Point of View: No Time Not to Think

I gave my daughter some mezcal to taste the other night, and one sip, she said, ought to quash, at least for a good while, any desire for alcohol that a young person might ever harbor — in much the same way smoking a big cigar down to the nub has allayed, sometimes forever, that activity.

We agreed that mezcal tasted pretty much as if it were a pairing of leather and gasoline. Why, then, you ask, do I drink it, and I will tell you that it is because it is there. I bought a bottle at a duty-free shop on the way back from Mexico last winter, demurring when the salesman said I ought to buy two. 

It’s from Oaxaca. If it is used in esoteric native rites, I oughtn’t to dismiss it so quickly. I have not seen God yet, though maybe I’ve not been in the right frame of mind. I will give it another shot, though I don’t think Emily will join me.

Speaking of God, Joseph Campbell says — or rather says some sages say — that we don’t need to look all that far. There is far more than is dreamt of in our philosophy, and, surprise, it’s all here — at least that could be our sense of it when we are still. Which is hard, of course, if you live in the Hamptons.

Yes, it is hard to find that still center in the spinning world when you’re looking for a parking space on a rainy day. My retreat, if I may, is my outdoor shower — and I think there are others here who regard their outdoor showers in a similar way. I was standing in it yesterday morning (we have a bench in ours so you can draw your feet up and read) when, as Larry Penny had said would happen, a butterfly, a large yellow one, appeared, teasing me out of thought — most of them having to do with how Gary and I are going to demolish our tennis tournament opponents — as it flitted across the yard, and up, up into the trees.

I have — we are, after all, sexual beings — been thinking of slugs too. Their lovemaking is fascinating, as Mary and I learned last summer, but you’ve got to have the time. Slugs will not be rushed. Theirs is a message for us in these frenzied, partied-out days of August in which, as Bob Schaeffer used to say, there is too much muchness. Much too much muchness. There is no time not to think.