Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nonduality Highlights each day
How to submit material to the Highlights
#3719 - Thursday, November 19, 2009
- Editor: Jerry Katz
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
Hot off the presses .... Gary Crowley has a new book out, Pass the Jelly: Tales of Ordinary Enlightenment, a rich and funny memoir. A portion of the first chapter is featured. I'll be posting more. I think you'll enjoy this. If you do, the whole book is like this. It's very good.
Pass the Jelly
Tales of Ordinary Enlightenment
A MEMOIR
Gary Crowley
Note To Readers
This book is
a memoir. Thus, everything in it is absolutely true, except
for the stuff that isn’t. Certain people and events are
compilations, and
some names have been changed. Rest assured, the core and essence
of
these laugh-out-loud wisdom tales are intact.
Pass the Jelly
A long chain
of cause and effect had led to my being where I was,
and while this is true for everyone all the time, I knew it wasn’t
personal.
It never is. And knowing this allowed me to soak in the entire
spectacle.
I happened
to be sitting on the divider between the buzzing north and
southbound lanes of Interstate 5, California’s busiest
freeway.
The first rain of the season had come the night before. It brings
back
to life the dormant oil in the roads, and the freshly greased
pavement
becomes akin to the black ice I grew up with in New england.
The water, the oil, and the hydroplaning cars had made me one of
the inevitable accident statistics of the day.
The sun
hammered against the morning drizzle as I sat and
watched drivers race past me. It was inspiring. Despite the
wrecks
of cars that lined their route, these drivers were still willing
to flirt
with the razor-sharp edge of Newton’s unforgiving laws of
motion. I
found myself impressed, as I often am, by the unflinching
optimism
of the human spirit.
To my left,
my freshly crumpled car was being raised into the air
by a tow truck. I’d already done the ritualistic exchange of
insurance
information with the woman who had helped make my accident
possible. She was perfectly nice, but we both knew our time
together
was fleeting. Although brief, our relationship was intense and
memorable,
which is more than many people share. When she merged
back into her regular life, as I knew she must, it seemed
predestined.
The requisite stocky-cop-with-a-mustache had already come and
gone. The first rain was his busiest day of the year, so my
experiencing
of him as a stoic, heavily armed cliché was all he had time for.
I’m
sure by the end of his work day I would no doubt be filed deep in
his
memory banks as another forgettable motorist. All things
considered,
our mutually uneventful experience was probably a good thing
when it comes to encounters with law enforcement.
With a wave
of his hand, the tow truck driver signaled to me that
it was time for us to go. I walked over and stepped into the
passenger
side of the truck.
“Where
to?” asked the driver, with the name Jim on his light blue
shirt.
“Well, Jim,” I said, “I’m not really sure.”
“Name’s not Jim. Jim quit. His shirt fit.”
His words
were spoken in a kind but indifferent manner that I
found oddly refreshing. I waited for his true identity to be
revealed,
but nothing came. He wasn’t giving me much to work with, and
technically he did say his name was not Jim, so Not Jim was what
I
went with.
“I
guess we should bring the car to an auto body shop. Then
the insurance company can decide what they want to do with it,”
I
stumbled.
“Yep,” said Not Jim.
“Do you know any reputable shops in the area?”
“Nope.”
I realized
Not Jim required a bit more precision than your average
Not Joe.
“Do you
have any friends who own auto body shops in the area?”
I asked.
“Dave’s
Auto Body is about seven miles away. He’s as good as
any other.”
“That’d be great,” I confirmed.
Those were
the last words Not Jim and I spoke on our ride. For
the next seven miles we sat in some of the most comfortable
silence
I’ve ever experienced.
I must admit
that I was intrigued by the way of Not Jim. Everybody
has a way, but Not Jim had that little something extra you don’t
run into every day. Once he caught my attention, I was
fascinated.
I forgot all about my recently compacted vehicle destined for the
crusher. I was now fully present with my driver.
I noticed
that Not Jim gripped the steering wheel in a way that
was relaxed, but also precise. You can tell a lot about a person
from
their hands, and he had the hands of a poet. Don’t get me
wrong—
they weren’t delicate by any means, but you could tell they
had a
sensitivity that allowed him to meet each task with the exact
amount
of tension or force required. No more, no less.
Not Jim was
the type who shook your hand and matched the firmness
of your grip perfectly. He didn’t give you the dead fish
handshake
of someone who is not going to be present with you, nor was he
the
vice grip kind of guy who was there to impose himself on others.
Not
Jim was my kind of guy. He was a modern-day wrangler out rescuing
humanity’s strays on their daily cattle drive to and from
work. He
was over the drama of it all, and his calmness helped his
passengers
realize the obvious fact that car accidents are just part of
life.
During our
drive I realized what a deep spiritual practice being
a tow truck driver could be. For someone so inclined, it would be
impossible not to gain a profound perspective on life. Day after
day
you show up at scenes where, only moments earlier, fates of life
and death had been dealt. You would be intimately involved with
the sleek, new cars that had been crushed into accordion-like
sculptures.
Even simple
scenes of people leaning against a broken-down
vehicle would continually reinforce the futility of resisting
what is.
For a man with the hands of a poet, driving a wrecker would
probably
not be a bad way to go. Not Jim’s workday carried the
repeating
lesson that life gives us each a full range of experiences,
whether we
like it or not.
Pass the Jelly
Tales of Ordinary Enlightenment
A MEMOIR
Gary Crowley