshadow a denouement.)

becky is about as 'ms-ed up' as me, twelve or so years since diagnosis.  we exchange preliminaries, and fall into something of an infusion rapport.  we each have an ongoing relationship with each of the nurses, exchanging family stories and updates each visit.  in the eighteen or so months i've been on this designer drug - tysabri, an incredibly expensive elixir, thankfully covered by insurance - i've never sat down with the same roommate twice.  there is generally a sympatico feeling, given the same leaking boat we are paddling, maybe we bale with a teaspoon from time to time, or a bucket when we can.  she had a copy of the book, the giver, and several copies of individual school pictures of her middle school aged daughter (she planned to label each of them for delivery to extended family.  this was my moment to note the lack of a person to do such a thing in my household.  the few pictures i get go in a box for each boy.)   she asks me 'can i share something with you?  it's kind of personal.'  i'm not sure what to think, but what have i got to lose?

(time out, the soundtrack i am sam is playing on the cd player, it moves me, sort of fusing with this fusion tale.  'once there was a way to get back home...

 sleep pretty darling, do not cry, and i will sing a lullaby...'  okay, time out's over, pardonne-moi.)

she reads to me from a hand-scrawled passage on the back of a missal or newsletter.  her daughter had written it during church sitting next to her dad.  presumably happily married, becky does not attend these services with her husband - it's a 'long story' i'm told (i think i have experience with such stories).  the passage cites how her mom views her ms as a gift, the opportunity it has afforded her to slow down and smell the roses.  it was a touching tribute to and approbation of her mom.  i don't think to myself, 'gosh, wish i had a daughter.'  (no, i have been there before:  i used to joke with loret that we'd had a daughter for nine months until miller was born.)  the passage at one point refers to the sort of society described in the giver: as i understand it a place that has no disease, war, famine, or death (only a euphemistic 'passing' or some such thing - i've never read it, only heard various reviews from my middle school progeny - most recently from miller, who was fascinated by the book, and was paired with malia at school for a debate over euthanasia, in the context of the book).  the passage suggests, as does the book, that in seeking a world free of the bad, the darkest of dystopias can result.  it is only through loss that we can feel the fullness of life, etc.  'the giver' in the book is a person who tells 'the listener,' i think, all about the past with its attendant vicissitudes and tragedies - likely of the twentieth century - such that they may be avoided in the future, but nobody else has to hear this bummer-drag history stuff.  i could hear myself in the passage, and thanked becky for sharing it.  

i think we all try to create our own utopias, pushing away the bad, holding onto the good.  it is as close to human nature as i can imagine.  this hurts, so i will take my foot out of the fire.  or, this doughnut tastes good, i will have another box of them.  but the reality is that loss and pain - so much of the bad stuff - are often unavoidable.  and even the good stuff, when we overindulge, or try to cling to it as it slips through our fingers, will lead to suffering. 

to be with what is, this moment - a needle stuck in the arm, an interesting infusion partner (or the one a couple months ago who vomited into the trash can on the floor between us, and was sent home) - right now, like it or not, is what your whole life has led to:  can we open the door, accept the invitation to be present?  is it sad?  cry your eyes out.  is it absurd?  laugh them dry.  is it both?  lose yourself in the mystery.  because here's the thing:  this is it, there is no tomorrow or yesterday, only right now.  

the ancient hindus called the original being before the universe atman - that which unfolded over the millennia to become, to evolve into - time, space, light, dark, dog, cat, you, me.  not unlike modern physicists' concept of 'singularity' before the big bang.  in german, atmen means 'to breathe.'  

as you read this last word - for it is growing late - take a deep breath:  and feel the presence of god.

life list

we were in delhi, visiting a college friend of loret's.  sitting in a restaurant, hungry, in my mid-twenties, the menu item 'brain fry' is just too tempting for me to pass up.  i figure what the heck, i'm kind of a vegetarian, but living in a poor nepali village i don't get much protein, let alone 'brain food.'  we are on holiday, the humid heat of the monsoon bears down.  two large kingfisher beer bottles are open on the table, a bollywood song plays over the sound system, tabla and sitar accompany a wailing tinny voice.

