Luvin' Like a Sophomore

The truth is where the truth is, and it's sometimes in the candy store. - Bob Dylan in the Zen Calendar (August 26, 2004).

Day 199. I helped move my son into his apartment for the upcoming academic year. Through yet another flaw in logic, which seems to be the modus operandi of all present day institutions of higher learning, the new apartment was NOT the same dwelling in which he resided over the summer. The Xterra, historically reliable as the Timex Cinderella watch I received for my tenth birthday, overheated as I pulled into the parking lot of the apartment complex. Perhaps we had exceeded its hauling capacity; there was an awful lot of XBox 360 paraphernalia being transported. It was 108 degrees on the turnpike today. I felt humbly apologetic for putting the Big X through such an ordeal.

I cooled her off, unloaded the heap of electronics, added water, and whispered sweet nothings into her radiator cap. We did fine driving home. It was 11:30 p.m., and the temperature had dropped to a crisp 95 degrees. I am pretty sure there is a direct conduit between the external temperature and my compassion reservoir. As the temperature climbs, the reservoir runs dry. Every time I glanced at the temperature gauge on my console, I wanted to run the nearest passing motorist off the road. My compassion cup definitely does NOT runneth over. Fortunately, neither did my radiator.

The trip was absolutely redeemed through getting to watch my man/child son with his girlfriend over several hours. They are both sophomores in college. She is the diminutive five foot tall coxswain of the varsity rowing team. He is a muscular six foot three former safety on the football team. The size difference is bridged by a mutual adoration that blinds the naked eye. Sophomore love is a sight to behold.

Rosie the Rower accompanied us to Sears to purchase a bed for my son. When we mentioned the nature of our errand in route, she exclaimed, "Oh, good! I love to try out different beds!" Super. Just the characteristic one wants in her son's first college girlfriend. A California King was the obvious choice for a being exceeding six feet in length, but it was absurdly out of our price range. Undeterred, the young couple proceeded to flop down on the dozen or so queen size mattresses laid out in symmetrical precision across the Sears showroom.

Meanwhile, I conferred with the saleswoman. It took her all of 90 seconds to resurrect my long slumbering Sears credit card. "Wow!" she observed, "I wish I had your credit limit!" I looked down at the temporary card that miraculously shot out of her computer and marveled that in less than two minutes I had been handed $4,000 worth of credit. I seized the opportune teaching moment to tout the advantages of a good credit score to my son. He wondered why we weren't purchasing the California King. I answered that knowing the difference between Queens and Kings was exactly why my credit score is so good. I hope he didn't register my wistful glance at the treadmills on our way out of the store.

Basking in the afterglow of a Queen Sealy Posturpedic for half-price-less-$150-rollback-plus rebate for free delivery, no-interest-for-twelve-months, you'll-have-it-by-Friday shopping coup, we headed to Target. Under blazing fluorescent lights, surrounded by the dizzying overstimulation of back-to-school retail excess, sophomore love blossomed like cacti in the dessert after a spring downpour. The theme was blending. I have never witnessed such a display of co-mingling in my life. Every decision, every purchase, every push of the shopping cart was shared. It was probably the purest example of evaporating boundaries ever experienced by humankind - on or off a cushion.

Through some mystic, implicit agreement on the part of these two madly in love psyches, all thought, feeling and action emanated from a singular, conjoined consciousness. "Yours" and "mine" was usurped by "ours." Two separate wills coalesced into a seamless cooperative process. The merger was complete. Normally, I would find such an amalgamation of two formerly separate beings nauseating, but this was different. There was such sweetness, such genuineness, such lack of self-consciousness on the part of those moonstruck sophomores that all I could feel was reverence. Probably a little jealousy. And fierce protectiveness of it lasting as long as young love can.

What an awesome reminder of Beginner's mind. For the moment, Rosie and my son appear oblivious to the strategic defensiveness and jaded cynicism that tragically envelopes most people over the age of twenty-one. When hearts are fused so completely, egos are vanquished. In the presence of the beloved, there is only the Now - liquid and shimmering under a veil of adoration.

As the country western song goes, "This ain't no thinkin' thang." Through love, effortless enlightenment. And they've never even sat on a cushion.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc