Pie Tin Adventure

After writing my last couple of blogs, I began to contemplate all the trouble books have inspired in my life.  I also began contemplating the last time I went into a state of intense introspection ("intense introspection" is WAY too generous a phrase--but for lack of a better one, it'll have to do).  And, while contemplating both, I was reminded of an instance that was both inspired by reading as well as a woo-woo mood.  And, since I have never blogged about this particular adventure here, I thought I'd share it now.  A quick note:  Chris is Jack and Jack is Chris (it's a nickname, people!).

May I introduce, my:

Pie Tin Adventure    

The Path to Enlightenment is for me…a drunken one…

Somewhere in my bookish travels, I read about a psychiatrist (I think it may have been Jung…but I can’t remember for certain) who believed the most fertile time for the mind is the space of time slivered between sleep and wakefulness.  He believed (and it’s been a while since I read about it—years—so I’m paraphrasing and may be inadvertently adding my own notions to the mix) that if you could grasp, remember, and fully understand your thoughts during this small space of time—you would come as close to enlightenment as you could ever hope.  He claimed that his most brilliant theories were developed during this elusive period. 

In my limited experience, I would agree and would even take it a step further as my own (overly precious, I’m sure) belief is that it is in this precise space of time and consciousness that one’s soul and body meet.  This has been my working, and until recently, untested theory, anyhow.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I had a marvelous evening (I’ve had marvelous evenings since then…but none so very enlightenment-centric).  Jack and the boys turned in early and I was left blissfully alone and purposefully made no plans for the evening but that of beautiful solitude.  I pulled out a book of poetry (Mary Oliver), turned on some jazz (Dizzy Gillespie), and mixed martinis (Belvedere).  Yes.  Plural.  MartiniS.  So, after drunkenly deciding that Oliver writes the most transcendent poetry in existence, that Dizzy Gillespie was a cool cat for rolling with his wonked out trumpet, and that Belvedere was my soul mate in liquid form—I decide the time has come to see what my mind might produce during it’s “fertile” time. 

So…in the spirit of whoever came up with the notion—I stumbled into the garage and found a couple of good sized fishing weights and made my way back to the kitchen for a couple of pie tins. 

Yes.  You read correctly.  Fishing weights and pie tins.

So, the idea is (again as obtained from the super hootie whatsit of psychology, psychiatry, philosophy or just plain bizarre behavior), I was to recline, with my hands dangling at my sides, clutching the fishing weights with pie tins arranged so that were I to drop the fishing weight, it would land in the pie tin.  The idea being that just as I were to drift off into sleep, I would drop the weights, which would clang on the pie tins, and wake me in the very instant that I was floating in that narrow space between slumber and wakefulness.  And then…

Badabing-badaboom—enlightenment.

You follow?

Ok…my first drunken problem being that I don’t own a recliner (due to my long and loud contention that recliners are the very throne of Beelzebub).  So, I decide that the dining room table would work just as nicely (I know).  But, when I laid down on the dining table, my arms couldn’t really dangle, but rather stuck out, making my body rather cross-like (I contemplated trying my hand at speaking in tongues at this point—but decided that experiment would keep for another time).  So, my solution was to lay diagonally on the table, which allowed my arms to dangle and having rolled up a couple of place-mats and placed them under my head—it wasn’t all that uncomfortable (I was Belvedere blasted, I could have slept on the floor of my garage with my head in the recycle bin and been comfortable, but I digress).

Great…bring on the enlightenment.

So, sure enough, I drift off and down drop the weights.  Only, I don’t know that I so much drifted as sort of passed the fuck out—because their dropping did not jolt me.  It DID, however, wake up Jack.  And, for whatever reason, the bang, crash, boom of the weights didn’t jar me from sleep but Jack storming in the room shouting “what the hell?!?!?!?” did.  It shocked me so much, if fact, that I sort of roll/fell off the table.  And, since I had it in my head to remember what I was thinking upon awakening—I fell off the table while slurring “Salt peanuts,” which was the only thing running through my fool head, and which I continued to say over and over as though it were vital to my very existence (Jazz wisdom, let’s call it).

Jack took one look at me, the fishing weights, pie tins, and empty martini glasses and stormed out of the room muttering something that included the phrases “like being married to a drunk Lucille Ball,” “God knows I try,” and “Why?  Why?  WHY?”

Me?  Since I found myself a bit dizzy at this point and was conveniently already on my hands and knees--I decided to just go ahead and crawl to bed.  

So, perhaps your path to enlightenment looks a bit different than mine (I’m convinced there was enlightenment in there somewhere)…but let’s not judge (give the weight/pie tin/drift off a whirl—who knows where it might take you). 

And, remember: 

“There are many paths to enlightenment” -Lao Tzu

And:

“Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment” -Dogen

Plus:

“If you ever reach total enlightenment while drinking beer, I bet it makes beer shoot out your nose.” –Jack Handy

P.S.  7 days of 90 day Table Rock challenge done!!!  7!!