Six Ways to Sunday

This time of year, there's alot of talk about how to improve upon the way you set about living your life...how to be better...how to be awesome...


It's kinda boring to see and read, but it's only because those that care about "improving" themselves already know what they need to do.


You know you should get off your ass and hump around the 'hood for at least thirty minutes a day.
You know you should put the Doritos down and eat raw broccoli (yes, alive...sigh)
You know you should try new things and meet new people--you can get so much out of just talking to a nerd at Caribou Coffee, or the waiter you leave a three dollar tip to after you eat (hello, won't even buy a gallon of gas these days--leave at least five for ANY meal)
You know you should do more for others--hard to do when you have kids...by god you do for them all the time it can seem. They don't call them crumbsnatchers for nothing.
You have it in you to answer all the questions and find all the strategies that you want. But you, me, no one ever does.


I'll be honest, the world would be a boring a place if we just sat up and figured it all out one morning.


Do you need a strategy to improve? No.


The only thing I would say is:


You got six senses, use them all, everyday.


See: Look to your left, look to your right, look UP! You'll see groundhogs by the road playing chicken with commuters and hawks for that blade of greener grass. You'll see cat hair on the back of your buddy's coat and know he ain't as tough as he says he is. You'll see paw prints in concrete. Eye-boogers on pretty girls, crooked teeth behind tight-lipped, self-conscious smiles, and gleaming pearly whites perched in towers of vanity. See and understand I mean; what are you seeing?


See the sunrise; I've said it a million times. Nothing sets your place in the universe, or on this planet, better than our closest star sneaking up behind you in the morning. 


Just open your eyes, and use that handy swivel under your skull to change your perspective. It's your neck, use it.


Hear: Nothing sounds like a car door slamming behind you. Nothing sounds like a a kid in a shopping cart bargaining for chips, or opening the bag before check out. The worse my hearing gets, the harder it is to listen of course.


Eavesdrop for god's sake. Those people behind you at the deli...laugh at their jokes too. Sure, you're smarter, better looking, but they're funny too. Tell 'em so--the 'funny too' part, not the 'not-as-good-looking' part.


Turn off the TV. Turn off the music. Your kids'll thank you when they have something to say and you listen.


Out of doors, yeah yeah, birds, wind in the trees, etc etc...I know we all know that, but hear the brakes squeal from under the bus, check out that tattoo'd dude's ringtone. Make sure you never miss a thing.


Touch: Hard to touch everything you ever wanted to touch, in fact, in NC, it can be illegal.  If you want to stomp in the mud barefoot, do it. Is that pear ripe? Is that real fur? Is her hair wet or is that just mousse? Is that a BB in your son's head? Is that a new mole on my back? 


You also know, there are things you can do with touching that I won't even write about...things you can do, and never use your hands--and that's all I'm gonna say about that.


Taste: You can stretch Taste's legs by trying new things of course. I mean, you already know what you like now, but food you hated, you may like now as well. I marvel how I can eat Lima beans and pintos and asparagus and disgusting things I never ate as a kid...still can't choke down green peas, but I ain't dead yet. In another ten years I'll try them again.


Food is only a smattering of tastible things out there. Why does your dog like MilkBone dog biscuits so much? Find out. What's that stain on your shirt? White chocolate? White. Chocolate?


An acorn on the ground, a free hickory nut--hopes you have a hammer handy. Blackberries, blueberries--all by the side of the roads of NC--but you have to LOOK (see above). In November, pecans (that's PEE-cans) fall out of trees like manna from heaven...and persimmons dare you taste them.


Smell: Ah, the forgotten one. There is no taste without the nose. Like looking up, the art of sniffing has become somewhat lost. Those surrounded by food and the preparation thereof think they have that one all figured out, but we don't live in our kitchens.


Remind you what a baby smells like and your heart may melt. (Of course, mine won't--babies *shudder*) Feel like the world is moving away from under you like a speeding escalator? Take a second to sneak up behind your child and sniff his filthy head. No kids? Sniff your dog's smelly paws, her forehead.


That sickly, sweet smell when you turn on the heat in your car means you need new head-gaskets. 


The cloud of Axe that swirls around teenage boys reminds you of your Polo days, and when your girlfriend wore Lauren...


The insides of the deer you're butchering, reminds you again, of your place on the planet, and how you can't survive, live, without utterly destroying something. That's a humbling smell indeed that many of us skip.


Want a shock? Smell your self. Rub your chin with the back of your hand and smell...Lick the back and your hand and sniff the chlorine left on you from your last shower...is it any wonder we all get cancer sooner or later. Leave off the deodorant, find out what your ancestors (and the French do now) smelled like.


Don't be afraid to use your nose to see things your eyes cannot.


Balance: The sixth sense--has nothing to do with seeing dead people. It's the cliche you hear over and over: If you don't use it you lose it.


Instead of walking down a sidewalk, walk on just the curb--try not to look at your feets. Walking by a retaining wall? Do the edge. See what you can see two feet higher...your buddy's crown, the one his mom sniffs when the world gets a way from her and he's in town. 


Carry a tray of food in one hand over your head like the waiter you stiffed on the tip. Four bowls of soup sloshing around above your head is a challenge.


Keep your wits on an icy sidewalk. Teeter from the dizzying height of your truck's tailgate as you shovel out mulch, or ice cold beers from the cooler. Change a light bulb from your chair. Walk along your counter tops unscrewing dead bulbs from your kitchen can lights. See what the cabinet guy left on top when he was done. A can of spit (Sniff that! Was it Skoal or Copenhagen?) or a tiny block of wood with measurements scrolled on it. To see that stuff you have to look...


These are things you already do but pay them no mind. Start paying.


Anyway, you know what you want. You don't need bloggers and Huffington Post nor Ghandi or even Jennifer Aniston telling you what you want/need. I guess for some it's fun to read this time of year. And I browse over them sometimes sort of half-assedly taking it all in. And sometimes, I make up my own.