Zen Gardening

A text comes through from the first-born.  Amanda’s passed a test she had to take for her new teaching position.  “Of course you did” I reply.  Like there’s some chance a multiple-choice test is going to trip her up.  A wonderful Memorial Day weekend of NorCal wanderings leaves many memories.  Ghiradelli, otter spotting, Big Sur, giant pancakes, hiking, Yosemite, noticing God has a Zen garden at the top of Nevada Falls, etc.. 

But here’s the memory that’s indelibly etched in the heart and mind.  Resting in a tent in Yosemite at day’s end.  Amanda laying on a cot, covered in a government issue blanket, studying for her test.  She’s reading a textbook with the title “America” and some subtitle that’s too small for me to read.  I get the sound of one hand clapping wrong from time to time, but sometimes the Zen is so strong even I can’t screw it up.

She has to take a test on American history?  She couldn’t be more authentically, bouyantly American if she was wearing a copper robe, holding a torch in New York Harbor.