Discarded Flower Zen

I found a flower today,

Laying upon a grass verge

That borders a busy highway.

It didn’t belong 

On the grass verge,

That was obvious. 

The flower was a type of orchid

Found on large, tropical trees

In southeast Asia.

Or more likely, in Florida where I live,

Found in floral bouquets

For sale in drugstores, near the checkout counter.

Automobiles on the busy highway 

Screamed by just a few feet away,

Unnerving me slightly.

I looked at the flower

And wondered,

“How did you get here?”

After all, everything has a story.

Even a discarded flower.

Then I looked up 

And noticed other flowers

Of the same type 

Scattered along the road’s edge,

And I assumed 

The flower I looked at

Was indeed once part 

Of a drugstore bouquet.

Thrown from a speeding car, I wondered?

Tossed out in anger to wilt at road’s edge,

While in the car a fighting couple 

Travelled on for miles and miles?

They fought all the way home, I imagined,

Him driving grimly and her crying, 

Both saying things they later regretted.

Yes, like all lovers do.

Even you and your lover, I’ll bet.

I know it’s true about me, and mine.

I gazed at the discarded flower by the side of the road, 

And a little sadness touched my heart.

Luckily, the terrifying scream 

Of hurtling automobiles

Just a few feet away 

Soon distracted me from this kind of thinking!

Get away, Sadness! 

I said to the feeling within myself,

And watch out for that speeding truck!

Happiness, 

However it came to exist,

Deserves my attention, too.

Let me enjoy 

This moment of beauty

While it lasts, 

Without fear or distraction.

As I should also 

Attempt to enjoy my life.

Then I looked 

With new, loving eyes of zen

At the beautiful, discarded flower,

And the noise and sadness

Of this world…

Melted into nothingness.

The Friendly Lizard

Every morning lately,

When I’ve gone outside to stretch and have a look around,

On the inside of the mosquito screen 

That encloses our patio I find perched,

Silently soaking-in the day’s first sunshine,

A beautiful green lizard. 

I wondered what 

Kind of lizard it was.

So I used my smartphone 

To search the internet.

I learned that this type of lizard is called

A Green Anole.

(An anole is a chameleon.

I learned that too.)

It is Florida’s most common anole,

Said the Audubon guide.

“Anolis carolinensis,” it read.

“Slender, long snout.

Changes color in response to light, temperature, emotions.

Male has pink throat fan.

Toes padded.

Tail long, thin.

Habitat; Trees, shrubs, vines, fences, walls.

Activity; By day.”

Yes, they are common enough in Florida.

One sees them everywhere,

If one knows how to look.

But this one doesn’t seem so common.

I call him The Friendly Lizard.

You see, most lizards run away

When you try to get too close.

Even if your intentions are harmless.

(Just like humans run away 

From good intentions sometimes.)

But this little guy,

Being only ten or twelve inches long

Including his delicate tail,

Sits there unafraid!

Not camera shy at all!

With a tilt of his head 

He watched as I approached 

With my smartphone extended.

I got as close as I dared

To the brave little lizard

And took a photo or two.

Then, without anticipation he slowly turned 

And began to walk up the screen.

Walk, mind you. 

Not run.

He paused at head height,

So that he could look me in the eye as it were,

And just to let me know he wasn’t afraid,

He offered to fight me!

Fight or fornicate, one or the other!

Because, me having no throat fan,

How could he be sure

What sex I was?

He nodded his little head 

A couple of times to attract my attention,

And then proudly displayed his beautiful 

Orangey-pink throat fan.

What impertinence!

What braggadocio!

What bravery!

Watching this miracle, 

I could feel the poem I was to write 

Begin to form within me.

I even foresaw its title,

The Friendly Lizard.

I turned off my smartphone,

Lowered my arms, 

And looked at the lizard.

Eyeball to eyeball.

Mano e reptile!

With no camera between us.

Just me and him.

And as I looked at the lizard

I experienced a zen moment.

How wonderful life is! I thought.

It’s all in how you see it!

To live in wonder!

That’s the zen of it!

To live with some kind of inner peace

In a constantly changing world

That we cannot control …

… but must not fear!

And to let ourselves 

Enjoy the moments,

And therefore the years,

That make up our lives!

