Knowing Now, FREED

Starbucks down the Road from Sonic’s HQ.  I feel more Zen in all molecules and movements than I have in some time.  From being honest with Self.  You have to be, finally… about certain things.  If you deny, or interpret it conveniently, then only more trouble compiles.  I’m not going into specifics, and I don’t have to…. The specifics aren’t the intention of such a note… it’s the pattern, the habit, and practice.  Diving into Zen practice, Zen ideology, and habit, mind, more than just some trendy mention of mindfulness, more than even me being here physically acknowledging certain realities, and behaviors.  Knowing your Now entails so much beyond the Now itself… but what brought you here, to where you are, where you’ve been… why you’re doing what you’re doing, why you’ve done certain things and traveled in particular directions.

This morning, waking around 5:30 and heading here, to this same Starbucks where I’m not sitting and working and thinking about the past couple days….  Here I am, like this, in this sense and mind.  A mind and way I love, where the Zen envelops me and teaches me about the directness of life, directions in one’s story…. There are choices, then there are circumstance possible given from some other being or force, or collective individualized intent.

Not sure what I’m writing, or even why I’m writing, but I know there’s a trajectory I want to avoid.  For all sakes, for all pages.  So, honesty.  This Monday has tested me in certain arenas, then encouraged me in others.  Realizing that there need be a shift with the ship.  One step, I guess…. Sales Meeting in 1 hour, 11 min.  Then class later.  Then home.

One jolt in my world, anxiety… separation anxiety from my kids.  Writing it makes me tear, but I know fortitude is the only electable echo and forward.  Eating carrots with ranch, part of some lunch box that came with a sandwich, and a sparkling water.  Collect, I tell myself.  Wait for more connectedness from the day.. more instruction.  Think about your kids… how you want them to see you, study your actions.  Be deserving of study.

My age, and having these realizations.  What does that mean.  Where am I going.  What more can I do.  Well, I finally know.  So no attaching self to past.  No more in-place holes or ruts, stalls or cells.  I’m here, I’m doing it… re-writing the character.  Writing the entire story.  Me, where I am and what I’m doing… knowing my Now and its entire composition.  Sonic provides more composition, more than a platform but specific composition of a bridge to get me from one reality to another.   What I put into circulation, how I treat my bones, veins, brain.  Staying on the page, the first motion to line dividing sky and sea.  Music.. all of it.  I’ll make it all music, musical, a healing composition.  No matter what happens next.  Unafraid, eager, writing more, clear images and steps… a renewed beat and beauty in my promised truth-speak.

2/3/20

mikemadiganLeave a comment

Kids eating

breakfast, starting their Sunday with admirable intention and discussion.

Jack makes himself a checklist, writes a story on legal sheets.

Keep forgetting I’m at a winery, today. What does that mean?

Made self a list, after reading Jack’s.

mikemadiganLeave a comment

from this morning

…one place.  Here.  This page and the ones that follow.  Writing anymore becomes odd for me.  A tricky feel.  The thoughts about my character need jazz, so I turn to Coltrane, “I’m Old Fashioned”, the remastered version.  I know what I’m doing, what I’m going to do.  Surprised I’m this awake with how late I to bed went.  I rose, write, more coffee, more jazz, more sight and plans for how the day’s to delineate itself in my life, the life of the day itself.  I want today to be different, and different in a way that defines and decides the life of me and those around me, favorably.  That is, the impact I have, on their life, the Mike Madigan they meet today… 

mikemadiganLeave a comment

8/9/18.

IMG_6534

Telling myself this morning, over and over like a fog horn you’d hear out in Bodega Bay, Monterey, that I’m strong.  That I’m in control of what happens.  That challenges are not in any way a determinant, of anything, ‘less I say.  Going to tell this to Self throughout day.  Starting with now.  With today.  With this morning.  All new assignments and being free to develop freely in my creative and consciousness, my war for knowledge.

I am not so much in control of all of what’s in front of me, but the author.  I’m writing, drawing, writing and re-writing.  I refuse to fear a single singular, anywhere, from anyone.  I’m going forward, leaving what puts my character and Personhood in descent, any kind of spiral, or weighs me down.

One of those revelations that you’ve had before but not like the morning you had it, the way you experience the charge, the electrification, the assurance that you are your leader, your governor, your steerer, navigating through all corners and seas and turbulence.

