touchstones

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Old farts have memories that hang around like well-broken-in loafers -- slipping onto the feet of the present with a comforting and comfortable warmth. One of mine (again) is this:

Once upon a time in Berlin, I went to a concert given by the flamenco guitarist Carlos Montoya. He would have been in his late 50's at the time. The house was packed. Montoya took his seat on stage with the air of a favorite uncle who had stopped by for a glass of wine and a bit of company -- just an old friend being friendly. Nothing elevated or expert about him. And for a couple of hours, he played.

Carlos Montoya

The music reached out, inviting the heart to savor and chew. It soared or grew soft. It was fiery and refined. It was not "Montoya." It was just music. And when at last he finished, the theater exploded in applause and cheers. He walked off stage and the audience called him back. Again and again and again, they called him back. Again and again and again, he agreed to play just one more melody. Again and again and again until ....

He walked on stage just one last time and said in English because he spoke no German, "I am tired. I will play you some scales." And he did just that -- hammering-on scales using only his left hand along the neck of the guitar. Scales ... the building blocks of all the beauty and fire that had come before or would come later. Just scales. And when he had finished, when the last note drifted away ... if possible, the audience roared even louder. There was delight and there was a kind of desperation in it ... this soaring heart was the way life was supposed to be and everyone knew it and yet without Montoya, without the expert's touch, how could my heart continue to soar?! It was a blessing to have found this wondrous place ... please, please, please don't go!

Just scales. Just the building blocks. Just the touchstones of mighty skyscrapers.

Nothing fancy is both the sine qua non of what is fancy and the place to which fancy returns after an energetic run.

In memory, this old fart's heart is warmed and yet, because it is not yet dead, shifts gears to another somehow-linked metaphor ... the skipping of stones. The flattened stone leaves the thrower's hand and reaches out along the smooth water, skipping one, two, three, four, five ... times.

The stone soars out of the water only to touch down again, lift again, touch down again, lift again ... each time returning to the scales-plain foundation of the water. The soarings are fiery or refined or magnificent or something. So assertive. So important to the adventure of skipping stones. But shorter and shorter the soarings become until at last 'soaring' comes to rest and sinks quietly to the bottom of the pond.

Yet each touchdown and lift-off implies and reflects a body of experience that may have been long and arduous and full of pitfalls or delight.

This morning I am reminded of some touchdowns that are now only expressed in brief bits of witticism or wisdom ... a few reminders of efforts once made or reminders of wrong turnings not to repeat. Each is brief and yet carries with it a host of meaning that there is no longer the energy or willingness to reassert. Skipping along with touchdowns I do not attribute but rather find useful from time to time ...

-- Love and charity towards all beings
Contentment under all circumstances
Control of the senses and passions....

-- Whores do well for money what others do poorly for free.

--  I am not a Buddha. I'm just and ordinary fellow who understands things.

-- Grasp and use, but never name.

-- There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.
-- Man without God is like a fish without a bicycle.
-- Just because you are indispensable to the universe does not mean the universe needs your help.
-- It can't be helped.
-- The sole usefulness of any observed mistake lies in my willingness not to indulge in it.
-- Belief and hope live in the past. People live in the present.
-- We luv etchuther.

And that is not the whole of the laundry list, nor would I expect anyone to embrace my skip-skip-skippings as their own. Everyone makes a personal list of small reminders that may be based on powerful and fiery experiences and yet like those long-hand experiences, slowly, slowly, slowly loses its own necessity and oomph.

What need to be reminded?

Isn't this good enough?

Isn't this music?

And of course -- like it or lump it -- it is.
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