Good sane fun

“If you want to catch a falling leaf, you have to be where the leaves are falling.” That’s what a little birdie told me, so I intentionally changed my route to work this past week so that I walked under as many trees as possible. It’s the only ritual I observe religiously. I simply must catch at least one leaf every fall. (And it has to be fresh from the branch and caught before it hits the ground. Nothing off a roof or blown up from the ground will do.) If I fail in this, it means that I’ve given up the ghost; that I’ve gotten old; that I’m no longer paying attention to what really matters. Maybe that’s a little melodramatic, but at the very least a leafless fall would mean I’m probably not walking around outside much, or I’m too often staring at the ground lost in my head, or listening to my iPod, or talking on the phone. My mindful strolls have been keeping me sane for years, and it just so happens that the number of leaves I catch each year is one of the few quantifiable measures of my degree of saneness. Best-case scenario, I’m taking a stroll to work or around the block and, without making any special effort whatsoever, a leaf just happens to float down near me and I reach out and grab it. Or, better yet, it just hits me in the face or drops in my lap. That’s the best-case scenario mind you, the one that most captures the Zen spirit of the tradition. But sometimes a man has to do what a man has to do to catch a leaf, and it’s almost November and the leaves just aren’t falling this year, at least not when I happen to be walking under a tree. The last time I was leafless this late in the season was the year I had knee surgery. I went out half-crippled and waited under a tree for an hour before getting the job done. Having not yet reached that point of desperation, I decided to start with a route change. And although the new route did take me under a fair number of trees, I couldn’t convince the air to stir up so much as a light breeze. By Friday, things were looking so bleak that I resorted to chasing squirrels up a huge oak tree, so that one of them might rustle a few leaves while running for cover. I’m not sure how that affected my sanity score, but in any event, it didn’t send any leaves into the air. On the way home from work I walked back the same way. Again, the wind wasn’t enough to blow a single hair out of place. As I approached the mighty oak, I noticed a huge hawk hanging out on the ground under it. The squirrels were all hiding under cars in the parking lot, terrified. Neither the hawk nor I was destined to make a catch right then and there, so the hawk took off and I headed home and then to Washington DC for Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity.

My wife and I got to our hotel room (near Dulles Airport) late, crashed on the king-sized bed, and drove to the West Falls Metro station at about 9:30am Saturday. If not for the fact that thousands people were trying to get to the National Mall by noon, I’m sure we would have made it to the rally in plenty of time, as it’s only a twenty-five minute train ride from West Falls. As it turned out, however, the trip took us five hours, so we didn’t set foot on the mall until the rally was in its final few minutes. The crowd was unbelievably massive (the estimate of 250,000 sounds about right to me), and my wife and I are both under 5 feet 7 inches tall, so we saw and heard next to nothing that was happening on the main stage. What we did see was people. Lots and lots of people. People dressed in goofy costumes. People with goofy rally signs. People waiting in line to get into the Metro station. People waiting to get on the trains. People crammed into trains, pressed up against the walls and windows and each other like in a jelly jar full of gummy bears. The truth is, it was pretty insane. The truth is, we pretty much missed the rally and didn’t really know how it all went down until we got home late last night. And the truth is, neither one of us was too disappointed. We showed up, and somehow that felt like it was enough.

So I don’t have any personal photos to share, and I can’t share my reactions to the show Stewart and Colbert put on. I missed all that. I did take away a few important things from the experience, though. First, I feel a lot better about the state of our country and about the basic goodness of the people who live here. When we finally did manage to squeeze onto to the Sane Train heading for the mall, we found ourselves packed in a tiny corner, shoulder to shoulder with every type of person imaginable—men, women, children, black, white, brown, Asian, Middle-eastern. We all had sore feet and full bladders. We were all missing the rally. But we still were kind to each other, made room, gave up our seats, shared the streaming video on our smart phones. I’ve had phrases like “People are morons” and “People are assholes” bouncing around inside my skull for too long. It feels good to think to myself “People are basically decent and good at heart.” Second, I realize now more than ever that it’s far more fulfilling to take action when I’m inspired—even if the results are disappointing or even painful—than to wallow in cynicism or surrender to the pull of inertia. Better for me to enjoy or even suffer the consequences of pushing boundaries than to snooze away in the comfort zone. Finally, I have a renewed appreciation for my wife. She was super-busy, but made time to keep me company because she knew how inspired I was by the event. The day could’ve gone a lot smoother and we could have had a lot more fun, but we were there, together (along with about a quarter-million of our fine friends). Your welcome, Jon Stewart!

And thank you, Jon Stewart! The needle on my sanity meter is moving in the right direction (I hope).

Oh yeah… And while talking to my Mom on the phone this morning, strolling around the block telling her about the rally, a leaf hit me right in the chest, sticking there long enough for me to make the official catch. I still plan to take the tree-covered route tomorrow, but I won’t be concerned about which way the wind blows, or if it’s blowing at all. It’s all gravy now. You still might see me diving onto someone’s front lawn or running out into traffic to chase down a floating leaf. You might even see me chasing a few squirrels. But from here on in it’s just good sane fun.