Why Am I Here?

Don't you sometimes want to read something that packs a punch and gets to the point quickly?

I love reading novels. We can take our time reading them or stay up until 2 a.m., savoring every line. Let's face it though, we don't have all the time in the world, and we are thirsty for answers.

This is my idea; to write a series of short books, under ten thousand words. Not  a How- to- Book, but fiction where I can investigate those questions we ask ourselves in the dark of night. "Why am I here? What's my purpose? Do I have a purpose?" 

Where Tigers Belch--it's been out for awhile and I have mentioned it before, so please indulge me so I can offer it for those who don't know about it. 

Where Tigers Belch is 8,801 words, and now that I am well into a second book, I am offering an excerpt from the Tiger book so you can get a taste of the sort I’m talking about.

Using Edward Abbey's lyrical poem as my inspiration, I am incorporating 'where' into the titles.

"May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles, and poets' towers into dark primeval forest where tigers belch, and monkeys howl…beyond that next turning of the canyon walls."–Edward Abbey 

The second book is Where the Frogs Sing Café. (An excerpt will come.)

Upon searching for books of this sort, I found two authors who write in this category: John Strelecky’s story about the meaning of life sold over 4 million copies." (In my dreams.)  I’ve read two of his books.

And Michael V. Ivanov. (About Pursuing Dreams) I love his speech title: "Stay Alive All Your Life." Oh my gosh, I just saw he lives in Portland, OR, right up the 1-5 Freeway from us.

I’ve read two of his books.

 

Here is an excerpt from

 

Where Tigers Belch

By

Jo Davis

  

An Introduction plus ten chapters are included in the book.

 

Introduction

 

Tomorrow I will take my backpack, I will add a few bottles of water and a couple of sandwiches and set off to find my destiny.

We aren’t on safari here, although I wish we were. We're here to find the spot that lights our fire. That's where the tiger belches. I could say sleep, lies down, or roars, but I like Abby's lyrical poem, so I'm saying, "Where it belches."

Paulo Coelho, wrote The Alchemist, in which a shepherd boy begins a quest to find a treasure—he calls that treasure  his "Personal legend."

Since human beings first became aware that they were thinking, they have asked questions such as Coelho is asking. “Why am I here? Do I have a purpose? Can I trust a Higher Power to look out for me? Is life simply working to supply our basic needs, shelter, food, water, and reproducing?”

While in Africa, Martha Beck found herself in an awkward and dangerous place. She was between a Momma rhinoceros and her baby. Standing there looking at an animal the size of a Volkswagen bus, she experienced a strange phenomenon. She was frightened, yes, but she also felt elated. She was at a place she had dreamed of since childhood, and at that moment, that rhinoceros represented her one true nature. She felt that, somehow, she had come face to face with her destiny. (Between a rhino and a hard place?)

Perhaps that rhino was a talisman for her, a representation of what she could become: big, strong, able to overcome obstacles, that thing that both scares us and elates us. We hope we live to tell of it when we find ourselves in that place.

Being at a spot where a tiger belch has a gentler ring than coming face-to-face with a rhino. The purpose is the same. However, which would you rather face, a wild tiger or a wild rhino?

I don't think we can take credit for all we have produced, for I believe in muses and divine intervention.  However, we can take credit for searching. I search for my figurative or literal spot where the tiger belches.

 

 

Chapter 1

You might think I spent the night quivering in my debris hut, listening for the footfalls of wild animals.

I did.

I'm joking. I slept like a relaxed dog lying on his back with all four paws in the air.

I was on a mission and wouldn't let a minor inconvenience stop me.

Ahead was the goal of my life.

I spent yesterday walking, but when a washed-out area of the path sent me sliding into an avalanche of mud, I slid downhill, screaming and grasping at the vegetation.

My careening stopped short of a stream, thank heavens. I had scraped my hands on the way down, and made my throat raw from the screaming, but I survived to the tune of birds screeching and wing flapping as they fled from the treetops, painting a smear of colors across the sky.

I washed my hands in the stream and ate one of the tuna fish sandwiches I had placed in a plastic container to keep them from getting mushed. I drank my bottled water and gathered sticks and debris for an enclosure where I spent the night.  

Now you might be waiting for me to fall on my face, and I may—I slid down the muddy slope, didn't I? But what if we travel through life knowing it will turn out well for us?

I crawled out of my enclosure, stripped off my clothes, and bathed in the stream.

Figuring that the stream—which flowed at a pretty good clip—was pure, I filled my empty water bottles.

I put the bottles into my backpack, and found a surprise. (Did I tell you I had lost my backpack on the way down that embankment and had to climb, holding onto vegetation for support, back up to get it? I slipped back down again—but I saved my backpack.) I had used this pack before and had left a pen and a paper pad in its zipped-up compartment. I searched to see if I had anything else tucked away.

