On Memories and Imagination (Blog #757)

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This morning I woke up at six-thirty (six-thirty!) to walk my friend’s dog and pick up its poop from the neighbor’s yard. Talk about my glorious life. (Don’t be jealous.) But really, it’s not like it was oh-my-gosh awful or anything. I mean, yeah, it was a little chilly, and I forgot to take a jacket. But the sun was up, the birds were chirping (as the dog was crapping), and spring was in full-bloom. Hell, I even saw a lady out running (running!). Apparently people do this–move, on purpose, with purpose, before seven.

Wonders never cease.

After a short walk with my friend’s dog (maybe twenty minutes?), I went back to bed. Passed out hard for four more hours. Well, not that hard. The dog woke me up several times. You know, they get excited and start barking about any ordinary old thing–passing cars, jumping bunny rabbits, the urge to urinate. My parents’ dog does this, goes absolutely bat-shit crazy every time someone walks by the front window. You think she’d never seen a Girl Scout before. Animals–it’s like everything is new to them.

Since waking back up, I’ve spent the day doing some odd-job work on my computer, as well as watching Netflix–Brene Brown (The Call to Courage) and John Mulaney (Kid Gorgeous at Radio City). John Mulaney was funnier. That being said, he IS a stand-up comedian. Brene Brown is a shame researcher and author. So it’s not really fair to compare them. But then again, life’s not fair.

Or so they say.

Last night and this afternoon I started reading and got through the bulk of Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Three Questions. (Ruiz wrote The Four Agreements. He has a thing with numbers.) And whereas I’m still processing the book as a whole, I’d like to briefly mention a couple things. One, Ruiz says that our memories are a tool we can use, that they should “teach, not torture us.” To me this means that memory can remind me that the stove can burn me and that certain people can too. It tells me, We’ve been down this road before, and it doesn’t end well. In this way, memory can be my teacher and serve its proper function. But when I’m using my memory to go over-and-over a horrific event, or replay something nasty someone said to me, or beat myself up for something I did twenty years ago, I’m misusing it.

Ruiz says we can likewise use our imaginations to help or harm us. That is, we can imagine how we’d like to decorate a room or where we’d like to take our lover to dinner, or we can just as easily imagine that we’re going to get sick and die or that someone (a friend or even a total stranger) hates us. Imagining something good is just as easy as imagining something bad. Well, maybe imagining something good is more difficult if you’ve had a lot of practice at imaging something bad, but, at least in theory, imagination, like memory, is simply a neutral tool, and we each get to decide how we want to use it.

I repeat–we each get to DECIDE how we want to use it.

Recently I read Taming Your Gremlin by Rick Carson, and Rick suggests the following exercise. First, center yourself. (He suggests closing your eyes, focusing on your breath, and simply noticing any sounds, thoughts, emotions, etc.) Then open your eyes and tell yourself, “I just arrived on the planet with a head full of ideas and memories to which I can give whatever importance I choose.”

I love this idea of just arriving on the planet five minutes ago. I “imagine” it’s what dogs and children must feel like–everything is new, bright, beautiful, and exciting. Honestly, I think it’s how we’d all see the world if we weren’t caught up in our heads, obsessing, worrying. But I also like the second part of the exercise, that we can CHOOSE (decide) what the ideas and memories in our heads mean. Recently I told my therapist about losing my cool with a camper at summer camp when I was seventeen and how I’ve felt bad about it ever since. “It sounds like you acted like a seventeen year old,” she said. “I’d let that go.” So I am. I’m moving the event from the “big deal” category in my head to the “that used to be a big deal, but it’s no longer a big deal, and I learned something from it” category. Because there’s no need to continue to punish myself in this present moment over something that’s, well, a figment of my imagination.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Everything is all right and okay.