And in this zen moment I also thought;

Thank You!

And Thank You again

My beautiful zen garden!

For giving me beauty. 

And sometimes even enlightenment and yes!

The most wondrous of all gifts,

The ability to Love.

As I thought these 

Wonderful thoughts,

The Friendly Lizard took one last look,

Nodded his head a couple of times,

And slowly crawled away.

“See you tomorrow!” I whispered.

And the day after maybe.

And who knows? 

Maybe even the day after that.

For nobody can be sure

That he will still be here tomorrow.

Or three days from tomorrow.

But I'd be happy to meet you here in the morning,

Little Friendly Lizard,

Unless zen and circumstance

Cause either you or I …

… To take another path.

Three Zen Tuesday

Zen and Your Enemies (Pg. 34)

It’s easy to find zen in a beautiful place.

As I’ve mentioned before, it's all around us.

On the beach, high in the mountains, down in the valley along the majestic river.

Within us and without us, as they say.

Zen is everywhere!

On that we all agree, yes?

But how easy is it to see zen in the face of your enemy?

Or someone who has done you wrong?

Or rather someone who you believe has done you wrong?

(Because you can never be sure

When you’re about to hurl a stone

From the porch of your glass house.)

Guess what?

They’ve got zen too.

Yes, even your enemies.
For as mortals they walk the earth and breathe the air,
Like you do.

And one day,
(Perhaps in this life,
Perhaps in another)
They will achieve understanding.

Like you will.

Until that time, they must endure confusion 

And suffer the pangs of living.

Like you must.

There. 

You see?

You have more in common with your enemy than you thought.

Hmmm.
Maybe somewhere

At this very minute,

Your enemy is thinking the exact same thing.

Uh oh.

That’s zen at work.

My Zen is Strong But I’m Not Perfect (Pg.35)

My zen is strong but I’m not perfect.

I hope I never said I was.

That sounds pretty stupid.

To brag that you’re perfect

When anybody can tell at a glance that you are not.

Yes, I make mistakes.

So do you I’ll bet.

Everybody does.

That’s why they put erasers on the ends of pencils.

It seems to me that pencils are very zen.

One end marks,
The other erases.

Perfect in their simplicity!

Yes, pencils are very zen.

But erasers are even more so!

The more I erase the better it gets.

Why is that I wonder?

Surely the more the better when it comes to me?

I’m a genius, ain’t I?

But still the more I erase the better it gets.

That is zen at work!

Uh-oh.

Looks like

I’m going to need a bigger eraser. 

Right-Sized Zen (Pg.37)

I saw a cardinal
Sitting on a fence in the rain

This afternoon as I sipped my tea.

A cardinal, for those of you not from around here,

(And let’s face it,

We’re each of us not from around here in some way)

Is a type of bird that is very very red.

The males are red. 

The females are duller,
They're more of a brown color.

There is a reason for that,

But I can’t remember now what it was.

Anyway.

The cardinal on the fence.

His zen was small, like he was.

It wasn’t big.

But then, it didn’t need to be big,

Because it wasn’t raining very hard.

Zen is like that.

Not too big, not too small.

It’s only as big as it needs to be.
It's just right. 

Have you ever seen it rain in Florida, by the way?

It can really come down in buckets!

How lucky for me

That the cardinal chose that moment to be seen

Sitting on the fence,

When it wasn’t raining very hard.

It was only sprinkling lightly,

Like diamonds falling from the sky.

Zen is like that also.

It is the bird and the raindrop that fell upon the bird.

It is I who stood witness to this miracle.

It is you who hear of it now.

But there is a lesson to be learned here.

And it is this.

Although there is an endless supply of zen in the universe,

You’d better catch it when you can.

Because now it’s pissing down

And the cardinal has flown away.

The Ghost of Rusty Pliers

(Part 2) 

   (You might remember in our last blog we were conversing in a French castle with the invisible ghost of Rusty Pliers whose manuscript we’d found, while the creepy English butler fetched some libations.)

  “The gin’s arrived,” said the ghost.

   The butler had left ten minutes ago. He hadn’t returned. Nothing had arrived.

  “Where?” demanded my wife. “I don’t see anything.” Saucy Boy was unafraid of the ghost from the beginning, which in turn gave me courage.

