my fingers

i haven't cut the fingernails on my right hand since i arrived in maui.

at first by no choice of my own, as my nail clippers were stolen.  now with access to borrowed clippers i chose to keep my right nails and cut my left.  this is all part of my aspirations to dylanhood i suppose.  it does make for good guitar playing though.  much slapping and clicking.  its like i have a hand full of picks.

i just cut the tip of my left middle finger while knifing the husks off macadamia nuts.  i'd shucked a bucketful, efficiently and with acute satisfaction.  push the knife in till it hits the nut then twist. and if you do it right, if you hit the sweet spot, it cracks perfectly in half and falls right out.  nut in one bucket.  husk in the other.  must have done a hundred or so before deciding to crack the shell off one of the more voluptuous specimen.  and the knife slipped and sliced.  

i don't like having lame fingers but it reminds me of something.

 tich nhat hanh talking about toothaches:

when we have a toothache, we think that we will be happy if our toothache goes away.  but our dissatisfaction is not dependent on the toothache but rather the desire to not have a toothache.  when we do not have a toothache we are not automatically content.  and when we have a toothache rarely do we find the occasion to celebrate not having an aching back or head.  so it is not what ails us that ails us but desire to be free of ailment. 

that is a paraphrase of a memory.

emily read it to me one day while driving home from the farm.  i'd taken ben's book to work to read from as an invocation before a staff meeting.

and now i'm a thousand miles away.

and now i'm thankful

to have a healthy head of teeth

and nine fine fingers.