What is it about playing hooky that is so delightful?

When I was a kid, my mother would periodically let me stay home from school just because.  She could tell when my energy was low and I needed a break from the drudgery of school.  I would sleep in, dangle my feet in the creek, climb trees, eat grilled cheese sandwiches and watch afternoon cartoons. Growing up in Tampa, hooky days during high school usually meant skipping school for the beach.  It was magical to listen to the waves when I knew I was supposed to be in class listening to my high school biology teacher talk about mitochondria.

When my son was young, he instinctively knew when he needed a break, and like my mother, I honored his knowingness. But as adults, we don’t often allow ourselves the luxury of playing hooky. After all, it’s not the mature thing to do. We have so many responsibilities.

You can call it what you want: A retreat, a day off, a week off, a year off, but playing hooky is profound. It re-energizes our hearts and souls and affirms our internal daydreamer, wanderer, poet and artist. It allows us to play without responsibility, be creative (or lazy), and say ‘yes’ to our soul with compassion and trust. It is a reset from the universe.   When I picked up and moved across the country, I allowed myself plenty of hooky time.  It didn’t help my finances, but it did help support me in the transition to my new life.

I have friends who are retiring this year, and some who have recently retired.   Please, go play hooky to your heart’s content.

Life is precious and fleeting. We don’t have that many years to leave our footprints in the sand, breathe in the ocean air, or take an afternoon off to go hiking. Plan not to miss a single moment.  You know deep down inside when you need a hooky day.

“I Wanna Play Hooky”, words and music by Casey Conerly, written one afternoon playing hooky.

In 1981, I was the morning news anchor for the top 40 radio station in Orlando. George, the guy I was dating at the time, was a handsome, dark haired New Yorker who worked in sales at the station. His father had offered him a job selling RV’s at his dealership in Spokane Washington, and he asked me to go with him.  He didn’t have a great relationship with his father and wanted to give it a shot. I wasn’t in love with George, but we had fun together and so I thought, why not? I was ready for a new adventure and Spokane sounded exotic and exciting. Mostly it was a far cry, and trip across the country, from Florida. So, George drove his Suzuki jeep (dubbed the ‘tinker toy’). And without knowing anything about Spokane Washington, I flew out a week later.

And here is what unfolded. It was the end of November. George’s father put him on straight commission in the middle of the winter selling RV’s. The temperature never reached over 17 degrees during the day, the sun never shone and snow was deep on the ground. I had only seen a couple of inches of snow in my life. Once when my father was briefly stationed at Altus Air Force Base in Oklahoma when I was ten. My sister and I scraped it off the ground and made scrawny snowmen in the front yard. 

I wore long underwear beneath my skimpy Florida clothes and learned how to drive downhill and stop in the snow without skidding.

The Suzuki jeep had no heat. But, our apartment did, so I kept it at 80 degrees.When George’s friend from work came over to visit, he would be sweating in seconds. “Are you growing orchids in here?” he would ask.

Because George had no income, I sold air time at a local radio station.“Now tell me again why you moved here?” asked the sales manager.  I was also a news anchor for the early morning shift at KPBS, driving in before sunrise across town, and I sold women’s clothes at a big retailer on the weekend. I did end up buying a heavy coat on sale there.I lived in it the rest of the winter.

Now, looking back, it was crazy to take off across the country without enough information.Yes, perhaps I should have known better. But no one can tell you, except Google.

Google is now my friend.

I google everything.  Prices on airfares, how to play an A#7 chord, the best Thai curry  recipes and exactly what is static on the radio. Have you ever wondered that?  (which google says can be cosmic background noise from the sun or the center of the Milky Way Galaxy.)

Every important decision should be googled first. This new generation has no excuses.

We lived in Spokane for six months. I could have come back to Florida sooner on my own, but I couldn’t leave George with his asshole father, so I saved enough for us to get back to Florida together.

When I got off the plane, I put on my flip flops and kissed the ground. It was April in Florida.

If you google April in Florida,the average temperature is 80 degrees.

Casey at Music Camp

What shall you do

with this generous gift

of another delicious year to live?

As your music plays

mellifluously

here and now

and the sun rises

on your hopes invisible

and still possible.

Can you move into this now

and this now and this now

with enchantment

bewilderment

and vigilant attention?