I found three sticks of gum, old and dried up, a chocolate mint from a restaurant long ago, melted, flattened, and reset, but still in its foil wrapper. There were a few crumbs of leftover peanuts and salt at the bottom of the pack. I dipped a wet finger in the salt and licked it. It gave me the taste of having potato chips – a good aftertaste for my tuna fish sandwich.

Okay, dry, dressed, fed, and invigorated after that cold bath, I began skipping down the new path destiny had chosen for me.

Besides, I knew that following a stream usually led somewhere. Water goes downhill, not in circles, as I am apt to do.

What if I get lost? I think as I walk along—a moment of doubt. What if I run out of food or get eaten by a tiger?  Well, I'd be dead. I don't know where I am now anyway. I might as well proceed. I'm determined.

I take off my tee shirt, dip it in the stream, and put it back on to cool my steaming body. I sit beside the stream, gather some reeds, and weave them into a ratty-looking hat. It protects my head, and the wet grass helps keep me at a tolerable temperature.

I keep walking; the sun beats down hot, and it is humid and muggy under the forest's canopy.

Occasionally, a monkey screams at me, sometimes they sing in a full-on chorus of screeching, but I keep on.

Another night in the jungle? What did I get myself into?

Suddenly, I hear someone humming.

Am I coming upon an encampment?

I stop and hold my breath as I peer through the jungle thicket. I see only one hut.

Standing there where I am, hidden in the trees, I see an old woman come out of a shelter. Her white hair frizzes out in a tangle, flowing down her back. She is wearing a turquoise sarong tied above her bosom. Her shoulders are bare. She ambles, carrying a jug to the stream where she dips it into the water. She hefts the filled jug out of the water and settles it on her hip.

As she is walking back to her hut, she calls out to me.

"Why are you standing there, gawking? Come in out of the heat. I've been expecting you."

more

 

 

 

 

When Donkey's Fly!

 

 

 

                                                              Patch Adams

People like the man in the picture above, ones who crop up every so often, ones who make a difference, give me new hope.

The past 100+ days have tested my faith in people.

"I didn't see this coming," said Kamala Harris on the Steven Colbert show,

What was it she didn't see?

“Ca·pit·u·la·tion,” she said.

•      The action of surrendering or ceasing to resist an opponent or demand: "A capitulation to wage demands"

The people caved in.

I didn't see it either. I thought the people would be outraged to see someone they trusted tear down human rights and freedom we have enjoyed and is the framework of our country.  I believed in the greatness of the American people, still do, but there are a significant number of those who oppose the things for which we have held in high regard. (Or else, because our system hasn't been perfect, they are willing to see it fall.)

 I said I would pull back on discussing politics. Now I wonder, if we don't express our distaste for what is happening, is that letting the liar, cheat, rapist, demagogue, narcissist, and general sociopath get a free pass? He blames his opponents and threatens citizens who dare criticize him. Folks, does that sound like someone we want as President?

He de-funds Universities, for heaven's sake—are we going to allow the end of academic freedom?

That would signal a dying civilization.

Now he is after the Olympics. And he makes numerous assaults on his opponents, saying they have a low IQ. I don't care how high your IQ is; if you don't feed that beautiful brain of yours with good stuff, you will come out one evil smart-alecky creep.

I am repeating myself here, but I learned a lot about democracy from Barbara Kingsolver's book The Poisonwood Bible, particularly when she wrote about the governments' attempts (In the 1950's and 1960's) to introduce democracy into the Congo.

The Congolese people got the idea that it was a government by the people and that people voted for whom or whatever they wanted. The trouble was they rushed to a vote before any discussion or consensus, as is expected of a jury.

The wise elder of the village said, "When a country is divided 49-51, half the country is mad all the time." 

Their democracy didn't work.

De-funding Public Broadcasting? Forcing companies to fire comedians?  Deporting Immigrants? Threatening to take citizenship away from citizens born in this country? And then expect me to play nice and not talk about politics?

When donkeys fly.

My lesson was this: go ahead and comment, have your ideas, share, but keep a glad heart. Don't let yourself jump off the deep end. Once a friend and I went to see Patch Adams in Eugene, OR. He was the doctor who formed the "Gesundheit Institute." Robin Williams played him in the movie Patch Adams. 

It was a small gathering, and Adams told my friend Betty she could sit on his lap. I asked him how he managed to maintain joy in the face of misery. He said, "That's when I need it the most."

He didn't tell me how, but I understood his TRY. 

I went to the Chiropractor today because I sprained my back. As he gently relieved my muscles, he told me he had taken a trip to London and Paris since our last visit. He said when he first stepped onto a street in France, a moped raced past. The driver had a white scarf waving in the wind, and on the back of the bike, there was a bag with a baguette poking out. Picture perfect. He couldn't believe it.

He was surprised at how friendly the French people were; someone would come up to him, gently ask a question, and end by saying: "You are not that much different from us."  That young man was being a goodwill ambassador for the U.S.

Way to go.