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No Pants. No Problem! (Austin, How I Love Thee) (Blog #84)

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It’s 8:40 in the evening, Bonnie is driving the convertible back home to Arkansas, and the sun is setting to our left. The sky is full of blues and pinks. Some are light and easy, some heavy and deep. With each passing moment they seem to change, as my mood does. It’s the first time I’ve blogged in daylight in I don’t remember when, the only time I’ve blogged in the car, and I’m working on saying goodbye to Austin–for now. It’s harder than I imagined it would be. But maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it means I’m meant to be there, wearing tank tops, eating tacos, and breaking a sweat in the Texas sun–comfortably–in my own skin.

Yesterday Bonnie and I window shopped for Annie’s Pilates studio. We got a lot done, but we spent as much time goofing off as anything else. We’re probably the exact reason that some stores tell you not to take pictures, not to touch the pretty things, not to sit on the furniture. Take the picture of me and the cactus at the top of the blog, for instance. (We come as a set–wouldn’t the two of us look great in your living room?) Or take this picture (like Bonnie did).

On a related note–I don’t know if I’ve ever said this–I’d like to thank my parents for spending all that money for braces to fix my teeth. I’m sure you could have used the cash to–I don’t know–pay the mortgage. But I want you to know it makes a difference every day, and I’m especially thankful for my straight teeth every time I hold a giant magnifying glass in front of my mouth.

Here’s a picture we took at Pier 1. It’s sexy, I know. Very Pinocchio meets Mardi Gras.

After Pier 1, we went to Target, and we found the most amazing thing. We were in the home decor section, and there were a ton of individual block letters–the kind with multiple light bulbs inside each one. My first thought was to rearrange them, maybe spell my name. But then Bonnie and I noticed that someone had already done that. Well, they didn’t spell my name. Rather, on the first row they had spelled DICK, and on the second, MALL.

DICK MALL.

First, how creative–and naughty–is that? Second, where is this place? I mean, I love to shop, but I didn’t realize this was a thing you could shop for. (If it is, I wonder if they ever have a Buy One, Get One sale.) Anyway, it gets better. The picture doesn’t show it, but the third row spelled OOOH. So put those three words together–DICK MALL, OOOH–and you really have endless hours of entertainment if you just play around with how low, high, fast, or slow you say OOOH. I realize it may not be everyone’s sense of humor (maybe you would have had to have been there), but try it sometime.

After a hard day of window shopping (at the Dick Mall–see how this works?), we went to Torchy’s Tacos. Apparently it was good enough for President Obama, and it was good enough for me too. I’m pretty sure the taco on the left was called The Democrat. I know one of them was, but the left would make more sense.

When tacos were over, we checked out a used clothing store. I didn’t buy anything, but I had fun trying stuff on. My favorite items were a shirt that said Texas with a picture of the Lonestar, and a pair of polka-dotted pants that were so tight I had to sit down on the floor to get them over my heels. They might seem pretty loud, but I guarantee you that no one in Austin would have even noticed them unless they were on fire, and had they fit, I’d be wearing them right now.

And no, I’m not sure they weren’t women’s pants, but I did find them in the men’s section. I swear. As a thirteen-year-old boy told me once at summer camp, “Boys, girls–what’s the difference these days?”

This afternoon Bonnie and I went for breakfast tacos at an iconic Austin restaurant called Maria’s. I was too busy eating to take many pictures, but I did take this one. It says, “No zapatos [no shoes]–no tacos. No pants–no problem!”

No pants, no problem! I mean, this is my kind of town. Bonnie and I just looked at each other and said–

DICK MALL.

This afternoon was more window shopping, more window shopping. In anticipation of blogging on the road tonight, I left my phone, which I use as a hotspot, at the apartment to charge. So I didn’t take a picture of any of the amazing mid-century modern furniture we saw, or the crumbled beer can I saw in a lamp store that said, “I got smashed in Las Vegas.”

Our last meal in Austin was at a place called Gourdough’s, and it was perfect. Most of their items include donuts, and all their items have fun names, like Saussy Cock, Boss Hog, and Drunken Hunk. My meal was called Mother Clucker, and it was friend chicken–on a doughnut!–with melted honey butter. I took one look at it and told the waitress, “I’m going to need a side of insulin.”

