The Ten Percent Solution

I’m within ten percent of getting my budget to work. I confirmed this after two frustrating weeks of trying to upgrade to the next generation of personal financial software, which I’m discovering is not so different from the previous generation of my personal financial software. My budget was ten percent bloated on that one, too. I’ve resolved to somehow change my budgetary wandering ways.

I recently patronized the restaurant pictured above, and the revelation I received there could hold the answer to my dilemma. A small table sits in an awkward location connecting two parts of the dining room. The kitchen is adjacent to it. The persistent clinking of glasses and dishware, the murmurs of cooks and waiters, the constant hustle to serve an endless stream of customers, and the discomforting flushes emanating from the neighboring bathrooms conspire to make this a less-than-idyllic setting for a dining experience. To appease customers relegated to this forlorn table, a sign posted above it humanely announces a “Worst Table 10% Off” discount. The waiter affirmed the veracity of this incredible value, and it set my budget-busting wheels a-spinning.

By not snagging this table, I had narrowly missed a way to fractionally reduce my spending. I could have recovered a portion of my ten percent deficit by momentarily putting up with swearing cooks, harried waiters and the flushing of nearby commodes! So…why not redeem this lost opportunity by applying the ten percent reduction principle to all my future expenses, thereby achieving the so-far evasive goal of slashing my budget?

I’ve devised a plan:

Henceforth, I will reduce my job-related transportation expenses by disembarking from my train one stop earlier, thereby reducing my ticket expense by at least ten percent (and, incidentally, increasing my daily walking exercise routine by 15.8 miles).

Henceforth, when giving gifts, I will curtail spending wasted resources on fancy gift-wrap, choosing to use free plastic grocery bags instead. (Oops, I do this already….)

Henceforth, on the same theme, I will reduce by ten percent the actual number of presents I choose to give throughout the year—which will also effectively reduce my circle of friends by ten percent.

Henceforth, I will follow the trailblazing practices of UPS, making only right hand turns in order to reduce fuel costs. Calculating my fuel cost to the grocery store suggests I will save 4.5 cents. (My return trip home, however, will cost $6.32; making all right hand turns will result in traveling an additional 57 miles since I will be led down streets to a neighboring town before I arrive home.)

Henceforth, I will purchase only long-sleeved shirts and long-legged trousers. Over time, as my clothing develops holes in the knees and elbows, the sleeves and pant legs will be unceremoniously lopped off, providing me a breezy-cool summer wardrobe—and save myself the expense of buying summer clothes!

Henceforth, I will rent out ten percent of my house to the ever-increasing populous of neighborhood kids (for which, I will charge them ten percent of my mortgage payment). Their resultant 150 square feet of rental space may be used as they desire: a clubhouse and fort, or perhaps a small, kid-staffed veterinary facility to resuscitate highway-mangled rodents, frogs, and night-traveling marsupials.

I’m so confident in the success of my anticipated budgetary surplus that I’ve hired an investment consultant to handle the increased savings, which, unfortunately, sets my budget back–by about ten percent.

Surf and Turf at Morro Bay

Where the ocean meets the shore, they wrestle for supremacy.

Day and night, in stealth maneuvers, they steal from each other; tides yield temporary victories, first to one, then to the other.

In storms, the sea makes power grabs for more sand and rock while the shore resists.

The ocean knows that, though it may be a long, long time in coming, it will prevail.

Note to self: Next time in Morro Bay, bring burdens to the shore where, like the sand and rock, they will wash away.

Eight Days in December

For seven of eight days in December, it rained every day in Morro Bay – not the sort of weather to be caught in. A person would surely not go camping in this weather – unless said person had planned a camping trip for months in advance, arranged time off work, and reserved tickets for the evening Hearst Castle tour.

In that case, such a person would obviously switch from lodging at a campground to a cheap motel – but not us. Instead, we made the best of our eight days of camping.

Here’s the countdown:

  • 8 nights in the camper
  • 7 days visiting the Black Horse Espresso and Bakery in San Luis Obispo
  • 6 the number of those who played Chickenfoot dominoes in the camper
  • 5 the number of the Hearst Castle evening tour we enjoyed
  • 4 the number of our kids and their spouses who joined us for several days
  • 3 movies at actual theaters (not Netflix!)
  • 2 breakfast meals we enjoyed at The Coffee Pot in Morro Bay

     – and –

  • 1 sunny day (pictured)

Curious Apparition

The mural on the motel wall

Decades had passed since their wedding night at the humble motel in the cheap part of town. Ben and Anna had preserved the memories of their first night together, as if snapping an entire 12-shot roll of film on their Instamatic camera.

Now they wanted to see the place again, after so many years down life’s road together. Life had been busy – Ben, compactly-built and full of vigor, had become a practicing attorney. Anna, tall and lively, had successfully trained as a registered nurse. They had each rigorously worked their way through school. The eventual satisfaction of the professional payoff had been fleeting; their jobs were demanding, kids came along early, and time evaporated quickly.