As others you’ve loved

are silenced by that long sleep

what shall you roar

from the rooftops

in this uncharted year?

Why not be

daring

passionate

kind

grateful

loving.

In the midst of this life’s

madness and beauty,

and inexorable sorrows,

seek opportunities to scatter more love.

Support others

so no one suffers alone

share a bit of your own light

when you have some to spare

and adore yourself a little more.

Greet the day with a light heart

palms pressed together in reverance

for another chance to love.

Is it possible

to be in love with yourself,

your own luscious life

and the whole world?

In an ineffable blink of an eye

you will take your last breath

and what you will remember

 of this remarkable journey

will surely be love.

Casey Conerly 2015

.

My cousin, Mike, spent his 21^st birthday in prison for selling cocaine to an FBI agent.  We grew up across the street from each other in Tampa, playing basketball, kick the can and cops and robbers on our bicycles.  He was a year older and a pure, running on all cylinders crazy ass. When he was released from Raiford State Prison in Starke, Florida later that year, he purchased a new Datsun 260z, and moved to Indialantic Beach to surf and work construction.

In his typical persuasive manner (he did get ‘Most Likely to Succeed’ in high school), he asked, “Casey, can you come and live with me?  I really need your help to keep me straight.”

I’m not sure what prompted his thinking. I was dallying with meditation and reading Autobiography of a Yogi for god’s sake, and he was the ringleader for a group of sophomoric stoned out surfers. They were the quintessential Jeff Spicoli’s from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. (Whom I may quote sometime during this story) We were far from a match made in heaven.

But, it had to be better than what I was doing at the time, my 20 year old self rationalized. Which was working in the basement of a bank in downtown Tampa, helping old people into their safety deposit boxes and fending off Cherise, another employee, who continued to prod me to participate in a threesome with her husband.  He would show up at the bank to ‘take us to lunch’.

So I moved in with Mike and started work opening new accounts at Melbourne Bank. Our beach house became the crash pad for out of town surfers and stoners. “Dude, what is this stuff…does it cause brain damage?” In the morning, I would stumble over beer bottles, bongs, surfboards and sleeping bodies in my high heels and navy and chartreuse polyester bank uniform on my way out the door to work. In the evenings, I locked my bedroom door perchance someone got lost looking for the bathroom. I became the maid, cook, money lender, shoulder to cry on and in general, the stability factor in an otherwise unstable environment.

I was Innkeeper of the Crazy House. Mike knew what he was doing.

As Christmas rolled around that year, one of Mike’s best friends and surfing buddies, Regis, was residing on the couch for a few weeks with his 18 year old girlfriend Kathy. Several days before Christmas, Kathy asked if I wanted to go to ladies’night for free champagne at the Ramada Inn in Satellite Beach. Regis was sleeping, so we took his car.

As we pull into the hotel parking lot, Kathy looked at me, eyes wide. “Oh my god. I forgot. Shit. There is pot in the car. I mean a lot of pot. Like several kilos of pot, I think.  Regis was going to deliver them tomorrow. Shit!” We looked in the rear of his Volkswagen hatchback where the bales were barely covered, looked back at each other for a brief moment, got out of the car, locked it, and walked toward the sound of disco music.

Several hours later, I decided I should drive us home. I was not a big drinker and Kathy was two sheets to the wind. Halfway home, we were pulled over because one of the headlights was out. I saw myself in handcuffs, orange jumpsuit, stringy hair, shuffling like a zombie through the halls of the Lowell Correctional Institute in Ocala, home to notoriously corrupt guards. Spending my 21st birthday in prison.

The policeman did not search the car.  He let us off with a warning and followed us home. “Now, be safe ladies”, he called as he turned his squad car around, “And, Merry Christmas”. It was years before the appearance of MADD and DUI’s.

The day before Christmas Eve, racing his 260z down a back road, Mike skidded into a creek and sunk it up to the roof. We spent Christmas Eve in the front yard removing the seats and carpeting, and drying everything out best we could. I went back to Tampa the next day to spend Christmas with my family.

Later I found out there had been another 20 bales of cannabis in our garage at the time Kathy and I were escorted home by the nice policeman. It was time for me to resign my post.

A day or so after Christmas, I packed my car, said goodbye and drove to Cocoa Beach to visit my friends, Janet and Jeff, and see their new baby. On the beach one afternoon, I met my future first ex husband, Paul. Shortly thereafter, we moved to the north shore of Oahu and rented a furnished house from a nice Filipino man for $250 a month. Our backyard was Sunset Beach.

