On Tying
So I found myself teaching Annie how to tie her shoes. That's my 5-year-old daughter. Don't get hung up on names. Names are just little markers to keep track of ceaselessly changing explosions of flux and bad attitudes. So yeah, there I am, teaching my daughter how to tie shoes. I don't know how I got there. I'm just there, poignantly aware. Her laces are dangling off her pink Chuck Taylors and she's pissed about it. She doesn't want them tied. She wants to learn how to tie.
There's this Zen story I like about a monk sweeping the path. He sweeps a pebble into a tree. Thunk! And the sound - it's all in the sound - awakens the monk to good great enlightenment. Just like that. And then monks always say cool shit when they get enlightened like "The sky speaks freely about the truth of all things but the grass maintains her secret" or "The Buddha smiles on chocolate and peanut butter alike. Ho! Ha!" You know? I love crazy Zen stories. Monks are badasses.
How does that tie in? I don't know. That's what I'm trying to tell you.
So there she is with her little pink shoes. And she's tall. When did she get so tall? She was just a waily baby 10 minutes ago. And now she's hell bent on tying her shoes?!? Do you ever have moments like this? It's like you've achieved some kind of super consciousness but not the kind of super consciousness that knows everything. It's more like a stunned stupid super consciousness that realizes you don't know anything. You're extremely present but you don't know how you got there. I grew up in Michigan. Now I live in Albuquerque. How the fuck did I wind up in New Mexico?
My first job was washing dishes at Cindy's Country Corral. I hated it. I would open the dish washer and pull out a tray of sparkling clean silverware. And I'd always catch a gleam of shine in my eye off the round of a spoon. Ping. You know? When clean shit sparkles and gleams. Every time I pulled out a tray of silverware, ping, I'd mutter "Here we go again". Oh God I hated it. I always found myself back in this situation. During my shift. Silverware. Ping. Throughout my week. Silverware. Ping. It was like Groundhog's day with this fucking silverware. Like my life was a big circle that always led back to silverware.
What's that got to do with anything? You're the reader. You tie it up.
So we're crossing the laces, going under the bridge and she's focused, real hard. Her tongue is out. She's contorting her fingers unto new paths of Being. She so ardently wants to know and I want to show her but I'm also acutely aware that she will one day perish. How is there a world upon which a man teaches a little girl how to tie pink shoes?
These lives. You can't tie them up into pretty little bows. One day you're washing dishes. The next you're mining coal. You're in a bookstore with your best friend. Then he's dead. Babies are suddenly in 6th Grade learning about how light is both waves and particles. When did the young woman you married turn 40 and when did she start forgetting entire conversations?
"You make a loop, honey. Yeah. Like that. Now go alllll the wayyy arounnnd the world. And back through where you started. There. Yeah. That's the hardest part."
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Reader Comments (46)
I think maybe there's the possibility that I might love you. Much like the monks of whom you write, this could either be totally deep and insightful and moving and relevant and touching, or it could be absolute bullshit with no meaning of any kind. Sort of like talking to my kids. My favorite way to start the day.
Wow. Just wow. I am so happy that I found your new location. I had so missed you.
I'm glad your monks aren't all hung up on who's peanut butter is in who's chocolate. And tying shoes...ours always ended in tears. Lots and lots of tears.
I have a hard time tying up all my ends. Great post.
Fabulous, just fabulous! Glad you are back BHJ!
Dude. Velcro.
Sometimes I look up from writing, or cropping photos, or whatever the Hell I'm doing that ISN'T focusing on the Evil Genius, and I see him...SEE him...a little man where my squalling infant used to be. He chooses his own clothes (sometimes they even match), buckles his own shoes (yeah, I bought him sandals that buckle...so what?), gets his own cup and fills it with ice and water (when did he come to like ice? ), fetches his own snacks (fifty-fifty between Cheez-Its or blueberries)...how does this happen? Years have to pass...and I'm not ready for years to have passed.
When did the kid who was obsessed with trains (especially Geo Trax because they're expensive) start reading to himself? When did he develop a sense of humor? Where was I?
He still can't tie shoelaces. I'm not sorry. It'll come...and it'll be one more thing, one more childhood thing, that's gone. One step closer to mortality. Mine or his? Doesn't matter.
Shade and Sweetwater,
K
I don't know why this made me tear up, but it did. Well done.
I'm glad I'll never be expected to teach my little ones how to tie shoes, because everyone knows I can't do it myself.
Making the bed really pisses me off (because redundancy is my kryptonite) but I love having an elaborately-made-up bed to undo.
So I'm fucked either way.
How do you DO this? How do you shine such an amazing light (ping!) on the mundane and make it so solid? THIS is why I read you and THIS is why I'm so glad you're back. Because I never know what to expect when I visit, but whatever you post here stirs me in some way, to think, to laugh, to scream, to cheer, I am always touched by your words.
Ugh. I was a dish pig once, but I did get all the fries I could eat for free so it all worked out. No it didn't, that job was horrible. I made a stab at laces with my son, but now we're back to stinky-ass crocs. "Giggling dirt hugs sweaty child feet."
