Ever since I can remember I have had this small wooden bookcase in my room. The bookcase is only about 2 1/2 feet high and 3 feet wide and is made out of pine. It has a small piece of scrollwork right under the top shelf that gives it a modest classic presence and the wood is stained a golden honey color.
When I was a child it stood between my bed and my brother's bed. The bookcase sat right under the window that looked to the east. I would lean on the bookcase and brace myself so that I could look out that window and watch the sun rise over Omak Mountain. I would also check to see if the neighbor kids were up yet and playing outside in their yard.
I kept my favorite books on this bookcase. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Hound of the Baskervilles and the Last of the Mohicans were the books I remember. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was my favorite and I was always thumbing through it looking for the most gruesome parts before I went to sleep. I also had an old copy of Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson who I think I really wanted to become when I grew up.I remember that this copy of Treasure Island had some great maps in it and a picture of Stevenson dressed as a Pirate.
Later as I became a teenager I had a radio on the bookcase. My parent's house had these copper balls on the roof of the house that were supposed to attract lightning strikes instead of having the lightning hitting the roof. The thought that lightning was going to strike the house was troublesome to me as a kid but the copper balls made for a great antenna for my radio. One day I scurried out on the roof of the house and attached my radios antenna, via more copper electrical wire, to the lightening balls. Voila, I could listen to rock stations, at night, from as far away as San Francisco.
I remember lying in bed and listening to KNBR, a station in San Francisco that had a DJ who had a show late at night called the Crazy World of Arthur Brown who used to sing about being lowered into fire or something like that between songs. Later on he made this little ditty into a hit song called Fire. He would scream out that he was the god of Hellfire and this would bounce out into the darkness of my room and I would laugh out loud. Every night I would lie in bed and hear all the hit songs coming out of the Bay Area in the mid sixties. I first heard Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead and the Fugs on this station. I loved feeling a part of the 60's even if it was only by listening to the radio. The 60's were a long ways away from the Okanogan back then.
Back to the copper lightning balls, there was once a storm that came up with a lot of lightning and thunder and I leaned on the bookcase and yelled out "come on hit the lightning rods and let's see if they work!" If I had any sense I would have realized that the copper ball was about five feet from my face and if lightning had struck I would have probably been burned to death.
Another big thrill for me, associated with this bookcase, came with my discovery of the "Catcher In the Rye" by JD Salinger. During the 60's this book was the most coveted by kids because it was so hated by adults and it was banned from libraries and it was thought of as pornography. Well one day I was going through my parent's books to find something to read and as I scanned the books I thought out loud.
Let's see, Readers Digests, enough Raymond Chandler mysteries to paper over downtown Omak, Time and Newsweek magazines and then suddenly there it was "The Catcher In the Rye," My eyes blinked 600 times and I couldn't believe my find. The most notorious book in the world is just sitting in my house. What the hell is going on? How can it be that I am actually touching this book? At first I was almost afraid to open the book thinking demons were going to jump out of the pages with naked women wrapped around them.
I looked around the room to see if my parents were watching me and then I just calmly put the book under my arm and quickly walked upstairs into my room. I tucked the book on the shelf of my bookcase and for days I just looked at the title of the book staring back out at me just beaming to know I had the book when so many kids across America weren't even allowed to see the book. What fortune, I Charlie Grimes have "The Catcher in the Rye " right here in my own god damned room and I actually found it on my parent's bookshelf. I didn't have to break any laws to get this book. The book just landed in my lap when I wasn't even looking. I would run home from school and climb the stairs to my room at full speed just to make sure the book was still there on the bookcase. I didn't even tell my friends I had it thinking they would tell someone else and then my parent's would find out I had found it and take the book away. Gradually I began to read the book and then the voodoo of the book being dirty wore off and the insight and angst of being a confused teenager forever changed me. The constant swearing was great too. I learned some great comeback lines from Salinger. Every time I clip my toenails I think of Holden and his college roommates. Funny thing about that book my parent's never even noticed it was missing from their bookcase and they never went looking for it. I thought then that providence wanted me to have it.
In high school I talked my parents into having a teenage phone line in my bedroom. The green rotary dial phone sat on the bookcase. At least it did for a while until one day, as I was talking to my girlfriend in Tonasket, my father drove home and calmly walked into my bedroom. He went over to the phone cord and pulled it out of the wall. This is back in the days when phone lines were hardwired into the wall. The long distance bill had just come that day for the phone and this was my father's way of announcing the phone was now gone from my life.