I saw one thing, and actuate.  With no reservation or stall.  I’m going forward, not worried about anyone’s perception, or objections.  This morning teaches me about fortitude, and possibility, actuality, that a dream doesn’t have to stay such.  And, that bad dreams and nightmares can be disrupted whenever you order.  I’m fire, this morning.  A vigorous carnivore for life, destiny, more story.  Newness, and I’m refusing to stop for anything as I said, and what could happen— what could anyone do to me?  To you, should you decide upon such a move?

We all have the story, the control.  Right where you are.  There’s nothing overcomplicated about this, Life.  It’s ours.  All of it.  Put your Self in the psychological hold of conviction, of knowledge.  Knowledge of you and what you do, what you’re about to do.  Big decisions and “life choices” as people say aren’t without trial.  But we overcome the trial, any taxing nature, by having that inward conversation, that we’re doing what’s needed, what the Story and its author demands, necessitates.  Simply, the Story writes us as we write IT.

We are strong, much more mighty that we inventory.  That I know, finally.  I see it and am convinced of the wild prowess in all of us.  How to write this new understanding, or newly-seen grasp of my reality is difficult, but only ‘cause I’m overthinking it, from being so…. I don’t know if ‘inspired’ is the word, or what, but I’m not fearing anything today, or ever again.

Enjoying full tumbler of medium roast, and so ready for what’s in the next set of scenes.  I can’t wait, if you must know. I’m taking control, over all this.  Everything in front of and around me.  I don’t know what I’m doing, then knowing exactly what’s transpiring.  All I know…. I’m strong.  I’m not a “warrior writer” as so many across media.  I’m a pugilistic observer, not fighting so much as refusing to have anything interpreted other than how I measure.  Just one of those mornings, again.  But different, entirely different.  This new journey for me, I welcome storms…. I invite challenges and any heartache, well as victories and new knowledge.  All of it.  Welcoming everything, daring everything, humbled at the approaching education, the empirical Newness.

8/9/18

mikemadiganLeave a comment

05:47.  

Photo on 3-14-17 at 10.47 AM

Been up since 4-something and I’m more than eager for the day and its messages.  More knowledge and understanding of where I am and what I’m doing, and the why, the IT, to it all.  I’m sitting in my kitchen, at the island counter, readying to leave for a meeting in Sonoma, about wine and business in wine.  Not sure how much longer I’ll be in the business of wine, which is fine as I’ll always write about it, about her, like the Pinot from last night, everything she had to say.  Like a new character contrasting her presence from the night previous.  Not thinking and just writing this morning, listening to my music and looking at clock, knowing I have to be in car soon, heading East on 12.  Sonoma.  Would love to have a house near the square like my sister, but then I remember that Healdsburg was the other day very loudly calling me, and I more see my office there, just by the bakery, by the Oakville grocery.  Now I’m confused but not as I don’t want to focus on the office’s location or locale, setting or stage, but the act of writing in wine country, everything the streets and the delis, restaurants and coffee shops tell me.

Before six in the morning, perfect time to write.  The only time to write.  Mornings now become worship areas, times and tells of present and future, what I’m about to meet and with what I’ll intersect.  Like an inchmeal evolution and revolution I didn’t expect or even notice.  Arraying and orchestrating my understandings and current knowledges, of wine and writing and me writing and why I am where I am, what I actuate.  The conversation I had with that lady yesterday, over the phone just outside the tasting room was a lesson to itself, for my Self, new sight and knowledge, a sharp and acute awareness of where I’m going.  Business, otherwise… with thought, my thoughts and perceptions and estimations of self.  Then the meeting last night with the wines and the sensory objects in glasses, the mushrooms, toast pieces, herbs, cherries, chocolate… all a story, all in my story.  Wine proving and asserting more than metaphoric placement and pedagogy.  Wine telling me about knowledge and life and what I learn in the story…. What to do next, what I write next.  What song is following this current track.

When in graduate school, I couldn’t wait to get out but as well dreaded when it was all over.  I actually hoped the diploma’s mailing would be prolonged as much as possible, that it would just keep going and going, and maybe they’d find that I had to take just one more class, that I’d be a student for a few steps longer.  But no.  It ended.  Till now.  Till this time in my story, nearing 40, and I’m more a student than I’ve ever been, truthfully.  The exactness of my narration startles me, if you should now.  I now who I am, why I am who I am and why I am where I currently sit in this kitchen at the island counter, about to drive to Sonoma for a meeting about wine and whatever else.  On the drive, as I always do— music. Meditation.  Collection.

I’m more than happy this morning, not just with the knowledge of the tasting room life about to dissolve, but with this new narrative, this new sight, this new understanding and furthered study of me.  Moi.

7/26/18

mikemadiganLeave a comment