Buckle Up.

It was a picnic table, creek-side, summertime talk with one of my siblings, and we were sharing songs we were into at the time. I didn’t explain anything. I just played Buckle Up by Pearl Jam.

“I don’t get it.”

So I replayed this part:

Firstly, do no harm.

Then put your seatbelt on.

Buckle up.

Ahhh, the gifts of gifted musicians.

What does this mean to you?

Guilt could certainly be a driving force here. Or maybe a guilt-free perspective is demanded. Who is wearing the seatbelt? Should it matter?

A wise man once told me how, after performing one of his well-known plaster-job works of art, he stood back just in time to catch a drip edge and flow it back in—like someone sneezing into a handkerchief and gracefully putting it back into its safety pocket.

He said, “Ya know, I once told a guy who was questioning why my price was so high—and then asked me if I knew who he was…”

Stories from people such as this in our lifetimes are truly priceless.

He told the man, “I don’t know who you are, sir, but if we went to the grocery store right now, you would pay the same for a loaf of bread as I would.”

He basically told that other man to buckle up.

If you read The Shell Game, a Hello is in order right about now.

Funny how its echo can’t help but feel like a hug.

I do want you to buckle up, though, and do no harm. It may be the only way that hug ever truly feels like home.

I know you know the feeling. Maybe not the one from ten minutes ago or ten years ago, but the one that happens just after you click your seatbelt. That little sound of agreement between you and whatever road you’re about to travel.

Click.

We’re not painting some roller-coaster weeeee! scenario here. I’m thinking a solid 10-and-2 hands position—or whatever that translates to in the full-self-driving type of ride you’ve found yourself in.

Either way, we’re going to need our senses for this one.

Remember them?

Did you see that deer?

Hear the first responders somewhere nearby?

Smell the panadería as you passed through Tecate, Mexico?

And then taste the bestest of that artisanal tradition because, obviously, smelling it was never going to be enough?

Sight. Sound. Smell. Taste.

Funny how quickly the outside world can find its way inside.

I highly recommend practicing this in your car. There’s something about being inside that little moving shell that gives us permission to loosen the one we’re wearing.

Cry.

Scream.

Sing.

Laugh.

Hell, do all four before the next exit.

Our cars seem to make remarkably good places for self-awareness and reflection. Maybe it’s because we’re going somewhere while simultaneously having nowhere else to go.

Nowhere else to go?

Well, now we can say weeeee!

Why would you want to go anywhere else?

Time alone will make sure you get somewhere eventually. Maybe it’s less about the destinations anyway and more about everything in between them—the glue of the ness.

What holds you together?

Good feelings?

Or the threat of not-good feelings?

What’s your favorite song? Why? Which one makes all your senses light up before you even realize they’ve been switched on?

Random-play all your music sometime and take the ultimate ride. No destination required.

Okay, maybe sometimes just plug into your music at home, give it some good sound, and get comfy. Your emotional body doesn’t actually require wheels to travel.

Just remember to be coexistence-friendly when it comes to all that internal and external noise.

The state of mind we can learn to live by gets its teeth from practices like this. Not just thinking about awareness, but practicing the damn thing. Listening to ourselves while remembering that we aren’t the only thing listening.

I encourage you to find your “quiet” place to be “loud.”

Those quotation marks matter.

Quiet for you might share a wall with someone else. Loud for you might travel through an apartment, across a campsite, or out into a place where the neighbors have fur, feathers, nests, and absolutely no idea why Pearl Jam suddenly needs to be part of their afternoon.

Even the squirrels get a seat at this table.

Our awareness can extend to them too—especially when our audible levels travel farther than our awareness has yet learned to.

Maybe that’s part of the practice.

How far outside yourself can you hear?

Once I found me, I could hear me even more.

From all those who didn’t hear me, to just enough of those who did.

Thank you.

And I look forward to hearing more from us all again soon.

Buckled up and in stereo, too.

I mean two.

Or to.

Maybe even to the point of no point.

Don’t be a label or a point. Be the point.

But buckle up.

See how this fits like a seatbelt now?

Uncomfortable sometimes. Rubbing at your neck. Restricting your reach just enough to remind you it’s there. Then one quick stop and a deep red imprint later, and suddenly the thing irritating you is the thing holding you together.

The glue to you.

All those yesterdays. All those tomorrows. All these nows.

Funny how much time we spend being held together by places we aren’t even in anymore.

Yesterday already had its turn. Tomorrow can wait for its click.

This one is ours.

Another choice we get to make in every new now.

Where we go next doesn’t matter quite as much now, huh?

I don’t need to know where the road goes from here.

I just know I’ll be there.