Appointments to serve on various boards had rewarded them with satisfying recognition, and they had managed stepping into increasingly larger houses as family and prestige required and finances permitted. But the departure of each son and daughter, now in turn leaving the residence for places of their own, made its rooms increasingly echo, leaving little else behind but memories and the fading bumper stickers that heralded their status as honor roll students.

Life accelerated hard and had landed them, at times, where they had not expected. Friends and family had moved away. Without them along, the vacation cruises had been a bit flat. Plans for trips to serve in developing countries gathered dust. Their overly-enthusiastic faith in the stock market yanked the financial carpet from beneath their feet.

Their bucket lists containing all they wished to accomplish in life remained, they believed, largely undone.

This day, for better or worse, Ben and Anna would recall where it all started in the motel room decades ago.

Pulling into the motel’s drive, they recognized the building on the left. Newly painted in beige with lively colored trim, it had fared well over the years, giving temporary shelter to lives on-the-go and in-the-making.

Next to it, it seemed, was a newly constructed addition. Or was it? It shared the older building’s substance and color, but it seemed curiously flat. Slowly, they perceived its meaning. A mural had been whimsically painter over the bare wall on the existing building, depicting an expanded motel. The mural’s fantasy ended only when parked cars beneath interrupted it.

Momentarily, Ben and Anna caught their breath. On the mural’s second floor stood a man of Ben’s stature, arm raised to waive, several decades younger. On his right, tall and attractive, Anna stood beside him. They appeared optimistic, eager, as if challenging the future.

The mystery of how the mural came to be remained unsolved. But Ben and Jennifer puzzled over the greater mystery all the long way home. Was the mural an apparition of what had already been, or a vision of what could yet be?

A Small Event in San Luis Obispo

I first became aware of the existence of San Luis Obispo, California, in 1969. It was my freshman year in college near Chicago. My brand new roommate thrust his hand into mine and declared, “Hi, I’m Rob, and I’m from San Luis Obispo.” Hailing from the picturesquely named Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, the odd name of the California town stayed with me.

Neither of us could know that less than two years later I myself would visit SLO, not on a lark of a trip to the west coast, but on a mission. Rob had been hitchhiking home for Christmas vacation in 1971. The convertible veered off the road and flipped. The owner was killed outright, and Rob was comatose.

Rob and I had sung together in glee club. When the club toured California in the spring of 1972, 25 club members crowded into his hospital room. As his closest friend at the time, I was ushered to his bedside. He appeared to be taking a nap, hair neatly combed; I shouted into his ear as if that would break the coma’s hold. Still, he slept on. Eventually, we all vacated the hospital room.

My next visit to SLO was in 1974. Rob had continued to sleep on. When the nursing staff at the long term care facility rolled him onto the grass, strapped into his wheelchair, they had to reassure me that the person I saw was indeed my former roommate. Pale, blind and curled in a fetal position, I made a vigorous attempt to rouse him. Instead, Rob would sleep on for another 12 years before his light would finally be extinguished.

Tonight we are again in San Luis Obispo, waiting for the start of the movie, “Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould”. The theater looks tiny because it is. There are exactly 47 seats. I sit in one of those seats, reviewing my own inner life, and a consequential chapter that started playing here in San Luis Obispo, what now seems so long ago.

The Conformist: A Dream 

One day last week, before the alarm interrupted my sleep, a dream played through my mind:

I entered a house of massive, temple-like dimensions. Inside, I was greeted by the wealthy owner’s wife, who showed me around the gigantic rooms. The vista from the kitchen window revealed an expansive view of a large swimming pool and, beyond it, a clear view to the ocean below. As we exited the kitchen, I encountered, almost incidentally, her husband, the wealthy owner of the house. He stood tall and straight, dressed in an elegant sports coat and neatly pressed slacks. His greeting was polite, but for a man of his financial stature it was surprisingly gentle, almost understated and deferring. His wife escorted me to the spacious entryway as I made my way out of the mansion.

My second visit to the house confirmed the prosperity of the owner. Major renovations and construction were underway. New plaster was being applied to what seemed to be acres of walls, making the house appear even more cavernous. Again, the fashionably-dressed owner bid me a courteous but restrained welcome, and I wondered what currents ran beneath his calm demeanor.

During my final visit to the house, the gracious owner sat in an office with the proportions of a large game room. Long and hard, the owner and his two adult sons earnestly discussed strategy for the family business. After some length, the sons rose from their chairs, their opinions firm, their gestures passionate. Their views conflicted with those of their father; I expected the father to respond with some animation to defend his own assessment. Instead, unflinching and stirring only slightly in his chair, his demeanor remained placid and relaxed as he took it all in and deferred to their views. I recognized by now the qualities of the man and his mastery of the craft of listening, how to step aside from superficial irrelevancies, and how to maintain the principles that governed him, like the steadying rudder of a ship at sea.

