She Seemed to Belong

 Excerpted from A Confederate General from Big Sur by Richard Brautigan, ©1964

We stopped at a little café and got some coffee.  The coffee was brought to us by the world's ugliest waitress.  I gave her an imaginary name:  Thelma.  I do things like that.

My name is Jesse.  Any attempt to describe her would be against my better judgement, but in her own way she seemed to belong in that café with steam rising like light out of our coffee.

Helen of Troy would have looked out of place.  "What's Helen of Troy doing in here?" some longshoreman would have asked.  He wouldn't have understood.  So Thelma it was for the likes of us.

The best thing about Richard Brautigan's novels are the little detours and asides.  You can't focus on the destination, because it's never really clear where you're going.

Derek Edwards

Reversals

What's it all about, Alfie?

How's it going?

"You go up to a man, and you say, 'How are things going, Joe?'  And he says, 'Oh, fine fine - couldn't be better.'  And you look into his eyes, and you see things really couldn't be much worse.  When you get right down to it, everybody's having a perfectly  lousy time of it, and I mean everybody.  And the hell of it is, nothing seems to help much."  ~Ransom K. Fern in The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut, ©1959

At one of the places I worked in Dallas, my boss's boss asked me, "How's it going?"

"It's never been better!"

"That's good!"

"No, it isn't."

And he never spoke to me again.

Me. too.

"I was a strange kid.  I guess you could safely add very."  ~Richard Brautigan

The Light Goes Out

"For nothing is fixed, forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out."  ~James Baldwin

It Took Devastation

Excerpted from Nick Cave's Red Hand Files newsletter:

Cynicism is not a neutral position — and although it asks almost nothing of us, it is highly infectious and unbelievably destructive. In my view, it is the most common and easy of evils.

I know this because much of my early life was spent holding the world and the people in it in contempt. It was a position both seductive and indulgent. The truth is, I was young and had no idea what was coming down the line. I lacked the knowledge, the foresight, the self-awareness. I just didn’t know. It took a devastation to teach me the preciousness of life and the essential goodness of people. It took a devastation to reveal the precariousness of the world, of its very soul, to understand that it was crying out for help. …

Each redemptive or loving act, as small as you like, Valerio, such as reading to your little boy, or showing him a thing you love, or singing him a song, or putting on his shoes, keeps the devil down in the hole. It says the world and its inhabitants have value and are worth defending. It says the world is worth believing in. In time, we come to find that it is so.

Fragile Steps

Excerpted from The Abortion by Richard Brautigan, ©1970: 

We were both tired, but not as nervous as we could have been facing the prospects of the day, because we had gone into a gentle form of shock that makes it easier to do one little thing after another, fragile step by fragile step, until you've done the big difficult thing waiting at the end; no matter what it is.

I think we have the power to transform our lives into brand-new instantaneous rituals that we calmly act out when something hard comes up that we must do.

We become like theaters.

I was taking turns watching the coffee perk and watching Vida at her bath.  It was going to be a long day but fortunately we would get there only moment by moment.

Probably one of the most complex and daunting things I've ever done was help guide Mona through the process of getting her kidney transplant, and that was exactly how we got through it:  fragile step by fragile step, moment by moment.

Run Run

"If we can’t rest, it’s because we haven’t stopped running. We began running a long time ago. We continue to run even in our sleep. We think that happiness and well-being are not possible in the here and the now."  ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Nothing Sister Mary Can Do

Full lyrics HERE.

Only One Purpose

"The secret of creating peace is that when you listen to another person you have only one purpose: to offer him an opportunity to empty his heart. If you are able to keep that awareness and compassion alive in you, then you can sit for one hour and listen even if the other person’s speech contains a lot of wrong perceptions, condemnations and bitterness. You can continue to listen because you are already protected by the nectar of compassion in your own heart. If you do not practice mindful breathing in order to keep that compassion alive, however, you can lose your own peace. Irritation and anger will come up, and the other person will notice and will not be able to continue. Keeping your awareness keeps you safe."  ~Thich Nhat Hanh

This Is For All The Lonely People…

 Excerpted from The Abortion by Richard Brautigan, ©1970:

I reached into my pocket and took out a handkerchief and a candy bar.  When people are troubled or worried, I always tell them that it will be all right and give them a candy bar.  It surprises them and it's good for them.

"Everything's going to be all right," I said.

I gave her a Milky Way.

I used to carry hard candies in my pocket for the same reason.  Chocolate Parfait Nips.  They have a soft chocolatey center that surprises people and makes them happy, particularly if you've never had one before.

There are a lot of unhappy people in the world, and it's surprising how much good you can do them just by slipping them a treat and listening to their stories.

I need to start carrying candies again.

Successful

 Excerpt from Srimad-Bhagavatam 5.19.6–8:

One cannot establish a friendship with the Supreme Lord Ramacandra on the basis of material qualities such as one’s birth in an aristocratic family, one’s personal beauty, one’s eloquence, one’s sharp intelligence or one’s superior race or nation. None of these qualifications is actually a prerequisite for friendship with Lord Sri Ramacandra. Otherwise how is it possible that although we uncivilized inhabitants of the forest have not taken noble births, although we have no physical beauty and although we cannot speak like gentlemen, Lord Ramacandra has nevertheless accepted us as friends?

Therefore, whether one is a demigod or a demon, a man or a creature other than man, such as a beast or bird, everyone should worship Lord Ramacandra, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who appears on this earth just like a human being. There is no need of great austerities or penances to worship the Lord, for He accepts even a small service offered by His devotee. Thus He is satisfied, and as soon as He is satisfied, the devotee is successful. Indeed, Lord Sri Ramacandra brought all the devotees of Ayodhya back home, back to Godhead.

99

 by e.e. cummings:

That Hurt People

"(I) entered into the disenchanted paper shadows of America where failure is a bounced check or a bad report card or a letter ending a love affair and all the words that hurt people when they read them."  ~Richard Brautigan, Revenge of the Lawn

#79

 by e.e. cummings:

And Whatever Intimacy

"Sometimes life is merely a matter of coffee and whatever intimacy a cup of coffee affords."  ~Richard Brautigan, in Revenge of the Lawn 

If I Sing

 "And if i sing you are my voice,"  ~e.e. cummings (source)

Sriracha Cornbread

 

Sriracha Cornbread is pretty easy to make.  When you mix the batter add two tablespoons of Sriracha and one tablespoon of dried parsley, then bake it the way you always do.

But don't forget the dried parsley- it's important!  The Sriracha adds liquid to the batter, and if you don't have something to sop a little of it up the cornbread will be flat and the texture will be weird.

(It's a good idea when baking to have a little dried parsley on hand.  Anytime something seems a little wetter than it should be, parsley will absorb the moisture (and add a little color) without affecting the taste.  That was an aside.)

Moments of Solitude

"Most of the time the universe speaks to us very quietly in pockets of silence, in coincidences, in nature, in forgotten memories, in the shape of clouds, in moments of solitude, in small tugs at our hearts."  ~Yumi Sakugawa, Your Illustrated Guide to Becoming One with the Universe ©2014

Suppose

 

by e.e. cummings

Small Kindnesses

Small Kindnesses by Danusha Laméris

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”