Her eyes opened, and opened all the way, and stayed open. I said, “this is your daughter, this is Kye” and she nodded once, decisively: “I know that,” said her nod. “Would you like me to tell you the news, or sit quietly with you?” No response. I considered. What was there to lose? I started talking.

Her eyes stayed on mine with total attention. When the news was the kind she likes (“I’m going to go up to see M. this week.”) her face would melt into a quiet little beam. When it was said news (“there’s been a terrible oil spill in the Gulf,” and “the economy is not good”) her forehead creased in distress. She was awake; she knew me; she was there.

Forty-five minutes later? an hour? I asked, “have I worn out your brain?” A rusty little “No” came in response–the first speech I’ve heard in a couple of months. So I told her about what I’m writing (the Tao Te Ching commentary), and her mouth made an ‘oh!’ shape, and she she smiled.

There’s no telling what I’ll find next time I go, but what a miracle and a gift that time was!

I found mangoes on a street corner a little while ago, on my way back from seeing my mother–a whole box of them, sold to me off the back of a pickup truck up from the Rio Grande Valley.

They were sold to me by what looked to be a couple of brothers. They were in their early twenties. One of them was holding an enormous exuberant sign that said ‘MANGOES’. I saw the sign, thought about stopping but the corner was busy. But I found a quieter place to park and walked back along a patch of sidewalk walled with enormous weeds, then through the archway of an abandoned pear tree covered with half-ripe pears.

The box was mine for $5. As I left, one of the brothers smiled and said ‘God bless.’

At the next corner were a man and woman sitting at a bus stop. The man was holding up a tiny sign that said ‘hungry’. I had a box full of mangoes! Unexpected ones! I was going to give them to my son and his girlfriend, but that little tiny sign and that young patient couple sitting there–of course I had to stop again.

I asked “do you like mangoes?” They nodded. I said I’d just found them at the last corner. I told them to take as many as they wanted. They each took two, which still left lots. And I had the pleasure of seeing them grinning at each other, as I left.

Later, I wondered whether either of them had a pocket knife–or did they use their teeth to open up the fruit? Maybe I should start carrying a pocket knife again!

I want to tell you about how I relax and also get things done.

Last week I found myself saying, ‘I wish I could get away for a couple of weeks!’ A couple of weeks off when I’m ready, might be ideal –but sometimes, for a million good reasons, now really isn’t the time. And yet, those million good reasons have started to feel heavy… life has become stressful… I really need the break.

Instinctively, I begin to reach for what it is I need. I sink into the feeling of the need to relax. I focus on the exact feeling of what it’s like to get away from it all: that tranquil, spacious, no-pressure, spontaneous, at-ease feeling.

And then, all of a sudden, I find myself remembering that I can have this right now! It happens as I say to myself’ yes, that’s what I need–but…’ and the next moment the ‘yes… but’ flips, and becomes ‘but… yes!': and I’m back on permanent vacation.

And there are just two things I need to do, to stay on vacation and also do my day:

First, I thin out what I put on my plan for the day–mostly just my appointments stay (and I’m always careful not to overbook those).
I’ll also keep one or two other things that have to do with something I care about. What I’m doing is making lots of room for responding spontaneously, in the moment.

Second, about the things that could turn into a ‘gotta’ on my list, I ask myself–‘what’s a relaxing way to handle this?’

Answering that question this morning, I found myself walking to the bank with my deposits.

On the way there I enjoyed the sunshine and fresh air after last night’s rain; as I made the deposit I chatted with the teller who also likes to walk in the morning; and on the way back, I sank deep into feeling my body in motion.

And right now, I’m feeling how much I like the people whose checks I deposited. There’s a glow around the whole experience–
instead of a job, it’s turned into a nourishing, relaxing, high point of the day.

At this very moment I’m full of arugula, and tomato basil soup, and the awesome feeling of being an aliveness sitting here breathing.