When I left for college this bookcase always was near my bed and I always laid the important books of my days on top of my little wooden friend. Books of Greek history, Nietzsche, Jung and Rilke were always to be found there. I would read these books with great intensity and then lay them down for safekeeping on this little bookcase.
When Melanie and I got married and moved into our first house all we had was two suitcases full of clothes, an old blue velour chair, a mattress and this bookcase. I put Melanie's picture on top of it to keep her safe. Throughout these past 40 years since I left my parent's home this bookcase has been with me. In our home on Queen Anne, in Seattle, for 25 years I kept only my favorite books on its shelves. It's funny how I have become attached to this little bookcase. It's not really any thing to look at but it has served me well for so long it's like a part of me. This bookcase has observed my entire life and been a partner in my best moments of reflection and thought.
Today that bookcase lives with me in Ann Arbor. Once again my radio sits on top of it and I have my favorite rocking chair right next to the bookcase and it is here that I read, reflect and listen to classical music. I am sitting next to it now as I write this and my favorite book on the Peloponnesian war sits on top of it. Some things never change.
When I am old and unsteady I will have to get up from my chair and brace myself on this bookcase like I did as a small child trying to see out the window of my bedroom. I wonder what I will be reading then or what I will see out the window.
The morning was magnificent. The sun was bright and the sky was clear and blue as a robin's egg. My monsters had been put to rest.
Melanie and I were out enjoying the day. She was driving the Saab and I was following behind the car on my bicycle. My bicycle helmet was wired with a cell phone and Melanie and I were yakking away about how much fun it was to be out in the country going down the road.
We sped along for a while and then it seemed to me we were headed into the little town of Loomis, where my grandparents had homesteaded in the 1920's. This greatly surprised me as Loomis was a very small town in Eastern Washington and I thought we had started our day in Michigan.
As we pulled into Loomis there was a young girl on my left riding her bicycle. At first she was apprehensive of me but she then realized it was safe to befriend me and she started to weave about on her bicycle just the way I have always done while riding my bicycle. Even as an adult I have always managed to be playful while riding and this young girl seemed to have the same fun I do while riding. She told me her name was Grace and she seemed to be the composite of all the younger sisters of my teenage girlfriends. She was sort of cute, smart and very observant. Being observant seemed to be the main focus of her life. As we rode along I lost sight of Melanie and my phone would no longer contact her.
After about ten minutes of riding with no hands and weaving about on the bicycles Grace challenged me to a race and she took off pedaling furiously. I followed after her for quite sometime and then I recognized that she was steering into the driveway of a high school friend of mine named Nancy.
Nancy had been a close friend of my girlfriend Susan and I had spent many a weekend double dating with her and her boyfriend Steven. I had always been friendly with Nancy but I did not trust her too much because she was always conflicted about her relationships and I was never interested in making my life that complex.
Grace was laughing and calling out to me and she then told me she was Nancy's little sister and that Nancy was waiting for me in the back yard. Grace and I pulled up on the lawn and stayed on our bikes to speak to Nancy. Nancy was lying on a chaise lounge in the buff. Her long brown hair was wound around her body to cover her up. Her beatific face smiled at me and she did not seem surprised to see me after all of these years. Nancy was still 18 but she seemed frozen in place almost and hardly moved any part of her body except to speak to me. Nancy wanted to get together with me after her sunbathing was over and she suggested that Grace show me the labyrinth her father had built in the back yard.
Grace excitedly agreed to show me the labyrinth and we took off on the bikes to view it.
Out in the woods behind the house was this monolithic structure that was part living space and part jungle gym adventure space where you climbed up walls and down secret passageways for sport. Grace and I spent quite some time traversing this cavernous building and as we walked to the end of the structure there was a very large room where many people had gathered to meet with me.
All of the people who have been integral in my life's journey where there. My parent's and their parents were standing in the crowd. My in-laws and cousins and friends and teachers were all there to speak with me. Even the best of my enemies were there before me marveling that they had not deterred me from making it this far in life.
The crowd started to form a semi-circle around me and as these people began to come closer together someone began to take photographs of everyone and the shots began to look eerily like the cover of the Beatles album Sgt. Peppers.
