Little Fish, Big River, Bigger City

As of yesterday afternoon, each time I walk through my door, I'm met with an unfamiliar bulk. A baby grand piano. She's elegant, sophisticated and full of dignity from 60 years of life. I spent an hour last night, plunking on the keys as her sound emanated from her graceful slanted top which leaned on a wooden support like a black panther leans on her elbow while surveying the jungle.

So how on earth did a baby grand make its way into my life? It was easy: "Parking Karma." In case you haven't heard about it, there's a general thought out there that if you simply visualize a perfect parking place somewhere, it will be there when you arrive. The trick is, it only works if you truly believe it. There's another general thought that this process of parking karma extends into anything in life and, bit by bit, I'm finding this to be the case.

Take my loft for example. I luckily live in one of the most spectacular spaces in Seattle...because of parking karma. Several years ago, I lived in a 600 square foot apartment in Belltown, a small, upscale downtown Seattle neighborhood. While my apartment was tiny, it offered a great view. I kept it immaculate and adorned it with fresh flowers like birds of paradise and Casa Blanca lillies from Pike Place Market. Friends visited and told me I was sick in the head because even my towels and wash cloths were folded "hotel style" like little fancy napkins on their racks in perfect order. Reality was that my place was so small it was not only easy to keep perfect, but necessary since the slightest thing out of place became a nuisance.

Eventually, the insane idea of starting my own commercial dog treat company called "AxL Snaks" took over. I started baking gourmet dog treats from homespun recipes by mixing them in a 25 cent salad bowl from a garage sale, rolling them out by hand and then baking them in my oven. I eventually graduated from a wooden spoon to a Kitchen Aid mixer from Costco. I burned that out after about four of five hundred batches and got a new Kitchen Aid. Eventually, I outgrew that and bought "Boris," a huge industrial sized mixer. Small sacks of flour from Safeway were replaced with a multitude of fifty pound sacks from Sam Wylde distributors. I gave my TV to the doorman to keep it quiet that I was running a company from my supposedly posh residence. I took to carting four or five hundred pounds of flour, corn meal and baking soda into my apartment at 2 a.m. so no one would see me. With the TV gone, I moved in a huge baking table for rolling out the dough. Eventually, tendonitis gave way, the rolling pin was retired and an industrial dough roller was purchased. I stole oven racks from the ovens in the "community" roooms in my building so that I could have five racks going at once instead of two. Production increased, molasses dotted by beige carpeting to where it looked like leopard print. I was selling dog treats at an off-leash dog area on the weekends and providing 15 local stores with treats during the week. I spent at least two nights a week baking all night long to keep up with production. you could only move through my aparment by walking sideways between sacks of four while five gallons pails of peanut butter doubled as chairs. It was time to move.

I bought a large showroom floor convection oven at a 50% discount and began my search for a new AxL Snaks World Headquarters. I put the oven into storage until I could find a place large enough to hold this new equipment which required a 220 volt power supply. I searched and searched and couldn't find the right location for months. However, during my daily delivery runs, I kept driving by an old warehouse type building right along the waterfront. It looked a bit beat up on the outside and one corner seemed to have nothing but windows looking out over the water. That was the space I wanted. I thought every day about just calling the owner of the building and seeing if it was for rent. I pictured what it must be like. I longed for it. I wished, I dreamed.

My phone rang. It was my cousin, Erik, a manager at Sazerac restaurant. It turned out that an employee of his was moving out of her loft and was looking to sublease it. Would I be interested? Sure. I set up an appointment to view the place. It turned out to be my corner spot in the industrial building I had been driving by for months. Parking Karma.

I've now been here almost four years. It's been wonderful. I produced close to half a million dog treats here before I sold the equipment and licensed out the name to a local couple when Amazon.com and baking dog treats became too much. I have hosted parties on my birthday, Halloween and held an annual summer party called "Miami Vice" which was always a hit. Hundreds would show up and my loft became legendary. I have spent countless hours just watching ships, sunsets, sailboats and ferries glide by while sipping wine with my feet up. But with the baking equipment gone and more free time on my hands, my mind started to wander. I've always been creative to some degree, either by figure skating in the early days, to playing some sort of musical instrument in high school, to writing poetry, to this blather. Now I found something was missing and my loft just seemed to be crying out for a piano.

