Practice Non-Action

Practice non-action and order will occur naturally. - Tao Te Ching

My spring break so far:

1. Plumbing problems! It seems that human waste has been backing up and spilling over. Instead of hiring the grunt work done, I shoveled myself. Traumatized!

2. Unexpected cost of plumbing problems= no money.

3. Weather: MUD! Everywhere! (and shit.)

4. AJ says I am writing pornography.

The last time I had plumbing problems we had to have the drain that goes all the way to the street replaced. The person who was actually doing the work, shoveling holes and digging shit, was paid minimum wage. The owner of the company would drive up in his Mercedes and oversee occasionally.

You know, the amount of human waste people expel is pretty amazing when it's not hidden in pipes and carried away. Kind of scary, really. Right after I shoveled (actually with a kitty litter scoop) about 50 pounds of it into a garbage bag I headed for the store to get some anti-bacterial soap. I turned on the radio and the topic was sanitation systems and the Bubonic Plague. The horror!

But it is all being "fixed" and we will soon be able to go on pretending that we don't create mounds of foul-smelling human excrement daily. We will also be past that last posting, its title glaring at the top of the page and its reference to "thick liquid soaking through pants" that is so troubling. We can pretend sexuality isn't there. We can pretend we don't shit. We can be innocent, and even sometimes pretend we aren't killing thousands of people in Iraq. (Now how in hell did that get in this nice patriotic Christian post?)

I am so used to pleasing everyone that I stop myself in my tracks. Is "action" the right course, or is it "non-action"? Are my capricious dreams my friends or my enemies? Does it matter? Who am I to create a "new life"?

A cardinal builds a nest in the bush under my window, and all the spring birds are singing "hallelulia" this morning. The crocuses pop up their yellow, white and purple heads amidst dirty piles of snow. Trash, washed toward grates in the street does its faded advertising.

Yesterday, sitting in a wet concrete parking lot of melting snow I saw papers and rubbish swirling upward, carried by the strong wind. Red paper spinning, flashing its bright color in the sun, circling... and finally large pieces of brownish newspaper lodged in the bare branches of a nearby tree. Grace and beauty are everywhere. You don't need money for that.