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?