I decided that I would find one. I kept my eyes and ears open and opportunities would float my way now and then. Baby Grand: $3500, Baby Grand: $6,000, Baby Grand: $4200. In an attempt to be frugal while knowing that my piano skills were not worth that level of investment I began to think about finding a free piano to adorn my loft. A few months later, I spot an advertisement for a Baby Grand that someone is needing to give up for $75 per month. I call and set up a time to go see it. A couple days pass and I call back to politely decline after rethinking even that level of investment on a "lease" basis. The girl is moving out of her house and her new roommate has a piano and a professional keyboard so one more piano in her new house won't cut it. In a moment of parking karma brilliance, I offer hat if no one ends up taking her up on a lease offer, that she could simply store the piano at my place for free. She would have storage, I would have a piano to plunk and plink.

The movers arrived yesterday and set up the elegant one in a vacant corner. I've already played away for about two hours now while marveling at how real parking karma really is. I think I'd like $5 million to land in my lap sometime during the next year. Hhhmm....plunk, plunk, plink...oh, baby!

One never knows, about uncertainty. That's kind of the adventurous beauty of it. I was just in my favorite bookstore, breaking a self-imposed rule of not buying more books. I bought "Comfortable With Uncertainty: 108 Teachings" by Pema Chodron. For some reason the title called out to me because my life has been in a certain uncertain state. Funny how that sounds. It's sort of like "the only constant is change." As you might recall from an earlier post, I am washing windows here in my loft and knocking off goals as I go. One of my goals has been to ride the trolley along the Seattle waterfront with AxL, my loyal dog. AxL is a bit uncertain of late. He's been the most loving, faithful, loyal companion a person could ever have for the past ten and a half years. Today, for no reason at all, he fell hard when his back legs gave out and I had trouble getting him up again. His eyes had a certain fear of the uncertain in them. I can't blame him and I'm sure my face had the same expression. He's getting so that the task of "lifting a leg" has become too difficult. Now he's opting for simply slightly squatting on two legs and that's good enough for a twelve year plus canine. The vet warned me last year that "AxL is winding down, and when the end comes, it comes quickly." Pray that I might otherwise, I'm fearing that time is approaching. The last few days, he pants incessantly. He seems very uncomfortable and doesn't know what he really wants to do so he constantly paces, lies down, struggles up, moves and repeats the process. He comes to me for something but I don't know what. He doesn't really want to walk, or eat, or play. He just wants to stand near me and pant a bit then go away and then come back. I do my best to pet and comfort him whenever he approaches.

After buying the book on uncertainty, I exited the store and collected AxL from the fire hydrant I hooked his leash to. I noticed the trolley with it's lights on sitting at the stop. I thought about how we should take it since we haven't done it yet and AxL is not getting younger by any means. As I walk and ponder the thought, I read in the book about uncertainty. In the introduction, I discover the book is more than I thought. This is no bathroom reader, but rather a book of meditation for those who know how to meditate. The introduction instructs me to a resource at the back of the book where I can find a meditation instructor. Hhm. Perhaps AxL can simply be my meditation instructor. If ever there was a spirit at peace with himself and the world, it's AxL. I decide to forge ahead and glean what I can from reading the first chapter. As I'm walking, I see the next trolley stop, Occidental Park, along my route. The trolley has not passed us yet. I think of washing windows and checking off goals and we walk up onto the platform. I read the route schedule and the trolley is due around 9:10 p.m. I look at the time. It's 9:05. We sit, we wait, I pet the dog. I read, he pants.

