Summertime and the Blogging Ain't Easy....

It must be summer because I have nothing to rant about. Even when there is so much to rant about - local traffic woes with a vital section of our local Interstate limited to a couple of lanes, the mortgage industry going to pot, and the frustrating reality that the sun has been playing hide and seek with us Pacific Northwesters all summer. It knows some dang good spots behind some major, honking cumulus clouds, too, it would seem.

But today, the sun sloths on its sky blue blanket, begging to be worshipped. The kids are happy, except when they're not, which is when they're yelling and screaming and arguing over who hates who more. And the bastard beagles behind us, who snort grass like it's in pretty green lines going out of style, are barking. Again. Still. Always. Forever.

So it's little surprise than it all this cacophony and disquiet of the season, I have nothing of consequence to blog about.

Like as though I ever did, so I don't know what the big deal is. Like I need some monumental bee to get stuck in my bonnet to step up on my soapbox and shout out to the world. So in the spirit of paradox, today I'm stepping up to the mic to yell hello to the universe and see if it murmurs back at me.

Nothing monumental. Not bent out of shape about the political, economic, religious or social state of internal or external affairs near or far. God knows, I could be....the world is going to hell in a handbasket - metaphor speak for earthly raison d'etre, I suppose - it just seems be permastuck on the downwards track of the roller coaster more so of late, is all.

Which is where I was yesterday, finally enjoying myself on the local roller coasters without the usual fear and looming death imaginings that accompany such joy rides for me post-motherhood. I took a friend's five year old daughter on her first big roller coaster rides - corkscrew turns, upside loops, the whole enchilada. And she was afraid, very afraid. I'm not very good at alleviating such rational fears so I did the only thing I knew to comfort her. I lied and told her the rides weren't really very scary at all. Which wasn't really a lie if you consider one's mindset post ride. Fears aren't scary anymore once you've confronted them. So of course, after the fact, she wanted to ride both roller coasters again. And again. I created a monster yesterday. But she's a cutie patootie with beautiful green eyes and long curlie eyelashes and a brave one at that.

So it was no biggie after all. Big schmig. Today I'm in a schmidt happens kinda mood. As in don't sweat the small, big or medium schtuff. I have no desire to do, strive, achieve but rather just to be today, with no conjunction junction station whistle stop or ultimate place towards which to follow the verbal auxiliary and irregularity of that which is the most slippery and passive of verbs.

"Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes and the grass grows by itself."
Zen Saying

Speaking of Zen wisdom, I just finished a book called The Zen Commandments. I highly recommend it. It's not Zen (the author is actually a Dzogchen student) and it's not even decidedly eastern in thought (Sluyter includes numerous quotes from Western traditions) but it does offer a universal fountain of wisdom in the simplest of language all reduced into one surprisingly slim volume. And he serves it with a golden tea cup, should you choose to drink from the fountain yourself, offers a twist of orange for those who like things sweet, and doctors it with more than a few drops of humor. Because while life itself is a serious game, playing at it needs not be.

To sum up that sentence, and his whole book and philosophy, for that matter, simply delete all words except the last one. The rest is clutter, fluff, schtuff, and schmidt to ponder and confound.

Which is perhaps why Shakespeare penned his most famous of rhetorical musings. It is, after all, the quintessential question and the answer is deceptively simple.

That said, at that very same place today you will find me. In the spirit of why do today what one can foreseeably put off until tomorrow, I'm guessing tomorrow or the day after that, etc., etc., is soon enough to get bent out of shape about the world and its ways.

Námas te.