Grace stood before me and her face morphed 40 years in age from 11 to 51 and she started to challenge me. She said that Nancy wasn't coming because Nancy had been alarmed that I was so much older now and what had happened to me. I had never fulfilled my promise of an evolved being. Grace asked me if I looked deep inside myself and if I had a soul. As she asked these questions she became more and more like a grand inquisitor and she finally said that in the end am I a good person or not. The challenge is between the truth and lies. Then as the crowd began to press in towards me to see if I was good or bad Grace told me that I needed to work harder on developing my intelligence because I really needed to prosper using my mind. I had to stop only thinking of enjoying myself and looking for the easy way out. Now was the time to develop my mind and my skills or else my demons were going to destroy my talented intellect.
With each passing moment Grace's features turned phoenix bird like and she told me that I had no choice now at this point in my life and I needed to act with passion. Grace turned her head towards the crowd with a bird like stare and they all shouted with agreement and they all looked at me as if I had spent my entire life disappointing them. Grace lifted off the ground and flew away and I was left with all of these people who demanded more discipline from myself. They all expected so much from me.
The evening was magnificent.
Ancient Bodhisattva
I wander through fields, along streams and I hike across meadows to reach a stream where I drink the clear cold water by cupping my hands together. I hike in ravines and climb up the sides of gulleys. I slip in the mud and I have to push back the branches of trees that obscure the path.
The winter sun splashes light around me glancing off the snow. I wander as I did as a young boy. Alone, quietly going in one direction from home until it is time to retrace my steps and return for dinner.
Only my mother will not be calling my name out in the darkness. She won't be letting the neighborhood know I should be at the table in five minutes. She won't be doing that because now I am an ancient one.
I am an old man draped in robes and carrying only a wooden bowl. I once had a wooden spoon as well but the spoon became too much of an ego object for me to continue to contend with. The spoon separated me from nature and caused me to judge those who didn't have a spoon. I stand on this hill and view out towards the west. I am crying now because as the sun sets it reminds me of so many nights when my family would wait for me to return from my wanderings and how safe I felt when I returned and sat at the table and ate the meal that was before me. The food never mattered to me as it was always more important to me that my parents wanted me to be there no matter how I behaved. I miss those times so long ago.
Now I am a Bodhisattva. I wander the countryside like the child I used to be and as evening comes I gather myself and walk into the next city or town that I happen upon and find the city center. I place myself on a busy street corner and begin to share my stories with whoever will fill my bowl with food or drink. I engage with others to share this creative world that god has given us.
I share the accounts of my travels in far distant oriental lands or I go into great detail about how I sailed in the Adriatic Ocean with scarcely any equipment using only my wits to travel safely from the Dalmatian Islands to Crete when the Minoans ruled. I tell the tales of passing Atlantis and seeing the debris of the great civilization floating by next to my ship. On occasion, if I am prompted, I discuss Pythagoras and the meaning of Pi. Many young people quiz me on the time I lived in Africa and want to know how they fish in Gabon or track wild prey in Kenya.
I have given up all of my worldly goods and desires to wander the face of the earth looking for the divine spirit in all things. The universe beckons to me and I want to be with it all. When I hear Mozart in my head I open my mouth and try to let the music stream out so I can share this with the divine. I wish for everyone to be allowed to raise their consciousness and bring spirit into their life.
And even though I am ancient and find myself growing weary as night falls I only wish that my devotion to the divine has not separated me from others. I have given up so much and as I meditate at night I repeat the name of god so that my mind will not wander off to the people and places that my worldly self misses so much.
I awake each morning and start off again with the hope that God will fulfill me. This is my journey. If pirates should capture me and tie me to a tree I will still repeat the names of God to protect me. If the pirates should cut out my tongue I will continue repeating the name of God only silently now.
I will see you on the journey someday. We must all travel this path at some time. I started when I least expected to. Be careful of your choices. That is all I have to say.
Mr. Bodhisattva
And, she got some kind of flu, with high temperature and - sore throat!
Laying in the bed whole day.
Later this day, I've been working by your neighbours, day was
delightful and sunny. In a moment I turned my sight
onto your half open wooden window on upper floor. It looked much
capturing than Fiko's immaculate facade with two outer lamps (somehow
I would like to think he brought them from Sweden)...
And, as soon I got home there was a present from you and Julia!
Well, I would like to think events were not connected!
Kind of spooky!
P.S.
Spent December filling joints on my house's facade, and am just a few
days short to finish it, rain and holidays didn't help much.
Slavko
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