Beginner's mind

I'm up early in St. Paul on the day we all leave the house, sister and family bound for the Black Hills as we head south to my mom. Everything is still quiet. I'm watching the British Open with the sound off. Golf isn't my favorite thing, but St. Andrew's is such a sight, a stark and unforgiving beauty. The whole world lines up to take the test, and everyone tastes frustration and triumph on that earth.

I'm nursing an aching shoulder this morning, the result of overexertion last night...at Wii Tennis. What was I saying? - frustration and triumph. Nephew and I played one set too many last night, and I was rarely able to answer his blistering serve. In all such games, I (along with most of my generation, I imagine) am used to being bested by tweens, confronted with a whole set of skills I can't seem to learn. The turbocharged hand-eye coordination is the least of it. How small children come to understand the rules of Super Mario is beyond me (paragate, parasamgate).

He was working out his own frustration during the game, having been reassigned Bach and Chopin preludes for another week at his piano lesson. It's the hard transition from little-kid piano books to real repertoire, and his teacher is upping the ante as well. He is trying to understand the new things being asked of him, and feels the loss of a habit of easy achievement.

I watch master after master humbled by the wind and rough. St. Andrew's, Bach, Wii Sports, name your Everest: we gain expertise only to be turned back into beginners, again and again.

dkz

Nick's tips for enjoying the Tigers game

8:00 AM is not too early to begin dressing for the game. Nothing says "Tiger fan" like wearing your cap while eating your cereal.

If your aunt says she is a Twins fan, do not take her seriously. She has not so much as a towel with a "T" on it. However, when you sit behind an entire row of people from Minnesota, you are allowed to die a little inside. Boredom is the best choice when choosing your outer attitude. Close second: get very involved with eating your ice.

 Your team is winning, and the game is a little boring, so point out your dad's office building to the visitors. Don't act too interested when they ask questions about what you want to do in high school next year. Enthusiasm is for the lame. Save it up for when you kick their butts at both hearts and Rock Band later in the evening.

You can allow yourself a smile or two during the day, as long as you're not like totally obvious about it.

dkz

Maggie Rose's Guide to Beginning Photography

You have to ask first. You say, "Oh please may I use the camera please? Thank you!" Don't say it loud because you should ask like a lady. I promise to be very very careful. If you drop the camera it's bad because it can break and then all the pictures will fall out.

I'm gonna take picture!

(careful aiming, pressing of button)

Gooooood picture!

.

Tell everybody, "Say tscheeeee I'm gonna take a picture!" If they don't listen you can say it again real loud.

                                                  Charlie is too little to take pictures.

The lake is really really good! I drived the boat all! Bahmah! Seff! (spreads hands wide)

Can you take my picture?

dkz

things in my in-law's basement

fabulous typewriter
anonymous computer cables
tablecloths
original packaging for many of the plastics we used over the weekend
more tablecloths
spiders
very old washer and dryer
mold
dressers with drawers that get forced open with random tools
pictures
sheet music from 1914
impatience
patience
perspiration
light of my life

dkz

train of thought

The trail goes for twenty or thirty miles along the old rail line, and it's hard to imagine that train cars ever fit through the canopy of elm and maple that shades the path now. These days I like to run a mile, walk a mile, do that all again, and then walk two miles back to the house. That's just the latest pattern, and I had a chance to remember others on this quieter than usual Sunday. The story of my life that this trail knows is wildly inconsistant, a patchwork of ambitious half-marathon training, daily post-surgery recovery walks, the distressingly difficult jogs of early sobriety, and long strolls with or without company, a continuous alteration of care and neglect.

Today's route is easy, feels good. Everyone at home is still asleep, worn out from the people, food, noise, lights, conversation, and poker of the night before. There's another yearly story in the 4th of July gatherings, a shifting kaleidoscope of family alliances and altercations, and this year's version is also easy, feels good.

Step after step after step. Can it remain? Can I keep on, slow and steady but for the occasional muscular twinge, the inevitable mental chatter, the changing of the weather?

dkz

time slice #1

My first glimpse of him: Christmastime almost thirty years ago, an old lakeside house. He's just back from U of M, wears his radicalism lightly, is shorter than his brother but just as strong. They adore each other in the standoffish way of some men, and their loyalty to each other is palpable even to a stranger like me.

My first glimpse of her: coming out of the old blue house as we wait in the car that hasn't warmed up yet. Her breath crystallizes as she slides into the cracked back seat beside me. "Hey there, mystery lady!" She's a sprite who already belongs to the strange clan.

My first glimpse of her: a hotel room in Tempe. Her exhausted young parents have strained all resources to make the journey to see us. She is tiny, red-haired, alert, big-eyed. She looks up from the blanket at us and wails.

My first glimpse of him: a Polaroid picture, already three weeks old when we take it from the expensive package with all the stamps. Half a world away in a dank German apartment, we see his little face in the white blanket, sleeping in his mother's arms in the same room where I first saw his father.

In between: years of summer visits in Michigan and in Germany, winter visits in New York and Texas. Brother and nephew helped gather stones for the hearth. Niece came to a concert at Carnegie. Sister-in-law shared shopping trips, lattes, long conversations. Boys played games and made up rules for them, girls plotted the future and sat up late. We joined hands in a few large moments of crisis or celebration. We didn't tell each other most things that happened.

Today it's raining in Chicago and almost all of us are watching the World Cup in the new house with the bedrooms for the kids who don't live here. Tomorrow we'll travel through Ann Arbor and lay our eyes on our studying niece. And then we'll move on to the next family visit.

Three decades of love, adventure, and play with this family, who have invited us along and included us so generously. Sunday morning, rain falling, coffee brewing. Then and now, and with luck again, and again.

dkz

this couldn't wait

Everything is Waiting for You

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

(by David Whyte - thanks to JW for this gift.)
dkz