When one of Mike’s business associates was found deceased in the trunk of his own car, my cousin ceased his illegal drug activities and moved back to Tampa to install elevators in high rises.

For better or worse, I’ve never been one to pass up the opportunity for an adventure. And in turn, the sound track of my life has been beautifully diverse and comprehensive. Thank goodness for the angel in my pocket.

“Well, I’ll tell you Stu, I did battle some humongous waves! But you know, just like I told the guy on ABC, “Danger is my business!”

“Hey cutie” he said, grabbing the ties of my apron from behind and pointing to his coffee cup.  It was the fall of 1972 and the last fateful day of my waitressing career. I was working the breakfast shift at the Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge and Restaurant in Cocoa Beach, Florida. Nothing much riled me up back then, except assholes.  So the morning had already started off on the wrong foot.  I graduated from high school in Tampa the year before and moved to the beach, enrolling in Brevard Community College part time, but mostly skipped classes to surf if the waves were good, except for the Sunfish (personalized beach-launched sailing dinghy) class on Tuesdays.

The HoJo’s breakfast shift was the worst waitressing gig on the beach and I was a subpar waitress at best with a terrible attitude.  It was a tourist spot and customers were notoriously cheap tippers.  A family of five, ordering full breakfasts, with chocolate milk for the kids and individually pared grapefruit halves, might leave me 50 cents. We bussed our own tables back then and it was fairly tricky to find my tips under the tornado strewn tables. One of the other waitresses, Arlette, a gorgeous French woman, was notorious for chasing after customers and handing them back their scrawny tips.  “Non merci, you must need this more than me”, she would insist in her French accent. I greatly admired her and never understood why she worked there.

On top of that, our uniforms were cringe worthy blue and white plaid with puffed sleeves, and a ruffled apron. For some strange reason, the male customers seemed to like the apron strings. The only saving grace was the fact my best friend and surfing buddy, Linda, worked there with me. Our shift started at 6 am, so at 5:45, I would be in the parking lot pushing her red AMC Hornet from behind while she popped the clutch. Then I would run and get in, apron flapping. When we got home dead tired, stinky and mean, we would throw all the change from our grimy pockets into the middle of a huge unframed waterbed and count it. It was pitiful.

Thank god Linda had a family pass to the commissary at Patrick’s Air Force Base. We would spend approximately 9 dollars a week on groceries, and fill up when we could at Howard Johnson’s. I did like their pecan pie and blueberry toasties. Sometimes we would fill our pockets with individually wrapped brownies and sneak them home to share with our apartment mates, Jeff and Janet.

The morning cook at HoJo’s was another surfer and a friend of my cousin’s. His name was Jim and he liked me.  He was charming, tall and good looking, but a little cocky.  I admired his entrepreneurial spirit, however. In addition to being a short order cook, he also sold knife sets out of the truck of his car and marijuana to the surfing community.  He had a black belt in karate and would show us his moves in the kitchen while prepping food.

On this particular morning, I had a table of four businessmen in a booth.  Their newspapers were spread out over the table and I was having a hard time setting it up. Once I finally did, I asked, “What can I get for you?” in my fakey, waitressy voice.  Without looking up, one of them tapped on his coffee cup.

He freakin’ tapped on his coffee cup without looking up.

At that moment an alien took over my body. I grabbed the spoon out of his hand and threw it across the table making contact with a few of the coffee cups, porcelain chiming, ding ding ding and in the process knocked over a water glass in one of their laps. I untied my apron and threw it at them too, and walked into the back of the restaurant where Jim was frying eggs. Linda, who heard the commotion, walked over and gave them a piece of her mind too.  Lucky for us, the manager was out that morning.

In the end, the businessmen left me a huge tip. It must have been at least 4 dollars. I did not think of myself as a feminist at the time, but I didn’t understand the demeaning of women or anyone else for that matter, so maybe I was. It was 1972 after all. We’d lived through the 60’s and we thought things were a changin’.

I also knew that the service industry was not my calling and my skills as a waitress were poorly lacking. The wonderful customers who dined at Howard Johnson’s Travel Lodge and Restaurant deserved so much better, so I quit.