His ever easy and gracious manner seemed to bloom from the congruence his life held with his values. He shed that which was petty, trivial and distracting.

After my departure, I saw the owner once again, this time as a picture: a piece of shiny steel, pressed between two opposing forces, compelling him to conform to their pattern. He bent and unbent again and again, but always retained the integrity of the metal’s true shape.

And that allowed him to conform only, but fully, to that Power which governed his life and purposes, and to graciously let go of the rest.

The Woman with Lions in Her Head

The woman waiting for her train to arrive tried to recall how long she had been chasing lions. Since her first visit to the zoo, they had been her love, and ever since, her affection for them endured. Despite their enormous power, lions display tenderness toward one another, qualities she admired—restrained strength with gentle affection, the same qualities she would have welcomed in a lover, had such a lover ever materialized.

She longed to be near lions, but she refrained from joining the circus life. She once considered it, but their pure and imposing essence seemed tainted by their imprisonment and the taunting of their trainers. The prospect of joining the team of those who stage-manage the antics of such creatures made her blanch—wild carnivores acquiescing to perform tricks in exchange for meals of domesticated meat.

Still, her dream persisted. Even now, waiting on the bench, lions were in her head. They were still in her dreams.

Unable to reconcile her passion, she remembered how she had longed for a new vision of power and tenderness. She came to admire the desire of nuns living out their quest for their cause, of spiritual mission and its promise of tender redemption. She eventually gave herself to service in a convent, learning the holy life and attempting to fulfill its requirements. She admired and desired the quest, but she discovered that she didn’t do so well implementing the means of achieving it. The rigors of the disciplines chafed at her. Regulated days filled with predictable tasks; predictable tasks held structured sequences. She belonged to the ideals and the faith, yet the restrictive system crossed her longing for freedom. Like the circus lions, she felt confined and controlled. She started dreaming of wild lions again.

She thought of them as her train neared its rendezvous with her, oblivious of her fellow travelers waiting on the platform. She was even unaware of the neatly-dressed man wearing tan slacks and black sweater, waiting along with her at a nearby bench. He had immediately noticed her, with her head cocked and peering toward the sky. His scrutiny might have intimidated her, but it went unnoticed as she held her vision of the lions and wondered what the path beyond the convent would now hold for her.

As the black-sweatered man stared at the women, his gaze slowly lifted, expanded, filled, and gradually an image appeared that he did not comprehend: faintly appearing above the woman were what appeared to be clouds, or cats, or maybe lions—wild lions.

He trembled involuntarily at the wonder of the vision, and the mystery of the woman.

The train’s bell clanged as it came to a stop, calling the travelers on the benches to embark. The black-sweatered man with the tan trousers arose and hurried to the same coach the woman entered, searching for and finding her. He seized the seat directly across from her, and as he drew in a breath to begin an uncertain sentence, he found himself, suddenly, as he had never before found himself—supremely comfortable, at peace, seated beside the enigmatic women from the bench.

She flinched in sudden surprise at her new traveling companion. Her throat briefly grabbed and clutched the air. When she found her next breath, her exhale was long and quiet, as if she were expelling a long-dormant, soured mist. And then—at that moment and for the first time—she released the lions from her dreams. In their place and occupying their space, she made way for the black-sweatered man, strong and tender.

Yoga by the Sea

The pier in Cayucos, California, six miles north of Morro Bay, juts 953 feet into the Pacific Ocean. The usual population of surf fishermen and their fish bait, pelicans, seagulls and pigeons share its heavy wooden planks. Visitors such as myself wander and gaze into fishermen’s plastic buckets, which are never full enough of today’s catch. We stare down a pelican perched on the railing, gaping at our presence. He reluctantly leaves, heaving himself into the air, working hard to gain altitude. Airborne, he will gain a perspective I will never know. Beating his wings against the rushing air, he will cruise and glide, unaware of my envy and also unaware of his gift of flight.

He will peer down on the beach and observe those in the yoga class beneath him who, through mental and physical discipline, seek a greater state of enlightenment. They pursue a way to break the limitations of physical bonds and a way to purify their minds from unworthy appetites. This platoon of practitioners sits in a sea of sand for long minutes, eyes closed, legs folded tightly. Intermittently, ever thoughtful, ever meditating, they arise, bend, and stretch one arm to the sand and one to the sky….

It is the same sky where, under watchful and wondering eye, our pelican hovers. The pelican above, the yoga practitioners below—the steadfast subjects of his interest. Sitting quietly and reflectively, then moving and stretching together, their bodies create a puzzling pattern to his eye.

His eye, however, is an empty one, staring to comprehend these earthbound mortals, while he, oblivious of their quest to be free, soars high and away.