Live More With Less

This is the fifth post in my 30 for 30/30 series where I am publishing a new post each day for the next 30 days within a 30-minute window without much of a plan. You can read about why I’m doing this by clicking this link. 

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For the past few days, I’ve been in bed -literally in bed most of the day- with a mild case of the flu. 

Yes, I had a flu shot in November but I still contracted it. I missed last Friday and today (Monday) of work. 

I’ve felt like warmed over crap.

(Hence, the photo above. No charge for that by the way.)

I don’t have much energy today and the writing is difficult as my brain fog is definitively thicker than normal.

(Some will find this difficult to imagine.)

I’m writing in very short, declarative sentences.

(You are free to think I’m brilliantly succinct.)

I won’t bore you with a description of various symptoms and bodily fluids that have become my companions. 

(No, I didn’t have the Big D or the Big V. I knew it crossed your mind.)

However, my eyelids feel like two sheets of sandpaper rubbing against one another.

Neither my Refresh Contacts, Refresh Optive, nor my Systane Complete eyedrops are making much of a difference.

Sir Buddy is nearby, as usual, goading me into taking him for a walk.

(Doesn’t he know it’s raining?)

I’ve used up my energy budget for today.

So, as Michael Gary Scott once said,

“Catch you on the flippety-flip.”

This is the fourth post in my 30 for 30/30 series where I am publishing a new post each day for the next 30 days within a 30-minute window without much of a plan. You can read about why I’m doing this by clicking this link. 

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This morning while it was still dark, I finished Kamal Ravikant’s second book, Live Your Truth. Kamal is a writer based in San Francisco and has also written Love Yourself -Like Your Life Depends On It, a book I read last month.

Kamal is a writer who, with a surgeon’s skill, ruthlessly resects anything extraneous, leaving only the words and ideas that really matter on each page.

I think every writer who has ever worked to find their voice can recognize the skills in others who’ve achieved it.

As is the case when I read Hemingway, the experience of reading Kamal Ravikant results in me wanting to become a better writer; one who cuts out the extraneous leaving only the rawest truth behind.

Living our truth

Before any of us can live our truth we need to know what it is. Our truth is as unique and individual as our individual DNA. It’s the triple helix of what we hold most dear.

Our truth isn’t our chosen religion or practice, but something much deeper. It’s what left after we sift through the extraneous minutia that fills our daily experience and personal history. It’s more the essence of who we are.

I don’t think that our truth has to be just one thing. In my case, kindness and self-expression are two of my truths; they are what I hope is left after I end and opinion begins. They are perhaps what I hope comes to mind for others after I’m gone.

Living our truth is a commitment to being authentic; to leaving only raw truth on the pages of our experience and, at the end of each day, being comfortable with how lived should it be our last.

What’s your truth? Are you living it each day?

If not, it’s the perfect day to begin.

This is the third post in my 30 for 30/30 series where I am publishing a new post each day for the next 30 days within a 30-minute window without much of a plan. You can read about why I’m doing this by clicking this link. 

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The dog at my feet

As I stand here at my desk (#TheReadyDesk) in my bedroom writing this post, Sir Buddy, Lord Protector of the Realm pictured above, is at my feet. My son Jay is in his room and for now, Sir Buddy is taking a rest from his continual effort to herd us into the same room. 

We live in Irvine in a ground floor single story two bedroom condo with bedrooms at either end of the space. Sir Buddy likes it when Jay and I are in the same room. But that rarely happens since we have only a recliner chair in the living room and we don’t have a dining room table in the dining room.

Having said that, you’ll understand how Jay and I mostly live; it reminds me of the title from my favorite Elton John concert album, Here and There. When we talk together we’re either in the small kitchen or in my room since it’s much roomier.

Either way, Sir Buddy lives for those moments. I think it’s the only time he can actually relax apart from when he’s asleep on my yoga mat or in Jay’s bed.

Brass rubbing outside of London

In 1976 I lived in England for a while and on my way out of the country, I stayed for a few weeks with some relatives of a friend, an American family in West Byfleet, a suburb of London. My extended residency of three weeks longer than anticipated was partially due to having an acute ear infection that prevented me from flying. 

Nelda, the missus of the household, took me to visit an old church in Oxely, a quaint, damp village out in the country where she’d completed some brass rubbings. I’d admired the framed pieces in their home and so she took that as an expression of interest and willingness to participate.

Brass rubbings are created by taping thick black rolled art-quality paper over the brass effigies that were placed in the stone floor of the church where a 17th Century couple was interred. Using a specialized tracing crayon, brassy-gold in color, the rubbing was produced much like you’d imagine, using the crayon to create the image that the effigy impressed on the paper from underneath

I remember that the day was cold and inside the church, it was even colder. I did my best to produce a rubbing of the man, John of Oxley as I recall, and Nelda worker her magic on his wife, Mary. The resulting rubbings were packed in my suitcase and given to my parents when I returned. They had them framed and later gave them to me decades later.

Dogs and brass rubbings?

What I didn’t mention above was that at the feet of both John and Mary laid dogs, whippets or greyhounds perhaps. The idea was that the dog was keeping the feet of the deceased warm. 

This, of course, begs the question as to whether or not pets were killed and buried with their masters. I’ve never researched it and since I’m coming up on my self-imposed 30-minute limit for this post, I’ll leave you to search out this information and leave me a comment below regarding what you learned.

This is the second post in my 30 for 30/30 series where I am publishing a new post each day for the next 30 days within a 30-minute window without much of a plan. You can read about why I’m doing this by clicking this link.

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First of all, no one died. 

However, the tree pictured above, a magnificent specimen of arborous life in my former home in Santa Cruz County, is an example of how nature can play a significant role in our lives. 

I photographed this tree at different times of the day and in all seasons during the 12 years I live at Seacliff Beach. Each morning I’d walk Sir Buddy, Lord Protector of the Realm on the Esplanade at Rio Del Mar Beach heading north to Seacliff where ‘my tree’ stood watching over picnics, sea glass hunters, joggers, and fellow dog walkers.

Each time I passed this tree Sir Buddy would honor it in his special way and I’d give it a love pat. It never ceased to inspire me with its stately presence and enduring sense of place. How long had it been in this spot? 50 years? 100 years perhaps?

All things pass away

Yesterday my friend Oly informed me that my tree was removed. The last time I visited it, about 6 months ago I think, it didn’t look healthy. The signs of age were there.

I’m sad that I’ll never see it again; that I’ll never be able to rest momentarily under it’s uniquely twisted and angled evergreen boughs that creaked during raging storms and glistened afterward.

But in reality, all things pass away. Eventually, even such enduring natural wonders like Yosemite National Park’s iconic Half Dome rock formation will cease to be, given enough time, wind, and rain.

If you don’t believe that, just think about what the Grand Canyon looked like before wind and rain intervened.

Goodbye, old friend. You will be missed.

(22 minutes)

30 for 30/30, #1 – Lessons in Etiquette