   Besides, he wasn’t a very scary ghost.

   A heartbeat later there came a knock at the door and the butler entered, pushing a trolley with bottles and glasses. He didn’t look quite so creepy now, I thought, but was a welcome sight pushing a trolly of refreshments into the room.

   “Ah!” said I with enthusiasm. “The drinks!”

   “Gin and tonic please,” said my wife.

   “Nothing for me, thanks,” intoned the ghost of Rusty Pliers. 

   After a pause he added,“I’m driving! Hahahahaa!” His terrible, unearthly laughter at the horrible old joke swirled up maliciously and echoed around the room.

   My tortured ears cursed the day they were born to hear that ancient jest uttered by a demon from the bowels of hell. My wife, on the other hand, smiled with amusement.

   "He has the same sense of humor you do," she whispered to me. "Unfunny."

   "I'm three times funnier than any old ghost!" I insisted under my breath. 

   “I see you still possess the same sense of humor, Mr. Rusty,” said the butler, completely unperturbed. He wore the faintest touch of a smile as he spoke. Now I could see that he wasn’t creepy at all, he was just very dry. He finished preparing the drinks, handing one to my wife, one to me.

   “Will that be all, sir?” he asked me. 

   “Yes, thank you,” I said.

   “Leave the trolley, please,” said my wife. “We’ll handle it from here.”

   “Goodnight,” we all said to the butler.

   "Goodnight," he said to us all, then he turned and left the room.

   "He wasn't so creepy after all," I said, meaning the butler.

   "He makes a very nice gin and tonic," said my wife. "I don't suppose he gets out much, living in a castle as he does."

   "He lingered over your underwear," said the ghost, "when he put your things away."

   "Oh he did, did he?" answered my wife, getting a bit riled.

   "She doesn't like people touching her underwear!" I laughed.

   "You!" she accused me. "Don't you ever think of anything else?"

   "Nope!" 

   "I was only kidding," said the ghost. "He didn't touch your things  I heard you speak of it earlier and thought it might help me to break the ice. Sometimes it's difficult to start a conversation with new people. Especially across the line between the living and the dead."

   "You don't seem so dead," said I. "For a ghost."  

   “So, let me ask you this,” said Saucy Boy, changing the subject. “You’re a ghost because no one ever read your book? Is that it?” She sipped her drink and smiled encouragingly.

   “That about sums it up,” replied the ghost. “I’ve been cursed.”

   “Poor ghost. What do you want us to do?” asked my wife. 

   “Re-eeeeead my boo-oook!” said the ghost in a funny, fake-scary way and we all laughed again.

   “Well. I’m not much of a reader…” began Saucy Boy.

   “Why don’t you read it to us?” I suggested.

   “Like books on tape!” added Saucy Boy, delighted with the idea. 

   “Okay,” said the ghost. “Why not?”

   “That’s the spirit!” said my wife.

   “Hey!” said the ghost.

   “Sorry,” said my wife.

   We settled back in our chairs and sipped our gins as we listened to the ghost read his bittersweet tale of a young boy growing up in a strange land. As I listened it occurred to me that the boy in the story grew up to become the ghost in the room. 

   The ghost never materialized, by the way, but remained only a voice. 

   A couple hours later he finished and asked, “Well, now you’ve heard it. What do you think?”

   “I think I’d like another drink,” I said, helping myself at the trolly.

   “Uh,” began Saucy Boy. “It’s long, isn’t it?”

   “I liked it,” I said, exaggerating a little. “Especially the part about the lunatic and the car blowing up.”

   “Yes, I like explosions,” answered the ghost. “I wish I’d put in a few more.” 

   “What do you want us to do now?” asked Saucy Boy. She yawned. It was late.

   “Get it published!” answered the ghost. “So I can be free of the curse! If just one person reads it and enjoys it, it’ll finally be R I P for the once proud and previously alive Rusty Pliers.”

   “Well, we can try,” I said.

   (I should explain that this was in 2005, over ten years ago. Since then I have edited, written, rewritten and even ghostwritten HOLD THE BEETROOT, the ghost’s story from the MS we found that night, but it remains unpublished still. No one wants it. 

