(SUNRISE AT PROMONTORY POINT, CHICAGO. PHOTO BY AUTHOR)

There is a certain kind of perfect morning that I never thought I would experience: The Big City Perfect Morning. That perfect morning you see at the beginning of Rom Coms set in New York or Chicago. Picture it: The lead character walks to work and stops at least twice to buy food from people who smile back at him. His sun dappled, tree-lined walk is filled with interesting sights and people living good lives until he arrives at work happy and content ready for the plot devices that await him. Now, I was raised in South Texas, where cool mornings don’t happen, trees are short, the sun is an enemy, and the humidity puts all people into a constant state of shvitzing. We’re damp. Always. We don’t even bring it up. Also we don’t walk anywhere, that’s how the sun kills you.

But, it happened. After twelve years in Chicago, I had a Perfect City morning! About an hour after dawn, I stepped outside into that cool sun dappled air…and I’m not exaggerating, that sun was dappling all over the goddamned place! I thought Thomas Kinkade must be hiding around here somewhere. I walked to a local bakery, that smelled like fresh bread, where I got a demi-bagette and a coffee. The line went fast, and everyone smiled and interacted at me just enough without wasting my time with bullshit chat chit; the perfect consumer transaction! Two blocks down I stopped and got a bit of cheese from a mom and pop convenience store, were I also found clean surfaces and smiling faces…do you know the rarity of a convenience store with clean surfaces and smiling faces? Thusly ensconced with bread, cheese and coffee, and a renewed hope for Humanity, I walked to Promontory Point past my neighbors’ sidewalk gardens profulgent…Yes! I DO dare to use that lusty word! Profulgent with colors from all kinds of roses, tiger lilies, daisies, hydrangeas, red columbines, cornflowers…

By this time in Texas, most things are brown. In a month, they’ll be crispy.

But not today! And not in Hyde Park!

The Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago is the most parkiest of all the parky neighborhoods in Chicago. We have Washington Park, Roosevelt Park, the Midway Plaisance, The Lakeshore Trail, the grounds of The Museum of Science and Industry, Jackson Park and eleven smaller parks and playgrounds scattered through the area…and the local favorite, Promontory Point; a field surrounded by trees that juts out into Lake Michigan whose shoreline is an intoxicatingly chaotic tumble down pile of boulders and rubble. The northern view of the Chicago skyline is inspiring, the southern view of the Gary industrial sprawl is prophetic.

When I made it to Promontory point, I was chromatically not alone. There were bikers, walkers, joggers, runners, swimmers and divers, fire rings were being prepared for cook-outs to come, and there was a huge 60 person yoga class on the farthest tip of the point, making themselves stronger and happier by the backdrop of the shimmering waters of Lake Michigan. I found a bench and started to eat my breakfast of fresh bread and cheese, a meal I had grown to love when my wife and I had hiked the Camino Santiago in Spain, and every bite was a communion of sense and memory. I was surrounded by people being happy, doing things good for themselves, and not getting in each other’s way while they did it-and I was one of them! It was just like in the movies!

A perfect Big City Morning.

Then…the leafblowers.

That grinding, high pitched droning blast that comes from The Devil’s own ass blasted across the swimmers, the runners, the guys starting fires at the pits and the 60 person yoga class. Instantly, everyone had to stop what they were doing to compensate for the noise that had vomited all over them. Voices got louder, speakers were turned up and people moved away. From my vantage point, at least 32 smiles instantly left their faces.

I needed to see it. I had to look at the person who was leafblowing. I needed to stare at them, and I needed to see them doing even more stupid, useless, annoying things. And yes! My angry suspicion was confirmed to see the leafblower spewing forth air…and nothing else! There were no leaves on the ground they were blowing. A few stray sprigs of grass were sent careening, and I’m sure a lot of bugs were pissed off by the passing of Satan’s Blowhole, but there sure as hell wasn’t any leaves being blown. Of course! I knew it! So I had even more reason to hate everything about that thrice damned, smelly, putrid, awful, Putin loving, MAGA inspired, taking-candy-from-babies, puppy kicking and kitten punching machine and the person who operated it!!!

I turned around, ready to get mad…and I stopped. I paused. The thoughts that were forming in my head ceased their hot march to my mouth and heart….and I looked back.

The person leafblowing was wearing the yellow uniform of a city worker. So, someone didn’t just show up and start shitting on my perfect day for fun. She was getting paid, someone told her to come here. And THAT’s that’s the guy I can hate! The supervisor! Who the hell tells someone to clean up a park on a Saturday morning—the busiest time for a park, for any park?? Oh, wait, but over by the lighthouse there’s a van with guys tumbling out if it setting up an awnings and flowers…. Ah. It’s a special occasion, the park’s lighthouse building is going to be used for a wedding, so the crew is cleaning up for the event. Well, shit! Now who do I get mad at? How about the Corporate wedding industry that forces people to spend thousands of dollars on lavish ceremonies that mean nothing to them personally and then ruins the mornings for nice people like me, the swimmers, the runners, the firestarters and the 60 person yoga class!

By then, I was starting to get tired from the effort of looking for someone to blame.

I have spent a lot of time looking for someone to blame for leafblowers. They have become in many ways my anti-bodhishattva; a living symbol of all the things that keep me disturbed, upset and un- helpful to the world. The early morning leafblower that is blowing nothing, or very little, is an actual act I have witnessed many times from my window, and it is a stunningly perfect analogy for everything that is wrong with society and ourselves. I have thrown thoughts, prayers, wishes, scenarios, schemes, threats, cunning plans and devious enterprises at this problem. Now, because it is small, you might say why bother? “Because it is small, I should be able to solve it!!” Is the cry of my inner Manly Man! It’s wrong! It’s dumb! It’s useless! Those guys are even hurting themselves by using them! I’ve researched the subject thoroughly-and not just Wikipedia, in actual books!! I should go down there and explain it to them, carefully but passionately!!!

…Is the first idea that won’t work….

After going through a Wile E. Coyote-worthy series of possibilities in my head, the one thing that became absolutely clear was that yelling at anyone or anything would not help at all, even if you are really good at it, mean well, and look like Tom Cruise.

Damn. Buddha was right again. Don’t you kinda hate people who are always right? Especially about hating other people?

But I am still conflicted, because Donald Trump exists, as do his followers. Trump is what happens when small annoyances are allowed to thrive; they are pearls of destruction, made large by indifference. But the Dharma does not teach indifference, or passivity when it comes to unwise people doing unwise things. It teaches understanding through mindfulness, and by this understanding we will find a solution to our problems within ourselves, which will create solutions without ourselves.

But that shit’s really hard to do, man! And it takes time! So while I’m sittin’ on my cushion, trying to get myself to right side of the Dharma, my government might be burning my house down around me! That ain’t what Buddha wants. But he also doesn’t me me running around and yelling like a, well, like a leafblower.

It’s really hard not to to become a leafblower when you hear one. But I also don’t want to be a leaf.

Then Buddha smiles and says, “Why do you WANT, at all?”

…..asshole.