Years later, while studying journalism at the University of Central Florida, I ran into Jim, the short order cook. He had become an engineer and was creating solar energy systems for the Florida Solar Energy Center.  We ended up living together for three years, but that’s another story.

A magnificent drawing of a bluebird flies over my desk in California. It is one of a few precious treasures from my 25 years in Charlotte that made the trek across the country. My son Jackson drew the picture when he was six: a bodacious bluebird flying over our southern home, the sun rising in the east. It is a precious and inspired drawing by a little boy at a painful time of change for our family.  It was the year his father and I ended our marriage and Jackson and I moved from the country into a brick bungalow in the heart of Charlotte. For 14 years it graced our home as Jackson grew up.

As the years passed, we did create a magnificent life. His father moved a few blocks away and was a constant source of support, love and direction for Jackson. Our home was filled with laughter and the ruckus of boys playing video games, basketball and electric guitar. I spent many tranquil hours in my backyard, transforming it into a small Garden of Eden. I watched hummingbirds, took pictures of butterflies and bees, nurtured every plant and flower, and myself in the process. Jackson made lifelong friends and so did I. We had our inevitable challenges and sorrows along the way, like the time our beloved cat died when Jackson was nine. He suggested we put on the song Let It Be by the Beatles. He stayed home from school and we cried our hearts out to the music.

I knew when he left for college, my work was done and my time in Charlotte had come to an end.  ‘For every season’…and this was mine. A new life in San Diego beckoned stronger than any ties, fear of the unknown or connection to a place I had come to love and call home. I have made wonderful new friends here.  Old friends have come to see me. Jackson takes the train down from LA for weekend visits. California has captured my heart.

These days, after I finish my work, I walk down to the beach to commune with salty birds, surfers and the ocean. I watch the sun melt into the horizon and the sky and sea turn gold, pink and red. Some early mornings I walk along the lagoon near my home, sit on my favorite bench watching dragonflies and ducks on the sparkling water. Weekends I hike in the hills overlooking the great Pacific. The ‘peace that the wild things bring’, settles over me, as Wendell Berry mused in his well loved poem.

This life is both terrible and beautiful. The heaviness of the world can take its toll and we can get easily pulled in. But, we are here for only an instant. It is just a blink of an eye.  How can we not live it to the deepest and fullest? As the poet Mary Oliver asks, “What shall you do with this one wild and precious life?”  As undefined as I have become, no longer living within the lines of the safe and familiar, I know I am more than well. This new life has brought beautiful new connections, adventures and delights  And the magic of a southern bluebird drawn long ago, continues to fly over me, boldly and bodaciously.

It’s taken me a lifetime of fleeting visits to the sacred places gratitude hangs out. Short sleep overs and one night stands have found me rushing back into the streets looking for the signs out of town. After 60 plus years, I ’m grateful that I am finally learning how to slow down enough to let gratitude invite me in for a cup of tea and lend me a warm blanket.  Although I still flounder at times, my practice of gratitude is now the constant hearth and home of me. What I know is that gratitude is not passive.  It is deep listening in each moment with wonder and appreciation and being a full participant to what is. With gratitude I have found the world a magical place.

It’s truly seeing the light through the trees as the sun heads west with no need of words or explanation. It’s watching a hawk hovering over the ocean cliffs as time stands still and dancing to Stevie Wonder on Thanksgiving Eve with my 20 year old son.  It is being a witness to the fullness of life no matter what it brings.  Even the inevitable sorrows have helped me become a deeper more compassionate human being.  As I sit here this Thanksgiving morning in my new home in San Diego, waiting for my son to wake up and friends to arrive from LA,  I am forever grateful for my life and this extraordinary gift of gratitude.  It’s a beautiful place to live.

Clematis seed pods

I love to explore this time of year, discovering small potentials and promises of a faraway spring in seeds and buds, small green shoots at the roots of things, ready to sprout at the first warm spell.  I am in awe of nature’s profusion as I take my eighth lawn bag of clippings and leaves down to the curb, knowing that it will all return in great bounty. This time of year, I am especially grateful for nature’s reflection of unlimited potential and the promise of abundance for all of us.  What did you see today?  Celebrate the beauty!

Come and see me at the Sage Arts and Crafts show Saturday, December 6th from 10 am to 7 pm!  http://sageartandcraft.weebly.com/