Monkey Brain

I started writing this yesterday.

12/16/2025

I’m in a medical waiting area waiting my turn with my medical professional du jour. I’m not sick, this is just one more of those preventative appointments we “get” to have as we become freakishly old. 

What I’m thinking while looking around at this comatose space is that ‘Be Here Now’ is not always necessary. Like, how often do you drive to a doctor or dentist appointment and actually want to groove in the moment you are in?

So far this morning I had to get up and take a shower BEFORE I played Strands, which is a hectic pace for me these days. I ate breakfast and then had to brush my teeth plus “irrigate” the granola out of them because it is not a power look to have brown stuff flopping off one’s teeth. Then I had to use Google Maps to drive to an office building I’d not been to before. It wasn’t complicated, nothing went sideways, but driving into the burning morning sun to an unknown destination where a person you don’t know is going to discuss how to stave off looming decomposition; not a ‘Be Here Now’ moment. 

Too often social media, my church, benevolent institutions, and the kind of books I read tell us to put our feet flat on the floor, loosen our shoulders, close our eyes, breathe deep, and be in the Holy Moment. 

I’m here to say that a lot of human life doesn’t really need this much attention. I think many of us are not giving enough credit to Monkey Brain. You know, when your brain lurches here and there, grabbing nuts and trash, picking nits, hanging upside down by the tail, pestering loved ones and the not-so-loved ones. 

My personal monkey brain looks around at this space and wonders who the hell is calmed by enlarged photos of leaves and waves? Who really thinks beige, tan, ecru, and off-white should be on all walls everywhere all the time? Its like being stuck in a shoebox. 

This ostentatiously boring waiting area gives me nothing to be curious about so my mind goes scouting for odd thoughts and dark jokes. Does my cat have five toes or six? I never thought to count. I need to buy arugula and fennel which I have rarely to never bought. Where does one find it? Ooh, that arugula pizza I ate in Florence decades ago. Or was that radicchio? I just borrowed at least 2000 pages worth of books from the library. The week before Christmas. Why do I always borrow more books than I can read? Is this because they made me read my Bible too much when I was a kid? Oh, but the neighbor casually mentioned the story of Joseph and now I want to reread it. I think I’ve forgotten parts. Does it matter that I have forgotten Potiphar’s wife’s name? Or was that that old joke, one of our kids said maybe her name was Lindsey and I still remember how hard Len and I laughed.  

And then they call my name, twice, and I’m in.

I found the fennel and arugula at Sendik’s on my way home. 

I think we should more deeply honor our ability to be distracted.