our food arrives, and my plate.  yes, it unmistakably is mine.  'brain fry sahib, you like?'  he gives me a thirty two tooth smile.  mid thirties maybe, the waiter wears a starched white shirt, his three day beard gives his chiseled brahmin face a bluish cast.  he looks like the shiva statue we passed in an altar just outside in the alley.  i was expecting some sort of chopped and stir-fried curry, maybe on a bed of rice, some chili pepper, onion, and tomato.  something indistinguishable.  what arrives at our table, on a bed of fresh green lettuce, is clearly the thinking organ of a goat, or like-sized animal:  two shiny gray hemispheres, as ropy and dendritic as you'd expect to see in a gray's anatomy textbook.  bon appétit!  not bad actually.

thus began my 'life list' of bizarre foods.  during the locust swarm a few years back, some butter and a frying pan yielded several tasty morsels.  this wasn't exactly my idea, there was an article about it in the washington post.  also made a couple chocolate covered cicadas.  miller even ate one of those.  i once ordered and dispatched a big pile of pig intestine at a chinese restaurant.  it kind of looked and had the texture that you might expect:  extra large al dente penne pasta, diagonally cut.  a bit more umami and chewy.  stinging nettle and ghanja we're occasionally the only thing green in my village in the dry season:  these were fried up with curry and went swimmingly with chapati, hot off the skillet.  actually, the life list had already started some years before:  in germany, the day i witnessed my girlfriend's father castrate several screaming piglets, i tried a slice of homemade blutwurst, or blood sausage.  however, the list had kind of stagnated until yesterday.

took my sweetheart out for a pre-valentine's mexican feast at d.c.'s own oyamel.  the tapas were excellent, but there was one that i had all to myself.  'no problem, go ahead peter, i'm full, couldn't fit another bite,' i am told.  entymologically speaking, of course.  she still seemed to have room for the scallops and fried cactus.  it seems i had unlimited access to the chapulines, one taco on a tray.  i knew what i had ordered - indeed when i heard about this dish on a recent radio show, it so wanted to find its place on my list, it was only a matter of time.  however, i wasn't expecting the sort of mass carnage piled on a bed of guacamole, cradled in the fresh corn tortilla, staring back at me.  in my mind, i had been expecting maybe two, three - at most four - little critters, deep fried and denatured, buried under lettuce, chipotle sauce, some shallots.  instead it looked like dozens of legs, thoraces, antennae, wings, what have you.  and heads.  perhaps even numbering in the hundreds - no doubt some hundreds of parts went into that pile.  and the texture, while flavorful, was not without a hint of its source:  grasshopper!

washed down quite well with a beer.  would i like to go back for another?  'fraid not, my list spurs me on to greener pastures.  pastures...hmm, ever try a cow pie?

show, don't tell

this we are told, not shown in creative writing class.  

the blizzard of the - name your time frame here - is bringing out the love in us.  even as we are cut in line at the grocery store, the aisles stocked with fewer and fewer provisions.  each shopper has a beating heart, pulsing with life, blazing fire in the eyes, shrouded in mist.  shopping to fill the larder before the next storm.

this morning i rode the metro downtown to dupont circle.  i boarded, and due to the reduced number of trains, they are already packed at our stop on the redline, friendship heights, the first stop in the district.  well, not quite packed, but standing room only.  i hobble in and grab the stainless steel pole about halfway down the aisle, lean my cane against my legs.  the woman at my hip offers me her seat.  somewhere between the ages of 30 and 50, dark brown hair - some very few filaments of white - gray scarf, thick blue jacket.  'no, thanks, thank you very much,' i say, holding tight with both hands, 'this is physical therapy in daily life.'  she looks up and smiles.  'just to try to keep from falling down on the train,' i add, as if an explanation were necessary.  a woman standing next to me says, 'soon you won't have to hold on.'  her implication being, the train will get packed so tight i might even let go, feel the press of bodies all around.  

reach dupont, escalate to ground level.  i am struck by how much snow there is in the streets still, and on the sidewalks.  i call my sister, we laugh about the lack of public works, right here in the nation's capitol.  however, we agree that the novelty is worth the hassle, it would be a waste to have all those extra trucks and piles of salty sand for these rare storms of the century.  we have a military to support after all.  we will meet for lunch later (tuesdays with mary).  

then i start the long hobble to the 'friends(quaker) meeting of washington.'  it's even a long haul on dry days.  i don't make it in time for the meditation in the heated building, but i do not miss the oh-so mindful walk through snow, ice, and slush.  each step taken so carefully, as if i were rock climbing:  place my cane, lift my left foot, feel ahead - is this ice slick or is it textured?  is this snow slanted or level, firm or soft? - place the foot, move the cane; repeat.  

i have been to several meditation retreats where the long 45 minute half-lotus mind-melds alternate with 'walking meditation' periods of equal length.  spread out like a big crossword puzzle, yogis pace their words back and forth:  a long word, equanimity, or a shorter one disquiet.   have i ever been as focused on retreat as this?  doubtful.  however, at one point i do go down, lost perhaps in thought.  (of my new sweetheart, maybe, or the song we are practicing together - falling slowly).  not slush, not ice, just too narrow a path, i kind of lean/fall down with my left hand, the soft snow jumping from my fingers as it goes toward the earth - or sidewalk, or shrubbery, or pile of dog-doo, i'll never learn, didn't reach it - my knees kind of found a place of balance before i completely collapsed.  two young men dashed over, 'are you okay sir?'  yes, they looked even younger than me, if you can believe it.  'i'm good, i'm great.'  wrapping my hands around the cane, planting my feet wide to raise myself.  what a beautiful day i think, i feel. 

this earth, warm beneath the shivering blanket of snow.  the people, warm beneath their shivering cold jackets and fingers.  just looking for the intersection of 'i and thou,' and finding it in the strangest of places.

the democrat

last evening i hit a low with miller.  after our spat about skittles, and the convenience store in our apartment lobby, he stormed off and called me a 'jackass.'  i won't go into the details of the escalation here - they'd possibly give you some reason to agree with miller's assessment - but i was mainly happy not to have been taken up by his irate indignation, and meet it head on.  this is perhaps due, in part, to the fact that he is my youngest:  that is, i have been in situations like this with his older brothers and can bring some bit of calm due to experience.  but i'd never been 'sworn' at by a son.  called stupid or retarded (a newly stained epithet, pc only when used in reference to tea party members or their leaders), but never crossing a certain line.  tv now doesn't consider jackass swearing, apparently, but i do, and i take a pretty firm stance against foul language in the house - or anywhere within my earshot.  i personally don't swear very often - maybe when a hammer meets my thumb, for instance - but i think it good that kids know how to communicate politely, if need be, in the presence of royalty (such as grandparents) without too much exertion.  i think my ability to keep some semblance of composure during the heated fracass also had something to do with the mindful meditation practice and inquiry i've been up to for almost a decade.

notice the breath, a feeling of contraction in the hands and chest, the narrowing of the eyes.  before speaking, be aware of your choice:  do you engage with a hostile energy head-on, or do you find the ever present beginner's mind within, and act from that place.  i won't say that my words or actions were without reproach or particularly wise.  but i feel they came from a place of compassion.

this morning over his bowl of raisin bran crunch, miller apologized.  i was planning to bring it up on the drive to school.  what his 'consequences' would be, that i loved him, that i too was sorry that things got away from us.  but i gave space, and he filled it with his own love.  the manchild.

i have long wrestled with my sons - i mean literal wrestling - it's what males can do to get close physically.  of course we hug occasionally, but, well, don't want to overdo that.  anyway, eli and spencer have long since been able to pin me, but miller hasn't.  they grow in size, strength, and coordination while i, alas, slide in the other direction.  actually i keep growing in size - fortunately slowly - but not in the dimensions that help to prevail on the mat.  the time it takes me to pin miller is gradually increasing, noticeably faster now that he's adolescent.  his voice changed over the summer, he grew a few inches, and smells like a man, etc.  there have been times that i've wrestled with the boys to circumvent a building animosity, a tactic that might have helped prevent the spat of last night.  but no matter, it's all good.  dad was firm - maybe a little idiosyncratically obsessive - son let slip a bad word, we have reached denouement.  and i expect, the dance will continue.

the blogosphere's fourth wall

WARNING, DO NOT READ WHILE OPERATING HEAVY MACHINERY; MAY CAUSE INTENSE DROWSINESS.  (NO JOKE, THIS IS NOT ONE OF MY 'EASY READING' SERIES, FEEL FREE TO SKIP.)

here is my question:  why do people sit here and type like this?  more to the point, why do i?  just what is the purpose of a blog, and does it serve to alleviate suffering - my own or others' - or rather to proliferate it?  this question is at the center of buddha dharma, and i believe is central to many, if not all, religious and spiritual traditions.  the buddhist wording has appeal for me because of its global yet empiric nature:  does this activity bring me suffering (clinging or aversion) right now?  in the buddhist view, pain (and hardship, loss, illness, aging, death, etc.) are all givens, but suffering arises with our aversion to it.  that is, the added stories we are so ready to supply:  'why me?'  'this always happens to me!'  'so and so is just plain evil...'  'life is so unfair...'  etc.  this is just to clarify that in buddhism, life's pain is given, but suffering is optional.  and my question remains, do blogs increase or minimize such suffering?

and why do i post to this blog?  now that i have a phenomenally fast growing number of followers, what do i seek to gain?  or offer?  is this just narcissism?

i heard a show on npr yesterday  - either on speaking of faith or bob edward's weekend - part of an interview with an author/researcher whose basic premise had to do with the inherent goodness in people, and that as babies we start off with an overarching capacity and need for empathy; and if that basic nature is mirrored and returned by the caregivers in a child's world, it will blossom and grow.  if not, well, you all know the state we are in.

like a baby, do we continue to seek empathy and return it where we can, even at the far ends of the world wide web?  i suspect that may be part of the desire to 'network socially' - blogs, facebooks, email.  i apprehend there may be less wholesome ends as well.  such as vanity (i'm so droll).  pride (aren't i the clever one?).  communal approbation (wasn't i justified?).  bravado.  there are probably many other suspects.  it seems to me that the former - that is, the desire to empathize - could lead beyond suffering, while the latter would surely go the other direction.

a recent issue of the new yorker had an article about the emergence of memoir as a genre, with st. augustine or somebody?  (that's just like the new yorker, or is it only me? - while reading it i feel so learned and erudite, then as soon as i hit the next week's talk of the town, it's pretty much gone to mush up in my brain.)  and the history of memoir ever since, becoming quite popular in recent decades, in spite of several infamous cases of outright falsehoods masquarading as true life story.  and even with ostensibly true autobiography, the tendency to mendacity or exxageration is rampant.  

according to the article, what we seek is a character arc with redemption.  whether factually true or not.  it may be the hardships of a native american woman whose parents were alcoholics, and who later became addicted to crack, got infected with aids, and eventually came to rise above, or somehow see the interconnectedness of all life, and was able to come through stronger, better, freer, whatever.  no matter that it turned out to have been written by a white english teacher at some northeastern college.  we seem to want to see others overcome, rise above, persevere in the face of adversity.

several weeks ago there was an article about what struck me as possibly the first blogger, after a fashion.  it was a frenchman in the 16th century i think, who would sit unfettered in his study and record his life as it happened, moment by moment.  i think his postings were published in a local or regional newspaper or journal.  apparently the man's name is a household word in france, though - big surprise - it escapes me now.  what is it that draws people to other people's life stories like moths to a flame?

and i admit that so far in the brief history of my blog, i've been drawn to share vignettes of that nature, that is, with a redemptive character arc, if only in a tiny way.  avoiding the less pleasant chapters of my life - ones without a clear arc to redemption - or at least relegating them to the privacy of a journal.  i think there is something universally appealing in such an approach to story telling.

and finally, this post, it reveals precious little about the author:  is its intention wholesome?  why pursue this line of inquiry?  self-justification?  in this case, i don't think that what i serve is the alleviation of mine or my 'followers' suffering.  perhaps quite the contrary.  if you've made it this far, you can at least feel some relief that the end is near.  which is just the sort of self-abnegation that i employed to lure some here from facebook.  

i think the jig is up, you knew it all along:  i'm just a primate, typing at the proverbial keyboard.  but oh, what a beautiful world it is!  bananas everywhere!