I’ve been trying to meditate—I guess I should just say I’ve been meditating—but I’ve always been reluctant because of woo-woo hipsters.  I was talking to Mary about chants, asked if there were any in English and she said that you can say anything or nothing at all but the reason people say things like hare Krishna Krishna hare is because there’s a vibration to the language that’s more apparent than in English.

So I thought of this Robert Pinsky poem, “Sayings of the Old” I read recently in The New Yorker and he writes:

One hates the sanctimonious Buddha-goo
But loves to meditate. To think one word
And the breath balanced on its floor of muscle

Falling and rising like years, The brain-roof chatter
Settling among the eaves. All falling and rising
And falling again in the calm brute rhythm of hooves.

Decided to just get over myself and maybe stop thinking that everybody practicing something for thousands of years aren’t idiots.  I chanted.  It helped.

I’m meditating to help with panic attacks.  Panic attacks are so godawful that a person gets to a point where they humble themselves and become open to things they might otherwise be too snooty to try.

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The theme of this morning was poop on limbs.  First dog poop on Edie’s shoes, then her poop on her legs.  In the process of cleaning both, I got poop on my fingers.  At her school—her Monday Wednesday school, that is—they have a monkey they call the Super Diaper Monkey.  Edie loves that.  Super Diaper Monkey even has a cape.  Not that I had any doubts but it’s little things like that makes me know she’s in the right place.

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