Any super consciousness I've ever had has been the stupid kind.
it's so true. they do grow up so fast. my baby is 6 now. 1st grade. i was JUST rocking her to sleep yesterday.
started teaching the shoelaces to my 5 year old... he's 8 now.. and finally can tie those bastards in a snap... Took three years...
I'm gonna tie it up. I like this.
Unrelated... my nearly 10-year-old son still can't tie his shoes. He has a slight muscular problem with his hands. We're stressed about it. He doesn't care. He says, "That's why god made slip-ons and velcro."
Lovely. Just lovely. I have a one-year-old and am amazed already that he's as old as he is. He's still all sweetness and light and perfection and simplicity and I don't want to turn him out into the world, but I know I have to.
I cannot think of one reason you haven't written a book yet. Your prose is like poetry.
Also, really - when did they get so tall?
well said. such a string of transitory bits.
Amazing post, and it's true...so very true. Seems like just yesterday I was in high school dealing with things below my maturity level and now I'm dealing with things above my maturity level. Go figure.
Wow. Ping. Thanks.
"And back through where you started. There. Yeah. That's the hardest part."
Indeed.
"I'm also acutely aware that she will one day perish"
That line. That one right there? I think about it all the time with my three jewels. And I have to stomp it down with Diego or a smut novel or talking about pumas because that one tiny little thought will occupy my entire brain.
I can't wrap my head around it.
Love you. Love the post.
Reading your posts is sometimes like playing pool with a fucking pool-playing genius. Just shooting shit into pockets with crazy skill, all kinds of trick shots no one else could make, or make so well, and at the end there's no score or winners and losers, just satisfaction.
Monks are definitely badasses, especially the ones who know kung fu and will gladly climb down from their mountain and distribute ass whoopings aplenty.
I had faith that you wouldn't stray too far. Once you start this stuff, it's hard to quit. And no one likes a quitter.
Hi.
I said "Bye" back on the flip side but I'm glad to find you here too.
I like the new name(s). I like the new stories. I like the way you melt.
That said, I do miss "5."
I think Annie is your Kannon... only angry.
I hope I never know you.
K
Well done.
The growing and getting bigger, don't they know how hard that is on the parents? I just wish I could capture each moment and save it. Cameras, video cameras, and blogs - thank goodness for them.
I'm finding myself becoming obsessive about "guess the edit"...
I love that BHJ!
I'm lazy and I make all my kids wear Crocs--I have no patience for tying or knots.
"I'm also acutely aware that she will one day perish"
yes, they do. sometimes sooner than later.
we're home-schooling our seven year-old, except not in our home. she's learned how to tie her shoes from yvonne, who's a nanny in the same way i'm a professor, eg, not, but wanting for another word. there are two mutually exclusive ways to tie shoelaces, i think, and she's not learnt mine. there's no reteaching her. this is a small thing and yet it's in the queue of not-quite-right things wh pop off the stack one after another when i'm unable to sleep.
Your line about the perishing .. and then Gorillabuns comment about it .. made me have goosebumps on my goosebumps.
The laces are already tied.
Velcro.
Sorry. Couldn't help myself. My smartass response is in no way reflective of how much I enjoyed the shoe-typing parable.
It's amazing how those waves and particles can shift and flux and move you in such mundane and wondrous ways.
dude. It is freaky how we think the same things. You are able to press things down that swim in my head too. I wish we were neighbors and Joe and I could have you over for assorted beverages on our swanky carport.
Look at me getting rewritten!
I could have said "velcro works too" but that would be copying two or three others.
Tying up loose ends is a part of life. It's nice to know that your shoelaces are usually the easiest things to correct.
Sorry! I know there is a malleable nature to these comments and I thought TwoBusy's post was mine after a metaphysical edit... oops.
You live in ABQ now? Bring the fam to Santa Fe. We'll get green chile cheesburgers.
My first job was selling shoes at a J.C. Penney in north Florida. Two years of wedging fat, stinky, wrinkled feet into cheap faux leather shoes. That job helped me realize two things. 1) I had to get the hell out of Florida, preferably as far away as possible. 2) I had to get out of customer service.
Mission fucking accomplished.
Dude, whatever you call yourself, your kids, your genitals, whatever, I'm glad you're back.
i don't know how or why i've never been to your blog before. but seriously, i think it probably one of the best blogs i've ever read. AWESOME!!
Dude, this post totally reminds me of the Talking Heads song, "Once In A Lifetime" -- "well, how'd I get here???" Yeah it's like that.
One day you're a doofy ass teenager heading off to college and the next you're the parent of teens, one of whom still can't tie his shoes. Zen boy states that he has more important things in the universe to worry about...like his penis or whatever...but still...the fact remains that he is about to be 17 and I worry about sending him off into the world to trip over his laces and laugh about it when it happens.
Zen, baby. I think child raising is all about Zen. I don't have any other explanation for the shit that happens. I think if you don't go with the flow it just might inundate you. Better to ride that wave, eh?
My first job was serving ice cream and coffee to old rich ladies who truly believed a quarter was a great tip. Bleh. I quit one day in the middle of Saturday rush saying "fuck this" and you know what...I'm glad I did.
Ain't life grand?
Hugs from Moon in MO
Albuquerque? You were supposed to make the left!!!
been lurking..missed ya- glad yr b(l)ack!
Beautiful.
Namaste.