simple moments

Lloyd arrived today. I saw him for just a few moments before I went over to the high school for the Homecoming Game, but we got to catch up a bit when I came back. He stopped at Golden Rule BBQ on his way in of course, that’s his favorite. Grandma knows that’s his favorite and I think she gets a kick out of it when he walks in the door with BBQ almost like clockwork every time he comes. You calculate what time his plane landed, then add about 45 minutes to an hour for drive time, and about 15 to 20 minutes for his stop at Golden Rule. The good news is we’ll have BBQ to eat for tomorrow.
The game was great, but it was a runaway. The home team, SCHS, was up 30-something to 0 at halftime. Peg Hill, the superintendent and also one of my mother’s best friends from when she was in school here (they were in the same class), spotted me as she walked by and made a crack about how they set up homecoming to be a surefire win. It’s good for moral I suppose.
The football game was just half the fun I realized because the halftime show was great too. Even though the game was pretty lopsided, Shelby County was crushing them, there were two competitions going on to enjoy. One between the football teams, one between the marching bands. I went to small private high school and I missed out on the marching band phenomena. Now when I go to the local games down here and get to see it in action I always get a kick out of it.
We need a marching band for the movement. A marching band is such a good metaphor for an organism made up of the sum of all its parts. Not everyone can be on the football team, but the marching band seems to offer something for everyone. You can play an instrument, like the tuba or the horns or the drums, or you can be a dancer and wear sequins and shiny capes, or you can be a majorette and throw the baton, or you can be the drum captain, or you can even be one of the younger siblings that runs around and hands out the different props to the dancers in between songs and sequences and stuff, kind of like a ball boy. Costumes, solos, arrangements, leaders, solos, moving formations, whistles, there’s so much you can do with a marching band. The options are almost limitless. Then I realized only half the parents are there to support their football player, maybe not even half. Lot’s of parents are there to support their kid that’s in the band, or a cheerleader. Now that I think about it the whole Friday night football event is a metaphor for a larger organism that cuts across all ages, from the younger siblings waiting for their chance to participate when they get older to the parents and elders who have already been through the process and are there to support the other generations as they go through it. Something for everyone. The sum of all parts. Organic.
Last night was the first night it turned genuinely cold down here and tonight was just the same. I think the thermometer said 47 degrees, which is cold around here. I thought I could tough it out with a fleece and a beanie but sure enough my toes even started to get cold. I made it until it was 41-7 with about two minutes to go and then headed back to catch up with Lloyd.
The highlight of the evening was a simple moment. When I came back Lloyd and Jim were in the back room and so I talked to grandma and filled her in. I mentioned who I saw and how cold it was and she said that she was sure one of Frank’s (Pop’s) jackets was probably around if I needed it. I thanked her and assured her I had enough cold weather gear from Utah. I had printed out an outline of a few of David Hawkins ideas for Jim, a few essay’s on the science behind Kinesiology such as Quantum theory and the Holographic Theory, as well as a few excerpts from Hawkins books too, just so we could have some things to talk about. Jim and I have been having daily discussions since he’s been here, and I think we ultimately agree with each other on a lot of things, we just use different language to talk about it. Jim’s more political/historical/conservative and I’m more mystical/nondual/radical spiritual truth study of consciousness I suppose. Again those are just words of course, which are the very things I’m trying not to use to talk about the truth. Not words so much as labels. I’m trying to avoid labels and categories. Nondual is the term. I would just as soon be wrong if at least it meant I knew what was right. It’s been interesting to see where Jim and I meet though, and I think the best question I’ve asked yet to open up for discussion is whether or not he believes in enlightenment, which he said he did, and so now the question becomes, “What is Enlightenment?”
I went back into the room where Jim’s staying now, the room where I was staying, the room where the internet plug-in is that Lloyd was using to check his mail. Jim and I started to talk a little bit about the essay’s I’d printed out for him while Lloyd sat at the desk next to us and checked his email and filled us in on what was going on at CNN.com. All in all it was a very normal moment I suspect, three people hanging out, almost like brother’s do, and I think that’s what I liked about it. We were just talking and going on without thinking much about it like there was nothing to it, because there wasn’t really, and then Grandma leans in the door and says goodnight like she always does. Her room’s right next to that one so I was used to the routine.
“I think I’m gonna go to bed and leave it up to you,” she says.
“Good night, Mother,” Lloyd said.
“Night, Mother,” Jim said.
“Good night Grandma!” I say with a big grin on my face.
“Good night Jim, Night Lloyd, Night Cole. Sure glad to have you,” Grandma said and headed to her bathroom to do her pre-bed routine.
I’ve been enjoying wishing grandma goodnight from that backroom since June, normally with me at the computer typing away. A very normal thing to do, but this time it was the three of us back there wishing Grandma goodnight, the brother’s and me. I was a representative of course, and honored to be one to say the least, but we still had all three branches of family back under one roof this night and I had a flash. Hard to explain what that flash was, or what a flash it, but it made me grin and feel good and think about family. How normal family moments are often times the biggest blessings, it’s just when something becomes common, like you live together, when you’re around the same family members all the time it’s easy to forget how lucky we all are to have a great family like we do. Repetition sort of just works that way on the mind. Tonight though, the normalcy of Jim, Lloyd, Grandma and I seemed to came back like riding a bike, without much thought. It was the repetition of the simple act of wishing Grandma goodnight from the backroom that gave me the perspective-flash and a big grin. She’s got all her boys back, well not all of ‘em, but you know what I mean. These things make Grandma happy, so they make me happy. They make me happy for my own reasons too.