Joni and the Geese

Hello, my friend.

I'm just getting back home from another Saturday afternoon walk here in Buenos Aires. It's fall, so it's a little bit chilly outside. So I bundled up today and I went outside and went walking down the street like you normally do when you leave a building, walk down that street.

And I just needed to go out for a walk today. My mind is full of information, these puzzles I have to figure out of life. And so, as usual, I'm walking down the street and my mind is going and, "Did you turn off the pilot on the stove? Did you fold your laundry? Don't forget that you have to solve this issue. Did you delete your browser history? Are you going to tell me what you want to do with life?"

And it's just on and on and on, you know. I'm sure people experience that, not just me.

And in that little speech, that little ongoing recording there, I normally take this path, walk down these blocks, and then take a left, and today I actually took a right instead of taking a left.

And as soon as I did, something shifted in me. Don't know what. But that dialogue that was playing in my mind just turned into, "So did you bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla" and it just tuned out, which was kind of interesting and cool.

And I was walking and I ended up walking down this path, which led into this little plaza, into a little park, and then the park expanded into this bigger park with a lake, huge lake, and all of these little paddled boats that people can rent, and it was just family day. It was people day, human day, and all of these humans walking around, the families, the couples, individual people who decide to venture out with themselves.

I've never been here before, and it was really fun, actually, and this park is full of geese, and that's something I haven't seen in quite a long time. And these geese are very friendly, so they're walking in between the people. They're just going up to people, and the people are feeding them. Some kids are chasing them, some of the geese are chasing their children, and they're just having fun, trying to pluck the food out of their hands.

And I found this one little place next to the lake, and it was later in the afternoon, and the sun was doing its setting time, and actually it was pretty nice.

The sun today was, well, I think it was a little bit lazy because it just gave me some golden colors. It wasn't doing the whole rainbow of violets and pinks and oranges, it just, here's some gold for today, so I'm like, okay, but that was good enough.

And there were some really nice clouds in the sky to give it some more dimension, and I had my little earbuds on listening to music, and at that moment it was on my playlist, and Joni Mitchell came up, the song On Both Sides Now. And I was even listening to that one little phrase that says, "I really don't know clouds at all."

I'm like, whoa, she's here with me. How did that happen?

And I'm just smiling, enjoying the moment, watching life around me, and I was kind of surprised because usually when I go out, my head tilts and sees life in a different way. And today, just like the clouds, I wasn't seeing the people in the same way, and doing all those things like what you're supposed to do on the weekend.

I looked at them as just people who, well, they ended up on this planet, and the parents gave them the toys. This is what you have, and they're making the best of it.

I saw happy faces, I saw sad faces, I saw all types of faces. I saw little geese faces looking at me going, "Hey, you, give me something to eat."

And I flashed back to my childhood neighborhood over in San Francisco, the Haight-Ashbury, when I would walk down the street and they would say, "Hey, give me some change. Hey, you want to buy some of that polycarbon?" or whatever trendy drug they were selling back then.

And I was there, and this mom and her kid sat on this little blanket she brought, and the kid was excited because he was feeding these little geese bread. He got a little loaf of bread out of the backpack, and he put it behind him.

"I'm going to hide it here, just little by little."

And the geese, one of those gooses, geese's, goose goose, ran up behind him and took the bread.

The kid turns around, he's laughing, and the mom's laughing, they're surprised, they look at me, and they've got this innocent face of just laughter. I can't believe it, and I start laughing with them because the other option was to go chase that goose and tackle him and get that bread back.

But I was thinking, "Ah, that's somebody else's battle."

And I watched the sun disappear and say, "See you later, until tomorrow, maybe."

And I walked back home, and interesting, when I got back on the usual path I take, the sound of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, started getting louder and turning into, "Don't forget, you have to go home, and you've got to cook, and before you cook, you've got to wash dishes, and before you wash dishes, you have to go do this."

And so here I am, not paying attention to my mind, but just sharing the story with you, because sometimes when I sit here and I say, "Why do I record these?"

Because the shadow on the wall goes, "I know your story, Johnny."

And I say, "Yeah," so I share it so that somebody else like you can accompany me on this journey. Go out and see what toys our parents left us and make the best of it, right?

I'm making the best of this moment, and I'm going to go do some food stuff before the volume gets turned up in my mind.

Until the next moment.