   That is part of its curse. 

   But it is bigger than that.

   Part of the curse was passed on to me. The unpublished manuscript haunts me now. I’ve become obsessed with it and I’ve even assumed as my pen name the ghost’s name, Rusty Pliers, while trying to write something before I die that even one person will read and enjoy. The writer's curse! 

   The MS sits in my office. Unable to resist its cursed beckoning I return to it when I have a spare moment. 

   I’m currently on the 16th rewrite and still looking for a publisher.)

   “Well, we can try,” I said all those years ago, little knowing.

   “Sure,” said my wife sleepily. “Why not?”

   “Uh-oh,” said the ghost. “It’ll soon be daylight. I’ve got to be leaving now.”

   “You can only appear at night, huh?” I asked. “Like the ghost from Hamlet?”

   “Him!” responded the ghost. “What a drama queen! None of the other ghosts can stand him!”

   “Who else is up there with you?” I asked. “Or are you in the hotter place?”

   “As near as I can figure from where I am, there is no heaven or hell,” answered the ghost. “Except what we make for ourselves.”

   I pondered the ghost’s simple words.

   “Well, I’d better be going,” repeated the ghost. “It’s almost daylight.”

   “Then you cannot walk during the day?” I persisted.

   “It’s not that,” he answered. “Day or night makes no difference to a ghost. To a ghost what matters is the penance he must do! For to be a ghost is to be punished, make no mistake about that and I’m no exception. Alas! What matters to me now that I’m dead is the time I wasted while I was alive! And the horrible penance I must do! Currently I’m doomed to work for eternity in the Haunted Mansion at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. You ever been to Orlando?”

   I was about to tell him sure I’d been to Orlando and that I used to work for Big Mouse too as an animator in the 1990s, but he was in a hurry and kept on talking.

   “Twenty-five thousand times a day I have to jump into a moving car and scare a tourist! I’d love to meet the guy who dreamed that one up! ’In perpetuity and throughout the universe’ too says my Disney contract, and brother, is my shift manager a son-of-a-bitch!”

   Ha! Ha! I thought. Life or death, a boss was still a boss. Then I laughed a little at myself, for my Disney contract had also said ‘in perpetuity and throughout the universe.’ 

   “I must go!” said the ghost. “I could get onto real trouble!”

   “How much trouble can you get into?” I asked. “You’re a ghost.”

   “Oh, you’d be surprised,” said the ghost, his voice growing fainter. “You’d be surprised.”

   No I wouldn’t be surprised I wanted to say, I worked there for fifteen years and I wouldn’t be surprised at all, but what was the point?

  “Goodbye,” said Saucy Boy. “Where will you go now, poor ghost?”

   “I’m off to Walt Disney World!” he announced as if he’d just won the 1976 World Series and was on his way, but faintly and drifting off.

   “Goodbye,” I said.

   “Adieu,” whispered the ghost. “Remember me.” 

   And he was gone.  

Midnight Garden Supply

   There’s a freeze warning on for tonight. 

   I live in central Florida, so a freeze warning is not unheard of. It usually happens once or twice a year, but last year we didn’t have any. I put that down to global warming, as I do most things, but I could be wrong. It’s supposed to drop to thirty degrees Fahrenheit tonight, which may not sound cold if you’re from Boston or Chicago, but it’s cold to a Floridian. So my wife is concerned for the Areca palm in our backyard. It’s a tropical palm, and could be damaged from the cold.

   She’s already covered every plant in the yard that has any kind of sentimental value to her, whether they were cold-sensitive or not. These include specimens transplanted from her childhood home in Alabama (where they’d survived uncovered for decades in colder temperatures than we ever saw), plants taken from every botanical garden we’d ever visited from Miami, Florida to Victoria, British Colombia (she’d take a cutting or pull up a choice specimen while I nervously kept a lookout, acting casually by whistling a tune with my hands in my pockets) and even plants taken from our trips overseas, including Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia, Jamaica, Mexico, Spain, Thailand, France, etc. How she was never caught smuggling them back into the country, I couldn’t say.

   It was something I found impossible to understand, her compulsion to steal plants. For that’s what I thought it was, stealing, and of course she couldn’t understand why I wasn’t more understanding.

