I used one of the eggs given to me by a friend on my birthday. And the dollar coin a stranger surprised me with. I helped him and he gave me a little bit of story and magic to pass along. So I am. I carried the coin with me several days, waiting for the right opportunity. But I was too much in my head. I’ll leave this egg and others. Someone’s curiosity will get the best of them and they’ll find the egg and open it. And of course I love imagining what they will think of it. I hope whoever finds it is someone with a little bit of capricious magic. The orange sheet of paper contains a little bit of an explanation that I’ll put it inside the egg with the coin. I’m not sure where I’ll place the egg. That’s part of the fun.
In October 2020, I had a gong go off in my head. One consequence is that after 40-something years, possibly 50, I stopped biting my fingernails. The other result was that I lost a chunk of my body. On purpose, even though a sword chop at times is likely.
Recently, I realized that I had transitioned from nibbling my nails to biting them like a rabid hyena. Looking closely at the photo, you can see the ragged mess I’ve made of my fingers. This is an example of the subconscious and anxiety fighting its way through the layers we use to camouflage ourselves. I don’t know if I will get another gong about my nails. So, I might have to resort to old-fashioned and punitive behavior modification. I could go and drive a few dozen nails with a hammer. My dubious accuracy will result in painful fingertips. I’m not proud that I’ve returned to nail biting. Weirdly, though, I don’t keep it secret. My self-image is acceptance. I rarely get self-conscious. It’s definitely not because I look like George Clooney. My spirit animal is much closer to Danny DeVito. I’d rather post a picture of it than attempt to keep it secret foolishly. For anyone young reading this, no matter what you do, age is creeping up behind you. You wake up one morning and realize that you can’t sneeze without risk of injury and that parts of your face look like road maps.
The second part is the date behind my hand. On March 4th, I decided to put my money where my mouth is and revert to my infallible weight maintenance method. While I was only up to 175, I had recently attempted to motivate someone to start the difficult process of reaching their goal. I hit my March 31st goal yesterday. And I’ll be down 10 more soon enough to return to 160, where I belong. I can’t explain how I have so much confidence in one area of my life yet consistently fail in others. Once you realize the problem is you and in your head, the lever is consistency. I don’t count calories – and not only because I lose count after ten fingers. I eat a lot of unhealthy foods when I’m doing my thing. And I hate the word “unhealthy” in this context. During my recent excursion, I cooked my first filet mignon. No one vomited or passed away as a result, so my effort was at least minimally a success.
So many of us fall into the trap of reminding one another that it’s just a question of mindset. But so many things are complicated. Even though we sometimes act like we’ve been recently hit over the head repeatedly, the truth is that thinking and cognitive ability often lose the war to reality. We know, but we don’t act. Or, more likely, we rationalize. Push it off until later. We all know how that works out.
One of my brilliant ideas is to offer someone the right to smack me in the face if they see my fingers near my mouth. (I surmise people would gladly do it for free and often, so the additional carrot of money is a sure-fire option.) It’s ironic that one of my weight loss mantras is “Don’t put it in your mouth,” yet that won’t translate to me not biting my nails like I’m using an old-school typewriter.
In the I-dodged-another-one part of my life, I found out that my equilibrium issue was caused by an ear infection. They didn’t do a brain scan because the last time, it took them 42 minutes to find mine. As most of you will testify, I usually keep it unplugged anyway. I can’t leave it unplugged long, though. The last three times I tried to live without my brain, I received 16 promotion offers. (Something about being the ideal candidate.) Love, X .
