Awakening is a primitive time. A time not meant for words, but for touches, and looks. This crossing into the waking world predates language. It should be done by man as it is done by the wolf pack. Languorous and slow and silent, uncurling the body as the consciousness uncurls.

I love absolutes. I love the way they cut through gray areas and petty details like the complicated nature of responsibilities and limitations, and give simple guidelines for us to follow.

One of my favorites is, “if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” I like to reword it this way, so that it’s a little more clear what we’re actually saying: “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re probably a terrorist.”

For those of you who might feel down on yourselves because you sometimes aren’t part of “the solution”, I’ve written in a few more reasonable endings to the statement. Hopefully reading them will make you feel more upbeat about your role in the vast and complex matrix of our global society.

If you’re not part of the solution, you’re probably pretty busy with other stuff.

If you’re not part of the solution, it’s okay, the urgency of the problem was vastly exaggerated.

If you’re not part of the solution, it’s unlikely that you have a skillset relevant to solving the problem anyway.

If you’re not part of the solution, you don’t have to spend your spring break in Libya.

If you’re not part of the solution, you’re probably part of other solutions.

If you’re not part of the solution, then this broad generalization applies to you.

If you’re not part of the solution, no one is really keeping track.

Finally and perhaps most importantly:

If you’re not part of the solution, you’re still a pretty decent person, and everyone says really nice things about you.

There was a food truck gathering in the vacant lot on Friday. The vacant lot is at the bottom of the hill that my office building is at the top of, so I walked out to the road, and down.

It was cold, by Southern California standards, and the cold was refreshing. It preceded rains, but at lunch time the sky above was all blue and billowing white clouds with only the beginnings of storm sign rising in the southeast.

They cleaned up the old empty lot, laying a pathway of uniformly sized gray stones. As I walked down the path they pressed into my feet through my thin soled dress shoes.

There were four trucks, and room for more. The small tent and few chairs were a small concession to the remoteness of the lot, a passing nod to the creature comforts of diners, like a backhanded compliment.

One of the things that I love about food trucks is the low opportunity cost. At $3 to $7 per entree, you can sample several unique dishes for the cost of a normal restaurant visit. I have always made it a point to try new things.

From Chomp Chomp Nation, a food truck which professes to be “More than Singapore!”, I tried a crab slider with “fried roots”(?!).

I have an idea that a slider, despite how it is portrayed, is actually a wholly correct portion for a luncheoning sandwich. This one didn’t disappoint. Nor did it particularly entice. It was middling good, the sweetish sauce was what shone. The crab meat was good but the seasoning was lackluster, I’ve certainly had better crab cakes, and expected more flavor in the meat. The bread wasn’t sweet, but was light and fluffy and delicious in its own right. In fact, the bread was in close contention with the sauce for my favorite part of the sandwich. In all it was well balanced and quite good enough. The roots were unique, but tasted mostly of Fried.

From the Rancho Rocke (Rancho-a-Go-Go) truck I bought a pulled pork grilled cheese sandwich.

This purchase was rank cowardice. I was hedging. I felt the crab slider was a risk and I knew both from past experience and inborn instinct that pulled pork and melted cheese between butter-fried toast would never, no not ever, fail to satisfy. I was right. The carolina style pulled pork (and NOT carolina style Barbecue sauce) was (were) perfect.

Finally, the Flip Truck provided me with French fries (a staple, after all) and truffle ketchup.

The french fries were cooked and salted well. The truffle ketchup was…interesting. The acidic taste of the tomato balanced the truffle in a way that I didn’t particularly enjoy, but I enjoyed the truffle flavor so much despite this strangeness that I ate every bite of french fry dipped in truffle ketchup. And make no mistake: I ate every bite of french fry.

Food trucks can be the good kind of culinary adventure, and I enjoy eating from them most of all when I let myself explore the more exotic aspects of their menus, but a little hedging never hurt anyone. I was very satisfied with my meal. Especially with those items that I knew I’d be satisfied by.

A song for a mother is an impossible thing.  It must be wistful, and joyous, and crushingly, desperately sad.  

There’s only one role, only the mother, who’s greatest expression of love, who’s final goal in loving, is to release the one that they have spent their lives sheltering, into pain and fear and confusion. 

What will we sing to our mothers, who have died every time we suffer, who have sacrificed their identities, who have wanted only to love us, and who we must leave?

What song of thanks, and love, and longing, and sorrow, is worthy of them?

I enjoy music for the melody, but that’s only what hooks me.  I can’t love a song that doesn’t have smart lyrics.  I’ve had this conversation many times with Jonathan, he’s music and I’m lyrics.  When I listen to music I think about it, and recently I’ve been thinking about this Ryan Adams song.

If you’re not familiar with Ryan Adams, you should take some time to become familiar.  He’s labeled “Alt Country” but it’s more like Folk with a twang.  His songs are soulful, his voice is perfect, and the music…Why would you read an inadequate description of it, when you could just go listen?

I love this song.  In it, he sings:

Today is yesterday when you don’t know
How to rebuild the walls that someone has knocked down
To tell the truth it’s hard enough without a lover
Who you want to hide your darkness from
So they won’t let you down

I don’t think walls can be knocked down, I think we have to choose to let people in through our walls.  Maybe “knocking a wall down” is just the act of deciding that you’re going to let everyone through that wall, until there are so many doorways that the wall doesn’t matter anymore.  That choice has to be made by the wall’s owner.  You can’t knock down my walls.  You can only give me acceptance and love, which is the environment in which this sort of internal masonry takes place.

To tell the truth it’s hard enough without a lover
Who you want to hide your darkness from
So they won’t let you down

I understand this fear, and the resultant tendency to hide, so well.  There are a billion relationships functioning based on this model.  They may even contain, at their heart, two people who are fundamentally happy in and of themselves, and content with one another.

Don’t.

Find someone you want to show your darkness to.  If they can see who you truly are, and accept you, if they give you love and approval, don’t question it.  When you find this person, when you give them truth and they trade with you in kind, when you allow passage through all of your walls and they stand in the place of All Seeing, and do not revile…trust them.  Then, tell no lie, cover no fault, fear no shame, hide no hurt.  Safeguard what you are, because what breathes between your breaths, and pulses between the steady rhythm of your conversations and your heartbeats, is more fragile than a secret and more precious than hope.