You can be weird here. You can be yourself.

Now it’s ten-thirty, and the sky is dark. My laptop illuminates my side of the car. In addition to writing, I’ve been thinking about what I love about Austin. At least for a while, the saying there was, “Keep Austin Weird,” a priority that seems obvious whenever you look around and see a hand-knitted blanket that’s been hung on an overpass as art, a sign that says, “Please remove your spurs before dancing on the table,” or a bathroom door that says, “Whichever.” You look at the people and see a thousand tattoos, bodies of every shape and size, skin exposed, proud and confident. All of it seems to say–you can be weird here–you can be yourself.

In truth I think you can be yourself anywhere, but maybe some places make it easier, give you more space to grow. I’m terrible with plants (they always die), but I’ve seen my aunt move a budding plant from one pot to another because it needed more room. So maybe it’s like that for people too.

There’s a spiritual teacher, Don Miguel Ruiz, who says, “Change as fast as God.” The way I see it, that’s another way of saying, “Be here, now,” or don’t spend so much time thinking about the fact that you’re not in Austin that you forget to enjoy where you actually are. So as I leave Austin and head back to Arkansas, I intend to soak up every bit of good that life has to offer me there. Still, even now, it’s as if Austin’s calling, “Come back. Come back real soon. And stay. We’re weird here. You’ll fit right in.”

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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We are surrounded by the light.

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Finding God in the Strangest Places (Blog #75)

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I’m just going to get this out of the way. Until this evening, I hadn’t showered for three days, maybe four. I lost count. All I can say is that I kept meaning to clean up, but there were so many reasons not too. I needed to exercise, I needed to blog, I needed to sleep. (Those are really the only things I do lately.) Suffice it to say, things got pretty gross, so in order to avoid smelling my own pits, I’ve spent a lot of time this week pinning my arms to my sides, kind of like a wallflower at a high school prom, minus all the acne. My personal mantra has been–elbows below nipples–elbows below nipples.

Since starting my new diet, my unfortunate and semi-longstanding body odor problem has actually improved, but it hasn’t entirely gone away. I read on the worldwide web that body odor can sometimes be caused by drinking too much coffee, so I thought that maybe I should cut back from my usual three cups, four cups, or maybe it was half a pot a day. Again, it’s hard to keep track of these things when you have so many other important tasks to accomplish.

Typically, whenever I decide something is bad for me, I cut it out cold turkey, label it as evil, and immediately proceed to look down upon anyone else who does it. Like, I could smoke half a pack of cigarettes for six months, quit for three days, and then walk down the street and see a total stranger bumming a Camel from his friend and think, What a lowlife–that’s disgusting. Or I could spend two months eating ice cream every night, quit long enough to lose half a pound, and then drive by the Dairy Freeze and think, You people should be ashamed of yourselves–go home and eat broccoli.

My therapist says that when it comes to certain topics, I’m so judgmental of other people because I’m primarily so judgmental of myself. I wish I could say I disagree with her. I guess because I have this highly developed sense of what’s right and wrong, good and bad, it gets applied here first, and then everywhere else across the board. So if you’re one of those people I’ve judged, I’m sorry, and I’m right there with you.

But back to coffee and body odor.

Some days managing my health feels like playing a game of Whack-A-Mole.

I’m really trying to not be such a hard ass, with myself or anyone else. (Did I mention I’m REALLY TRYING?) Anyway, instead of quitting coffee cold turkey, I decided to just back off, go to one cup a day. So far I’m two days in, and I’m starting to get really cranky. Part of me thinks, God, Marcus, you don’t have to quit processed foods, refined sugar, white bread, dairy, AND coffee in a ten-day period. But another part of me thinks, Yes you do–and while you’re at it, you should probably mediate for an hour every morning, sleep on a bed of nails, and adopt a child from China and pay for it by selling one of your kidneys on the black market. I mean, is that too much to ask?