   “You smoke dope, don’t you?” she asked sarcastically. “That’s illegal, isn’t it?”

   “Yeah,” I answered. “But I don’t dig it up from my dealer’s front yard, do I? Besides, it’s not whether it’s illegal or not, it’s the morality of it.”

   “You read too many books!” she snarled. That was her answer for everything. Like I was a fool for reading books in my attempt to wise up and not be a fool.

   “Why don’t you just buy them?” I asked her. “Why steal them?”

   “It’s only a plant,” she answered. “I’m not hurting anyone. Nobody will miss it.”

   “What if everybody did it?” I replied. “There’d be no plants left.” I looked around the botanical garden she was pilfering from and gestured, adding, “This beautiful garden we’re standing in would be reduced to rubble.”

   “Oh, you’re being silly.”

   “How would you like it if someone took one of your plants?”

   “It’s not the same thing!” she insisted. 

   “What about the golden rule?”

   She had no answer for that, not believing herself bound by anyone else’s rules, golden or not, but I knew what she’d do if she caught someone digging up a plant from her yard. She’d kill them! Then she’d hang the mutilated body in a prominent place as a warning to others. Her yard and garden, unlike everyone else’s, were sacrosanct. You should have heard her tell off a neighbor who had dared to let his dog do some business on her grass! (The grass which I tend and mow, by the way.) After discovering some droppings, she’d got down on her knees, inspecting and counting them, noting how many times some dirty rotten so-and-so had allowed his mutt to despoil her property. 

  “I know who it is!” she told me. “It’s the fat guy with the big Alsatian.” 

   “Are you sure?” I teased. “Maybe it’s the old lady with the Dachshund. Or the kid with the Yorkshire terrier.”

   “Don’t be an ass,” she accused me. “No Dachshund poops that big!”

   She was scientific about it, I’ll give her that.

   Then she’d lain in wait, getting up early to peep through the curtains at any passersby, hoping to catch them in the act.

  “There he is!” said called one morning a week later. “See! I told you!”

   “Where?” said I, sipping my tea. It was early in the morning. She pointed through the window. It wasn’t the guy with the Alsatian or the kid with the Yorkie, but our new neighbor, a thin, quiet young man with a Dalmatian on the end of a leash. Sure enough, about two feet from the sidewalk on the grass of our front yard was the Dalmatian, hunched over and straining, crapping it’s heart out.

   Why do they name dogs after regions, I wonder?

   Boy, did she tear him a new one! Our new neighbor I mean, not the Dalmatian. She rushed out in her housecoat and slippers and scared him half to death. I stayed inside, too embarrassed to show my face, peeping through the curtains and drinking my tea. 

   Afterwards the neighbor slunk away, turning back occasionally with a quizzical look. His dog apparently couldn’t have cared less, and trotted merrily along at his side. 

   “See! I told you!” said told me when she returned. She was proud of herself to have caught him, and happy to have the chance to give someone (other than me) a piece of her mind. 

  

   As I mentioned earlier, it’s going to be cold tonight. 

   So she wants to cover the Areca palm. It’s a big, clumping palm with many trunks, and impossible to cover with just a sheet.

   “I know you don’t want to help me,” she said. She’s always telling me what I am or am not, or what I’m thinking or feeling. But she doesn’t know. We’ve been married fifteen years, and I believe she knows less about me now than when we began.

  “What?” I answered. “Didn’t I come out here and ask if you needed any help?” That was true. From my office window I’d seen her struggling with it by herself, and had come out to help. “You certainly didn’t ask for help, did you? No, you’re too proud for that.” She really is proud. And stubborn, too. 

  “I know you don’t want to help me,” she’d said. This was after an hour of us pulling and lifting and climbing and cursing, without result. She had no plan as to how the palm might be covered, and so we had had no success. As my old boss at EMI Records in South Africa used to say; “To fail to prepare is to prepare to fail.” He was full of sayings like that. But that’s another story. 

   Regarding the Areca palm, I knew enough to keep my mouth shut. My wife hates being told anything, even if you’re trying to be helpful.

   The only note of levity all afternoon was when I fell off the ladder and knocked over a bird feeder. 

   You should have seen her rush to see if the bird feeder was alright!

