# 103

I just don’t get it.

This is a little story about the meaning of life. It’s fairly long for a Sunday scribble, but not as long as it could be. If you already know the meaning of life, stop reading here, and e-mail me privately so that we can compare notes. On the other hand, if you don’t know or are unsure, and you don’t want to read all the hyperbole, scroll down to the end and read the last 6 lines and be enlightened.

As I stand in the garden alone, I ponder the persistent question; why am I here?

This is not the first time I’ve been here, nor the first time this thought has materialized in my mind. Déjà vu? Maybe, but this was no illusion. I didn’t have the feeling that I’ve been here before. It’s more a matter of: here I am again, same place same question and I just don’t get it.

Blinding bright sun light reflecting off the crystalline and ebbing snow in which I stand mid-calf deep has sparked this reflective thought. No secret in that; I’d read the prompt for Sunday Scribblings yesterday and that seed had marinated in my right brain over night while I slept and presents itself in bud now.

Notes♫ from the William Tell 1812 Overture disturb my reverie; what the fuk? (If you misspell a vulgar profanity on purpose, is it still a swear word?) Oops, cell phone!

“rel?”

“Aye, it is he, rel the healer of multitudes, how may I serve you?”

“Cut the crap rel, it’s me, Lem.”

“Lem? Oh yes, my old friend Limerace Orgilis LeBeau. The last time I heard from you was seven months ago. To what do I owe this, sure to be, august phone call?”

“rel, sorry old friend, you could’ve called me.”

“You’re always unavailable to take my calls!”

“You know how absent minded I get. I’m just a self absorbed miserable excuse for a friend. However, it’s always your name that pops into my head when I need some sage advice.”

“Yadda, yadda, yadda Lem. What’s on your mind this time?”

“The meaning of life rel, the meaning of life. I just don’t get it.”

“Hmmm, funny you should say that Lem, I was just thinking the same thing myself.”

I knew right then and there that a new adventure was in the making. Lem and I are not so much chums as we are kindred spirits, and when we get the same inspirations, one or the other of us contacts the other, usually he, me. More often than not it leads to some sort of adventure.

Lem had his mind set on a pilgrimage to a far off place where we might find the answer to our query. He reminded me about the “guru” we’d met that time we did the fourteen day Everest base camp hike a couple of Novembers ago. I recall that we had nick-named him Mike, (just another example of the ugly American sense of world superiority manifesting itself), using the initials of his given name: Maharajah Isaiah Krishna Ezekiel.

Long story short, Lem had already purchased our plane tickets (presumptuous SOB), sent his private Lear to fetch me and take me to JFK in NYC, and voila, early Easter morning we are at the mountain home of our acquaintance “Mike”.

After the customary greetings and amenities, Mike led us to his sitting room where we, duh, sat; Lem and I side by side across from and facing Mike.

Mike spoke first; “How may I serve you, friends?”

“We are searching for the meaning of life” said Lem.

“All life or just human life?” asks Mike.

“Well, all life, I guess, but, no, human life… my life mostly.”

Taking a deep breath, Mike raises his arms over is head, brings his palms together, and exhaling he lowers them to a point directly in front of his sternum. Then he says:

“The meaning of life is death.”

Lem gives me a puzzled look, I shrug. Turning back to face Mike, Lem says:

“We fly 17 hours, climb 10,000 feet up this F’n mountain to be told that the meaning of life is death?”

“You think there should be more?” asks Mike

“Yes!”

Mike continues:

“Love all things equally, without exception.

Expect nothing in return.

If you do this, you will have the meaning of life.

If you just don’t get it,

The meaning of life is death.”