Are you familiar with the Zen concept of a koan, a question which cannot be answered within the confines of ordinary logic? For instance, "Why is Pi?" (My personal favorite) or "What is the difference between a duck?" (A Zen joke, suggested response: “Both legs are the same.”) I'll open this chapter with the thought that friendship is a koan. Since everything we create, including friendships, is pregnant with its own dissolution, why do we “friend?”
I cycled to Rosscarbery last Saturday morning taking the route along the beaches in a roughly northerly direction. Puddles from Friday night’s rain had become icy patches in spots the sun had not yet reached. The tide was out and there was a clean reef break at Red Strand; an even 6 foot surf at Long Strand. I day dreamt of my beach rat boyhood. That reef break, a couple hundred meters off shore, captured me. The morning sun illuminated the spume flying off each wave's crest. They seemed somehow too perfect to be "real," another koan.
As a child I was very open about fantasy, so much so that my parents became concerned at my "lying" about the events of my day. My mother read me the Dr. Seuss book "To Think That It Happened on Mulberry Street," a story about a boy who makes up fantastic events. After that reading, mother would ask me "Frankie, did that happen on Mulberry Street?" when she thought I was fabulating. I had no problem acknowledging Mulberry Street. I knew adults too believed in Mulberry Street. Jesus walking on water and Mary's ascension into heaven, for example, clearly happened on Mulberry Street. I kept this knowledge to myself, however, already guarded in my interactions with grown-ups and their “real world.”
As an adult, I accept that dreams, waking and sleeping, are as real as the "real world" which we Westerners think so important. Why do we so prize the world of pollution, robotic weapons, terrorism, and perennial armed conflict; the world where children starve and friends die young? I prefer Mulberry Street where life is gentler, people are kind to one another, dogs speak, and pigs can fly. Mary, Jesus, Krishna, and Siddhartha are my dearest friends and teachers on Mulberry Street. Given the choice, who dares say I'm mistaken?
Coming home from my Saturday adventure, I went through Castle Freke and Rathberry, a hamlet a klick or two inland from Long Strand. A light rain was falling and the setting sun created a rainbow over the castle. Horses grazed on the castle lawn and I wandered off down Mulberry Street. Cycling takes me there. While I was out I stopped for a chat with my Airedale pal, May. She gave me a kiss and I gave her a biscuit.
My dear friend Elfreda, who called me “Dad,” died unexpectedly last night. That rainbow over Castle Freke was her angel path. Elfreda’s lottery dream was to open a home for Down’s Syndrome children. She didn’t want a Lamborghini or a yacht, just a loving place for discarded children. I shall miss gentle child Elfreda and wonder if I can sing “The Parting Glass" ever again without a tear for her.
The sun is shining on the Celtic Sea; life and friendship are insolvable koans. Today I embrace them in all their beauty, mystery, and wonder.