Eventually, the trolley rounds the corner with it's happy dinging bell. I look up, judge the distance and decide that I can read the last sentence in the chapter I'm on. I'm finishing the last word as the trolley pulls in. I close my book, look up at the conductor riding in the middle of the car who would collect my fare and I continue to watch as the trolley simply keeps rolling on by. I'm blank. Life is uncertain. I hold up my arms from my sides in a "why? what?" silent expression of disbelief and abondonment as if a longtime lover just threw her key to my apartment at me and stormed off. I smile, then chuckle considering the irony of the event coupled with the title of the book. I'm at peace. There is a Starbuck's around the corner which will take my fare and give me a mocha, one of my favorite comfort rituals.

AxL and I walk a block, chit-chat with a shoe-shine man, cross the street, turn left and walk one more block to Yesler. I tie AxL to the USA Today newsstand. I walk to the door of Starbucks and clunk off of it. It's locked, the crew is cleaning up behind the counter. I'm blank again. Life is uncertain still. I skip holding up my arms in my silent expression of disbelief and abandonment. I retrieve the dog and we simply walk home. I set the uncertainty book down with a smile after a lesson learned. I get a bottle of water from the fridge and I pick up my guitar with the missing "A" string and play. G chord, C chord, D chord, G chord. If you heard me play, you'd say with utter certainty that I'd never be a rock star. Hhm. Really? I'm not so sure about that. Life is uncertain, you know.

In college, I spent countless hours rowing on the crew team. We had a coach named, Tony Johnson who was an Olympic Silver medalist. He was quiet as far as coaches go. Never said much and tended to say the same few words over and over. "Get on it, don't hang, DRIVE!!!"

I think that in all of life, I've learned more from doing sports than I have in any classroom. Classrooms and text books teach us everything 20/20, in a vacuum, recited and memorized formulas. Sports teach us in the moment, body, mind and soul pushed to the max. Rowing is an odd sport. I've done several things from figure skating on the US National Team to college hockey to playing little league. Nothing was like rowing. It uses practically every muscle group you have, especially the legs, to their absolute extreme. Yet, while you're unloading every ounce of energy you own into pulling on that oar, you feel the skin slowly tearing from your hands and fingers. Despite the pain, you have to remain utterly composed and perfectly balanced in a precise rythm with your teammates. The slightest lift of the hands, drop of the head or tilt of the body throws the boat off and causes a "crash" of the oars on one side or the other, upsetting everything and losing speed in the process. A rower has to maintain complete concentration on a totally painful and ridiculously monotonous chore. It's like counting to "one" about ten thousand times while looking at nothing more than the sweat soaked tshirt of your teammate in front of you to stay in time. Your mind is a blank, yet it's perfectly focused and drilled down into one task. Meanwhile, every cell in your body is screaming with the pain from the burn of lactic acid. Your lungs are searing, sweat is stinging your eyes and your heart is pounding like a flat tire bumping along at 90 mph. Heart rates of 220 are not uncommon. Throwing up during practice or at the finish line of a race is not uncommon.

"THERE ARE NO LIMITS!!!" Coach Johnson yells through the bull horn. Out of everything I learned at Georgetown, it's the one factor that has made a difference in my life. There was something about hearing it at 6 a.m. when you're driving hard against a rough oar handle with everything you have while rain pours down over you, soaking every last millimeter of skin with cold. Every year, crews were faster, records were broken. There were no limits. You would think that at some point, we max out and a record is set that no one can beat. Along comes someone with no limits to set a new one which will, in time, be beaten as well.

I decided to test the theory against one of my own limits. We used to train on rowing ergometers or "ergs" as we called them. We would row on these torture machines as hard as we could and try for a certain number of meters in a given amount of time. I'd been busting myself against a brick wall with a certain score for years: the "sub-8." The sub-8 was the ability to row 2500 meters in under 8 minutes. I'd never do it. No way. No one in our school could until a goofy, smiling, lanky kid named Brian Marshall had enough and did it in 7:59. That did it for me. I put a 3x5 notecard on the wall next to my bed with 7:59 written on it. Marshall was a lean, fit, aerobic animal and I was a thick, slow power house. Marshall could zip. I could only plow but day after day, I rode my bike to the boathouse to sit alone and pull on that damn erg handle. I had a plan to go after the 7:59 limit day by day. All I had to do was keep improving just one stroke of my very best time just a little bit. I kept beating my scores, week after week, 8:23, 8:21, 8:19; 8:16, 8:12, 8:08. I wrote each of these scores down on their own 3x5 notecard and taped them to my wall leading to the elusive 7:59 limit. Two months later, 8:06, 8:05, 8:02. I was ready. I'd taken 21 seconds of my time, what was three more? Not much.