Whine and Cheese

   Last week I met my friend Kathy at a Wine Bar on Orange Avenue. 

   I arrived early. After scanning the menu, which listed at least two-hundred different beers, I couldn’t decide and settled for a local brew, and some Spanish cheese with crackers to go with it. I couldn’t be bothered flirting with the young lady behind the bar. She was probably half my age, which to some men might sound good, but not to me and besides, three other guys were flirting with her already. They jabbered on about what successful, important days they’d had, and dropped hints about the foreign sports cars they drove. She smiled sweetly but seemed unimpressed.

   The beer I ordered was called, rather appropriately, Swamp Brew. Made from the finest Florida waters, bragged the label, and collected at the shores of Lake Okeechobee when the moon was full. Why during the full moon I couldn’t say, maybe the water tastes better then. It’s a very dangerous profession, by the way, collecting this water, because of the alligators and snakes that inhabit the lake. 

   That must explain the excessive price, I reckoned, danger money for the brewmasters.

   That might have explained the taste, too, alligator and snake poop in the water.

   I was reading my Kindle, chewing cheese and sipping beer. I like reading from a Kindle, no one can see what you’re reading. I like my privacy, especially about what I read. Don’t worry though, I wasn’t reading anything naughty. I was reading Aesop’s Fables.

“After all is said and done, more is said than done.” ― Aesop

   “Hi Rusty!” called Kathy as she entered. We’d been friends for many years, Kathy and I, both of us having worked for Walt Disney Feature Animation, animating gorillas and lions and horses and bears and Stitches. All of whom, when they wanted to, spoke perfect English, except Khan*, the horse from Mulan, who never said a thing. Then, after the Disney execs laid us all off and closed the Florida studio in 2004, we’d worked together for five years at Full Sail University, teaching animation to mostly disinterested young video game players.

   They thought animation was going to be easy. How wrong they were!

   Funny how life is. I’d been Kathy’s boss at Disney, she’d been my boss at Full Sail. 

   So remember; you artists out there! You’d better try to be nice to the people you meet as you make your way through life, because you don’t know when you might meet them again.

   “What’s new?” asked Kathy.

   I noticed the slight look of apprehension in her eyes. She was afraid I’d start on one of my favorite subjects, my impossible-to-finish book or my sometimes pugnacious marriage. She’d heard it all before, many times. Disregarding her apprehension, I pitched straight in.

   After all, what are friends for?

   “I’m fighting with the missus again,” I started.

   “Oh really?” she asked with more than a touch of boredom. “What about this time?”

   There were so many things we fought about, it was difficult to choose just one. I looked down at the table, where the Kindle and plate of cheese sat, and answered simply, “Crackers.”

   “Crackers?” 

   “Yeah,” I sighed. “Crackers.”

   Kathy poured herself a Swamp Brew. After tasting it, she made a sour face and said, “Go on, I’m listening.”

   “We’d been fighting like cats and dogs,” I began. “About what I can’t remember. I think it was the weather. Her smartphone app said it was going to rain, mine said it wasn’t.”

   Sometimes even our apps can’t agree, so what chance have I got?

  “Anyways,” I continued. “I was making a salad for my dinner and I needed a bowl. Well, the bowl I reached for contained small packets of crackers, like the ones you get with your soup at Denny’s, you know? So I spilled them out onto the counter top, intending to replace them when I’d finished with the bowl. I’m not that stupid!” I insisted. “I know enough not to mess with my wife’s stuff, even if it’s just crackers. 

   “She comes in and seeing the crackers, starts yelling at me not to touch them!”

   I took a sip of my beer as Kathy asked, “What happened next?”

   “‘Don’t touch those crackers!’ she ordered. ‘They’re for the meatloaf I’m going to make!’ And I said, ‘Fine, I’m not touching your crackers. I’m making a salad. Don’t worry, your meatloaf is safe!’ 

   “‘Yeah?’ she says, ‘Well, I’m not going to make the blasted meatloaf now! It’ll be a cold day in hell before you taste my meatloaf again!’

   “‘Okay,’ said I, ‘Then I won’t touch the crackers you won’t be using to not make the meatloaf!”

   Kathy excused herself and went to get a beer.

*Disney's Mulan 1998