If I grow up I die - TLC 79

Being nine Lucky helped 4th grade geniuses become more human. Engage-study-activate. Everyone had fun. Students learned that whining was boring and useless. Smart ones knew without understanding. They knew what they didn’t know.

Kids shared Socratic discussions. They explored and expanded creative imagination journal writing, cross-disciplinary art, chess and teamwork development projects. They built and flew kites.

They practiced good manners and treated everyone with respect.

They focused on developing character: zest, courage, grit, self-control, social intelligence, gratitude, optimism, curiosity, fairness, generosity and integrity.

They shared soft eyes, relaxation techniques and meditation mind maps. They accepted personal responsibility for learning and exploring the process of becoming.

He assisted them to develop critical thinking skills outside imaginary social and educational conditioning traps. “I am here to help you make mistakes.”

One day a young teacher kid said, “We need challenges, Teacher Lucky.”

“What kind of challenges?”

“We need hardship and deprivation.”

“Yes,” said another teacher, “we need to take more risks.”

“How do you develop courage?”

“Through failure. We love to fail better."

“Correcto mundi. Welcome to The Think for Yourself Academy. Everything we do is an experiment.”

They planned, designed and constructed an elaborate high-risk rope and creeper vine obstacle course in jungles challenging body, mind and spirit. Teamwork skills blossomed like orchids.  

Residents near his garden sanctuary passed a tall green spiky cactus stretching arms into bluebird songs. A nanny carrying an infant memorized the echo of white cat paws trailing flip-flops. Faustus, seeing throughinnocent eyes rode behind his pedaling Chinese father.

A laughing skipping girl negotiated freedom. A beggar wearing broken shoelaces studied pavement. A man spinning in his labyrinthine puzzle struggled with an activated cell phone in worn green baggy shorts hoping the call would save him from loneliness, boredom, alienation and metaphors like death.

Children in pink pajamas collected brown leaves and fragrant yellow-white hibiscus flowers.

In Bahasa sun a middle-aged daughter spoon-fed her mother in a wheelchair. Swallowing love her smiling mother remembered when she did all the feeding.

The Language Company 

diamond mind

He's been here many times, many places on earth.

He passes through with a diamond in his mind.

A man in a white hat rings a bell. He pushes his orange three-wheeled ice cream cart down the street. He passes a woman unloading stacks of kindling at a cafe.

12,000 orphans from 269 safe houses huddle for warmth.

Humans are nature's tools.

Fuel for cooking and heating water.

Men sit staring at a ghost. Trembling eyes pursue the endless stream of life.

When a conversation dies someone picks up their cell to call another conversation.

I just called to see if you're alive. Have you eaten, Yes. Today was eggs and rice, Tomorrow it's lobster. Ha. Laughter is perfect therapy.

Listening is a lost art. The majority of people don't listen to understand they listen to reply. Lost art wandered around Laos discovering Listening. 

Sullen is one kind of conversation. Surly married Indifference.

People die from neglect suffering from no love.

I work. I breed. I get slaughtered.

Beauty of travel

The beauty of travel is the anonymouse sensation in a crowd.

On a Sunday all the Khmer men gather for coffee, tea and stories.

Do you take milk with your stories, asked one. No, straight.

Some study another's face and words.

Others study cell phones or the unposed their music video on a tv.

TV is great, said one, it allows you to give up your consciousness.

Still others study a conversation disguised as a peddler pulling his trash cart

Down a street squeezing air out of a worn plastic bottle to summon the attention of a person waiting to hear the air knowing they can pawn some junk, perhaps an old family heirloom or weaver's word loom in Lao village along a river stream of consciousness.

Or a real loom with or without threads of a dangling modifier; cotton or silk having created clothing for relatives now since gone.

The silence of conversations attracts flies.

No one bothers the stranger writing or drawing in a notebook. 

DO the Mango Tango - TLC 77

I go. We go. You go. Mango. Super fruit. Buy one. Get one free. Peel it down. Peel her skin. I am a bed rabbit. Plow my field. Honey needs money. Savor my succulent mass of alpha bet your sweet ass anti-oxidants.

A. C. E. Ace a mango.

Mango’s humility skin released interior monologue. Flowing sensations danced mango simplicity with serenity. 

Mango said, “There are two kinds of people in the world.”

“What are they?” said a Cambodian named Orphan.

“They are subdivided into sub-species. There are people who want to blame you and people who want to distract you. There are people who want control or approval. There are people who face the music and there are people who run for cover.

"There are people who pay attention and people who don’t know or care what the fuck is going on. They are too poor to pay attention. There are people who make things happen and people who dream about making things happen. Yeah, and one more thing - there are people who are willing victims of their auspicious fateful situation playing the blame game.”

“That’s a mouthful of mango logic if you ask me,” said Orphan. “You mean, according to the philosopher, Damon Younger Than Tomorrow, ‘distraction is an inability to identify, attend to what is valuable, even when we are hard working or content.’”

“Yes, that’s what I said I mean because I mean what I say and say what I mean jellybean,” laughed Mango doing the tango with Taoist monks at The Temple of Complete Reality in Sichuan.

“Disorientation begets creative thinking,” said Confusion.

The Commander's Wife Buys Confectionary

In Shan State, Burma in the long now, there was a running insurgency - land, freedom, peace, justice, jade, teak, gold - golden triangle profit and greed with Chinese dynasties.

A shiny green army pickup truck pulled up at the New Moon bakery in Lashio.

A soldier in green jumped out and opened the door. The wife got out – longhair tied bun tight, white and silver longyi, designer purse, imperial jade necklace, diamond studed serious face.

Six soldiers exited the back of the truck. They were on a mission to liberate cakes, cookies, sweets from glass shrines.

The commander got out. Short, wearing a camouflage jacket like a forest with depressed green pants and black shiny shoes. Epaulets on his shoulder.

His sharp black eyes stared at a stranger scribbling at an outdoor table. Zero expression.

His eyes lay buried in his face with recessed emptiness. The commander's war camo boonie hat sat at a rakish angle folded in the front. Decorated with a golden military symbol of happiness, compassion and love.

His wife climbed into a new sun. Her husband uttered quick syllables to #2.

Number two had military bearing without a care in the world. He barked into a walkie-talkie.

A military policeman guarded the front of the truck. Smoking soldiers stood around as motorcycles loaded with succulent strawberries streamed goodbye.

She exited followed by a salesgirl trundling bags of roles and sweet goodies. A soldier jumped to attention, took them and put them in the truck. She spoke to her husband. His face said he was an obediant child.

He followed her to the market for shopping. Soldiers marched behind the queen.

Years later they returned with strawberries, apples and bananas. Soldiers loaded everything into the truck.

Someone called the commander. He pulled a walkie-talkie from his belt. He opened his mouth. Perfect white teeth. He smiled. He barked. A soldier open the door for his wife life. She got in.

He got in and removed his party hat. He smoothed his hair. The military police stopped traffic. They drove into a dream come true.