We had a team wide test coming up soon where we all had to take a turn and go for it with our teammates yelling and cheering us on. My last recorded score in front of the team was the 8:23. I visited the boat house two days before and decided to just march right on over the 7:59. I finished the piece with a final huge stroke and a feeling of passing out. I put my head between my legs and waited for my senses to return before looking. 7:58. Too tired to celebrate, I simply went home and crossed out the 7:59 with a red pen. My wall was covered with 3/5 notecards sporting times that had red "x's" through them. The day for the team test came...and I went...all out: 7:52. Graduation arrived, crew ended and I walked into the world with a piece of paper in a frame and one thought that could get me through anything.

"There are no limits."

The only limits we have, are the ones we place on ourselves. "I'm too old. I'm not good at that. I'll never learn this. It can't be done. I give up."

There are days when I like to look up at the moon and think that less than a hundred years ago, the Wright Brothers skimmed the ground and called it flying. Now, we have not only walked on the moon, we've also taken pictures of pluto from a satellite and each day, thousands upon thousands fly at 30,000 feet in sleek tubes full of people and their too heavy to carry suitcases across continents and oceans. I like to think about the Pony Express riding messages across miles. Now, cell phones smaller than a deck of playing cards invisibly dial any phone number in the world so we can chat while sipping Starbucks coffee. Hearts are replaced with man-made pumps. Computers run on microchips filled with thousands of invisible transistors. Skulls are cut open and brains are repaired. Animals are cloned and the Hubble Telescope sends us pictures of galaxies millions of light years away. Need more proof about no limits? Read about Jeff Skiba, the Washington State 3A High Jump Champion.He did it despite having a prosthetic leg.

On the flip side, we still eat hot dogs of mysterious origin at ball parks, many of us would rather read about the life of a movie star and who they are dating than about a new scientific discovery and war is still a threat to us all. We will watch game shows, "Cops" and "Fear Factor" over "The Dicsover Channel." The human race has no limits except the anchors we tie to ourselves which hold us in our backward ruts. The ruts of pollution, of theft, of clogged arteries from fast food, of destroying each other over a small patch of land because some leader said it's the right thing to do and we follow. This limitless life is so incredible when you look at it from end to end, from the absolutely absurd to the absolutely incredible. We can't cure the common cold after centuries of progress, but we can send a nuclear bomb to the other side of the planet. It seems our limits exist where we let them exist. I repeat, our limits exist, where we LET them exist. If we are determined enough to figure something out, the limitless human potential within each of us figures it out.

And so, I ask you, where do you let limits live in your life and where do you walk right over them in pursuit of something? Have you ever stopped and thought about something you never thought you could do, but somehow you found a way? Take a moment and write it down. Seriously, it will take 30 seconds of your day. Have you ever thought about all the things you've wanted to do but you somehow stopped short at your own self-imposed limit? Take another 30 seconds and write it down. Now that it's there in front of you, why not go after it? Now is as good a time as any to knock off a self-imposed limit. Put it down on a 3x5 notecard on your bedroom wall, look at it every night. Put up another card with your current point and then and cross it off when you pass it. Perhaps it's weight to lose, perhaps it's a book to read, perhaps it's a friend to call, perhaps it's a trip to take or a race to enter. Eventually, your final limit will fall if you do not give up. I'd like to pass along the wisdom from Tony Johnson who planted this one life-changing idea in me in 1989. Take some time, stop what you're doing and ponder deeply. Perhaps you'll discover, like this little fish did on a big river a long time ago, that there are no limits.

"Get on it, don't hang, DRIVE!!!"