It’s not about the things. Who doesn’t love things, whether they are practical or capricious? A friend who shares my birthday surprised me with a capricious bug catcher. It’s colorful and whimsical. Next to it is a nice rain jacket. I joke that I will wear it while I’m standing in the river so that I don’t get wet. A handmade personalized card. I have one from my sister but in typical me fashion, I set it aside so that I wouldn’t lose it. Now that I wanted to have it in the picture, I can’t for the life of me remember where I put it! I got a set of beautiful mugs for future trips and tree hanging. The Encyclopedia Brown book is from last Christmas. I loved those books when I was young. I much prefer surprising people for both their birthdays and random days than I do receiving gifts. But that in no way lessens how much I appreciate the tangible and touchable just as much as I appreciate the words and the exchanged humor that accompanies such landmark days. I know what y’all are thinking. The bug catcher is too small to catch my manager, so he is safe. Love, X .
Something I used to ask people often instead of the traditional, “How are you?” It’s time to dust it off and either create a bit of laughter or a bit of contemplation. Both are equally important. Not quite as important as remembering to keep your fly up, but somewhere on that scale. X .
Though it was almost 50°, the wind howled in the predawn morning. I stood motionless in the woods, back pressed against a tree. Waiting for deer. None came. But quiet thoughts did. The moon above me was rendered glossy by the clouds racing overhead. The world was dark but the wind buffeted everything. 3:33 a.m. is a distinct world. X .
I went out into the woods early here in the hollers of Bella Vista. Though I was watchful, I didn’t see the deer until they ran and crashed away. The thick mass of leaves made surreptitious approach impossible. I saw one large buck. I was 15 feet from them. As I stood hanging another cup in the trees, I could hear a buck snorting. Above, hawks were already swooping and prowling the early overcast morning. Carolina chickadees, a solitary woodpecker, robins, fish crows, and other birds around me sang and pecked, ignoring the cold. It was both a lemon moments and stolen one.
Just me in the trees, surrounded.
It was a beautiful moment. I thought of one of my favorite quotes, “You can’t take a picture of this, it’s already gone.” I felt a pang of aloneness, just as I had yesterday when I went down and snapped a picture of last visit’s cup.
I whispered, “Tomorrow.” There isn’t one. Only now.
Take all the time you need. It’s infinite, after all, isn’t it? I’ll not take offense at how you apportion it. For in the apportioning, we gauge our importance. The pie is of equal radius for each of us. How we slice it is for us to determine. And for others to wonder why they go hungry in the apportioning. My words sometimes lean towards cynicism. For that lesser emotion, I can only ask for forgiveness. Cynicism is at its heart both frustration and anger. We imagine how things should be or how we wish they would be. Sometimes founded with experience and sometimes amplified by a dark filter we hold in front of our eyes. We judge others for how they slice and apportion their pie. Even as we fail to measure our own. If you are not deliberately apportioning your pie and life and giving your time to the things that matter to you, you’ve lost. You’re supposed to listen to me about some of these things. Because I sit and contemplate my hypocrisy when I write things like this.
I said, “I apologize for any awkwardness. Would you like this?” It doesn’t matter what it was. You can use your imagination.
He looked at me and smiled. “Thank you!”
We talked for a couple of minutes. As I walked away, he asked me to hold on a second.
He fished something out of his pocket and held it out. I took it from him. It was a dollar coin, shiny and new.
“I’m not going to say I’m not going to take it because you want me to have it. What’s the story? I know there is one.” I asked him.
He hesitated.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. But I love good stories.”
He said, “I always carry three of these new coins. One for the past, one for the future, and one for the now. Even though they’re the same, I like to imagine I’m giving away the coin that is the past. Sometimes I have to spend them.”
“Damn,” I said, surprised. “That is interesting.” And I meant it.
“If someone needs it, give it to them.” I was walking away when he said that. It made me temporarily mute, so I just nodded.
PS Earlier in the morning, I had a similar moment with another man. Though he did not have much, he always took the time to take the little extra he had and walk it to one of the small parking lot food pantries in Fayetteville. If I were looking for the definition of a kind, charitable heart, it would be him.
The brooch is one I wore today. I loved telling people, “It’s a brooch to celebrate my new promotion to Dance Commander.” The responses varied, but all made the day a little more interesting.
P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 