Honestly, I just want the body odor problem to go away. I’m willing to try just about anything in order to make that happen, but some days managing my health feels like playing a game of Whack-A-Mole. If you want to know the truth, sometimes I think I’m a hypochondriac. (I can hear my friends saying, “No! Surely not you.”) Tonight when I finally did take a shower because I had a dance lesson (I’m not completely inconsiderate), I shaved my face, nicked something, and started bleeding. Well, I instantly thought it was a wart, another longstanding problem I had a couple of years ago. I think my heart actually stopped beating for a second as I thought, THEY’RE BACK.

But then I thought better of it and decided it was a zit, probably the result of not washing my face in three days, maybe four. Yes, I’m almost certain it was a zit and not a wart. So don’t worry, I’m going to live.

Phew.

That was close.

This evening I had dinner with a friend of mine who has really good taste and recently remodeled his bathroom. He’d probably die if he knew I took a picture of it and put it on the internet, so I probably shouldn’t have talked about my blog so much this evening or typed the address of this website into his phone. Anyway, I love remodeling, so we spent quite a bit of time going over every detail, but even now all I can think about is the arched window that he hung above his toilet. I’m guessing it came from a sanctuary, but it could have come from Target, which I suppose for some people is the same thing.

Isn’t that the cutest thing you ever saw? Doesn’t it remind you of a church? Call me twisted, but all night I’ve been thinking that if you just lit a few of candles, maybe had a couple of monks chanting in the shower (think how good they’d sound in there), it really would make the toilet feel like–I don’t know–a throne of grace. Just think of it–going to the bathroom could be called–a righteous release–a sanctified shit–a holy crap.

After dinner this evening, my friend and I were in the car, and he told me that I smelled “clean.” You can’t imagine how good it made me feel. I told him that I’ve been super self-conscious lately because I took some antibiotics and I think they messed up my intestinal flora and gave me body odor, so I’ve changed my diet and am cutting out coffee to try to fix it. Well, my friend is super honest, so he said, “Marcus, you’re a freak. (I’m summarizing.) You’re the only person I know who would change his diet because he’s afraid of the way he smells. No one else thinks about their flora.”

He may have a point.

Once I read an interpretation of the Garden of Eden story that basically said the Tree of Knowledge represents our capacity to judge or “to know” something. It said that it also represents the world of duality, where everything is hot or cold, up or down, good or bad, and it’s the good or bad part that causes a lot of our suffering. According to this take on things, everything was fine this afternoon while I was shaving, just as everything is fine right now as I’m typing this blog. In effect, I was and am in the Garden of Eden. (Who knew it would be this humid?) But as soon as I thought, I have a wart, and warts are bad, I kicked myself out of the Garden. That’s why my heart stopped beating, the way it would now if I labeled my body odor problem as anything other than good, which is what we’re told in Genesis is how God sees all that he has made. Or did he recently change his mind about that?

Leave it to God to hide under my armpits.

There’s a passage in the Gospel of Thomas that says, “Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find Me there.” What I love about this passage is that it reminds me that God (sometimes simply called Good) is everywhere. There’s no where that he isn’t. I spend a lot of time trying to prove this theory wrong, of course. I walk around a large part of the day thinking that warts are bad, carbs are bad, certain smells are bad. I think anything could kill me, and that would be bad because death is REALLY BAD. None of those judgments, of course, feel good, and they certainly don’t change a damn thing.

So I’m trying (really hard) to look for the good in all circumstances, to basically play hide-and-seek with God, like, I know you’re here somewhere. (Come out, come out, wherever you are.) Of course, God’s been playing this game for a long time. He’s not going to hide behind the sofa–that’s too obvious. Don’t bother looking for the divine behind the divan. More likely, this game is going to require that I lift my elbows above my nipples, maybe take a selfie in my friend’s bathroom. After all, leave it to God to hide under my armpits. Leave it to God to hide in the Holy Crapper.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Your emotions are tired of being ignored.

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