Comedy and Trauma

For as much as I think, I should write, simply get it out, as soon as it streams in.  There’s nothing worse than having a thought at an inopportune time and then thinking, “I should remember to write that down.”  Perhaps it will even free up a bit of mental real estate.  But like today’s market, that might be over-valued.

Funny how staring at the computer-screen can cease all thoughts. ENTIRELY.

 

So, there are all of these “projects”: work-stuff, personal-stuff, life-stuff.  And, yet, I am on the central coast of California in Cayucos, staring at the ocean on a foggy day in May, while sitting wrapped up in a coffee and vanilla colored baby alpaca scarf from Peru with my laptop resting on the board-shorts I recently bought on Maui. (Notice how it’s ‘on Maui’ and not ‘in Maui’? After all, it’s not ‘on Cayucos’; it’s ‘in Cayucos’. For that matter, why is vanilla always white, when there is NOTHING white about vanilla?)

It’s probably not wise to use one’s laptop with flocks of Pelicans flying overhead, huh? Nothing’s happened yet, but I do feel as though I am tempting fate, as I was shat upon TWICE last week in Los Angeles, gratefully, neither time my laptop was targeted.  Granted, the first time was by a hummingbird, which felt way more auspicious then it was messy.  The second encounter, I swear, the bird flew out of its way and took aim.  They say, “It’s good luck.”  I guess I should be in Vegas-Baby and not in Cayucos.

Nothing has been finalized, but, I have been “asked” to write, and, not only that, asked to blogboth online for Deepak Chopra’s daughter’s website Intent.com and on BlogTalk Radio.  God knows I can talk ad nauseam, so the radio show will simply be an exercise of constraint. With over 200 amazing healers in the registry of Enlightened Concierge, I have more than enough people to interview for at least the next 4 years. 

But writing is such delicate work.  The free-flowing thoughts need to be carefully crafted with adept wordsmithery and proper punctuation. Punctuation is the only means of adding inflection, pace and rhythm into the ghastly absence of tone of voice, body language and behavior.  After all, words are only 12% of communication.  (That became crystal-clear during my last relationship.) Writing is all about the editing; editing is where the true magic occurs. And that brings me to my favorite thing of all:  cut, copy, paste!  Abracadabra!  This simple word-processing function affords me the filter that I seem to lack while I am speaking extemporaneously.

But there is the personal content that I will need to add to the weekly radio address.  I guess I could re-purpose/recycle (I try to be green) my written Blog by reading it on the air.  However, I write to be read, so reading aloud what I write seems counter-intuitive at best.  It’s always obvious to me when writers read their own work aloud. They seem to miss the joy of discovering the surprise of their own hand-twisted turn of a phrase.

Why start to write (again) now?  I’ve successfully put it off since the time I took a suitcase filled with 12 years’ worth of journals to Maui for a little read. It was at that time that I discovered that I had been writing the same thing over and over for T-W-E-L-V-E YEARS. We all have our patterns, I suppose.

Frankly, I was bored reading them and couldn’t imagine that anyone else might find it interesting.  I stopped writing, right there and then.  It was at that point in time that I also quit reading so much ‘self-help’.  It hadn’t REALLY helped.  I recall that, long ago, I had even bought a book on “self-sabotage.” Never finished it.  (Bu-dum-cha!)

In fact, it was the moment that I decided to stop all spiritual pursuits. I began to question if I were a physical man trying to lead a spiritual life or a spiritual man trying to live a physical life. I decided that I was a complicated man who wanted to live a simple life. As the Buddhists say, “Chop wood.  Carry water.” 

But then, years later, there was the car wreck four nights before Christmas that changed everything.  I guess it goes without saying that if your car flips end-over-end, rolls across three lanes of traffic on one of LA’s busiest freeways, and slides on the driver’s door for 150 feet before slamming into a concrete wall, then it may just be A Time of Reckoning.  And, it was just for me; no other cars were involved, except for the car that clipped me as it tried to overtake the other car that it was racing.  One of the witnesses said that she thought the car that hit mine was red.  But it was going too fast to really tell for sure. 

Little did I know, as I stood laughing barefoot on the highway-of-life, waiting for the police to arrive, that my life had begun – again?  Who knew that I needed to reboot?  Perhaps that would explain the voice (outside of my head) that told me mid-way through the accident that, “There’s nothing you can do anymore.  Just let go.”  And so, I did.  I took my hands off of the wheel and my foot off of the brake. I Let Go!  And, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride had only just begun… It’s everything that has happened since then that I think is really interesting.