Blog 855 – 12.26.2017

Have A Happy Boxing Day…

But don’t let anyone put you in a box. And if you find yourself in one bust out or at least “bust a move.” I never thought I’d get to type that phrase. Never say never. I just did twice. Back on point – the importance of staying out of boxes. Live free or die is not just a revolutionary slogan on a flag, it is a truism. If you are a slave to anyone or anything you might as well be in a wooden or metal box preparing for a long dirt nap. I do not really think this body is me or your body is you. Bodies are temporary houses, boxes, too, I guess. We are way bigger and far more beautiful than these tiny, high maintenance, short shelf life little houses we live in. Meditating, praying, thinking, and intending are a few ways to spend time out of the body or out of the box. I love the expression, “Thinking outside the box.” That is creative thinking, revolutionary thinking, life changing thinking. We should all do a lot more of it. If we did we’d find ourselves saying, “Why?” a lot less and “Why not?” a lot more.

Boxing Day is a more of a Canadian holiday but not un-American. They are Americans too, and the Mexicans, and all the way down to the tip of South America, you guessed it, Americans. In the beginning it was called the Americas not America. To try to use it exclusively is silly really and divisive, and demeaning, dastardly, dishonest and a host of other not so desirable “d” words. Here’s a d-word for you – damn. Why, don’t we quite trying to damn others as “less than” and start thinking in terms of the one true race, the human race. Or as the sixties song said, “Come on people now smile on your brother. Everybody get together try and love one another, right now.” That is a great song with a great lyric and tune. Dick Clark, I’d give it a seventy-eight and hope more and more people learn to dance too it.

Sorry, kids, that’s another American Bandstand allusion. I can still see my beautiful teenaged aunt Pat bopping with the refrigerator handle in the kitchen while American Bandstand played on the TV in the living room. I was only five and man alive already agreeing with The Big Bopper, who died in that terrible plane crash with performers Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the pilot Roger Peterson, the day the music died, on February 3, 1959. But the music didn’t really die. Three voices just stopped recording new songs here. Their old songs still live on like the one I started to quote by J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, that so reminds me of my aunt Pat in 1956 and even today:

“ Chantilly lace and a pretty face

And a pony-tail a hanging down

A wiggle in a walk, a giggle in a talk

Ah, it makes the world go round.

There ain’t nothing in the world

Like a big-eyed girl

To make me act so funny

Make me spend my money,

Make me feel real loose

Like a long-neck goose

Oh, Baby, that’s what I like.”

Don’t let anyone put Baby in the corner or you in a box on Boxing Day or any other day. To quote another of my favorite songs:

“Say what you think

Love who you love

You only get so many trips round the sun

Yeah, you only, only, live once.”

I happen to believe we have already lived and will probably get to live a lot more lives than one. If you do not but rather agree with the last line of the last song I quoted that’s ok. We still agree that we should make this life count. And the best way to do that is out of the box.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

Happy Boxing Day,

David White