My death is present here too.  It invites me to give what I can give at the moment.  Tonight what I could give was a note to the chef who made that beautiful soup and salad.  (The waiter came back later and said that things like that meant a lot, and the note was now posted on the back wall.)

Earlier today in Parabola I read this:

There is a story about a teacher who asked his students, “If I have five hundred dollars, and in the course of my life I give away four hundred dollars, how much do I have at the end of my life?”

The students eagerly answered, “One hundred dollars.”

“That’s what you might think,” the teacher said.  “But the deeper truth is that if I have five hundred dollars here on Earth, and I give away four hundred dollars, then at my death what I will have is four hundred dollars.  Because in the end, all you have is what you have given.” *

Because of those words, it came to me as I was eating that if I let the chef know how much his cooking mattered to me tonight, he would have, what he had given.  So I wrote the note with care, on thick paper I happened to have with me, to try to give him back the sense of specialness.

I don’t know what to call what I have right now, because of having written a note which shared exactly what that meal’s wonderfulness had meant to me. Whatever it is I’ve got, it’s worth a great deal more than four hundred dollars.

And the more I try to give it away, the more it grows.  It seems this kind of interest is compounded every moment!

* excerpted from John Robbins’ forthcoming book, The New Good Life

I just finished writing a thank you note to my mechanic.  The other night he spirited my cell phone out of a mysterious black hole under the driver’s seat.

Why a thank you note for such a small thing?  …because he didn’t know the size of what he’d just done.  I wanted him to be able to share the depth of meaning hidden in that one-minute job.

My mother and sister are both seriously ill.  They are in two different hospitals in two different cities.  It’s possible my mother won’t survive this time.  Because he got my cell phone back into my hands, my mother and sister were able to connect with each other last night.

Having thanked him, now I want to thank you, dear reader.  Because just as he had no idea of the significance of what he did, there are also undoubtedly times you’ve done things like that and never knew what you did.

So thank you for being you, and doing what you do.

Life is so much more than we know…

It’s midday, and my hunger feels luxurious: luxurious in its intensity and its incipient knowing.

So I’m sitting down with it.  I’m like a lover, asking my loved other, ‘where do you want to go?’ —and then waiting with no hurry.

Like a little child, my hunger is just pure raw desire.  It’s too hungry to tell me what it’s hungry for.

‘Eggs?’ I ask.  — ‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Some of the leftover split pea soup?’ — ‘No!!’

‘…A glass of orange juice?’ ‘Yes! Exactly!  But more than just that…’

We wait.

Oh!  That basil from the farmer’s market yesterday morning.  With tomatoes, and onions, and butter, and cream… a soup.  Some of the sourdough alongside.  A salad with the last of the frisee and some pears, walnuts, and blue cheese.

Perfect.

My new possible guest is nervous. He’s asked for pictures of the apartment inside and out, and my address so he can Google it and tour the neighborhood —and late last night he emailed that today he would like to have a conversation.

His angst brings back memories of a few travel adventures of my own:

…the Alice-in-Wonderland charm of the tea-shop waitress’s incredibly narrow one-room-with-loft on West 72nd  –and the nearly tomb-like quiet, which it took time to love,

…the ship’s-berth efficiency of a hotel room in Tokyo, where figuring out how to turn on the water and flush the toilet was an adventure in itself,

…and the pillars right in the middle of a workshop room with 45 or 50 people arriving next morning–who would think to ask ahead of time if there were pillars?

Not least, I remember the deserted halls after the end of a retreat, when everyone else including the staff had left and I became a ghost in the monastery.

Oh that’s right! I wasn’t the only ghost that night—there was a hungry soul who hadn’t realized there wouldn’t be anyplace to get food. I shared one of my power bars.

A few minutes ago I was sitting on my friend’s porch, feeling my skin open to the blessing of the first rain in months and months.  It felt as if joy itself was pouring down from the sky.

I feel forgiven of something dry and dusty.