The Granny Who Knew Time.

Still Sundays.

October 23rd.

This Sunday I want to share Stillness with another all day long. I’ll take Stillness in any form but it is some fiesta when there is two (or more) to honor the muchness of nothing but together.

When we were growing up and even now when we all gather at our parents’ farmhouse Stillness serves as a blanket as well as a straw. In the hours of the morning everyone sits in the living room to have meaningless conversations—“No one really wears socks that color with a suit!”—to a profound statement thrown into the living-room air like a boomerang: “One can’t truly articulate actual self-realization.”

It’s as if the morning Stillness over the holidays and Sundays is not really some slumber but alive with some magic…it can only be shared in silence or articulation that doesn’t require much explaining to another.

I don’t want to make much time—as if time is coffee and I want only one cup today—to write in today’s Stillness but I felt compelled to jot down this true story before I headed out into the day.

In some town there is a  bus that doesn’t come frequently to take people from one side of town to another. Usually the people waiting don’t mind because the waiting time gives them an excuse to complain about something other than their lives or work or lack of work. This also serves as good a time as any for exchanging hearsay stories wrapped around some truth. The people of this town are not in the best mood when it is raining or snowing and they have to wait for this unpredictable bus that seldom comes but if you wait long enough it does eventually show up.

Then one day this old granny starts taking the bus. The people are not used to seeing her but the town is big enough that new faces are possible although not frequently. This old granny is very old and needs help but no one really cares to help someone they don’t know.

One day while three men are waiting for the bus and a lady is waiting with her three sons. The old granny overhears the younger lady ask one of the men, “How much longer is the wait for this bus? I have had knee surgery and I am not sure how much longer I can stay standing like this. And if I knew, I could go across the street and sit on that bench next to the tree. But I don’t want to do that and miss the bus.” One of the men replies, “There is no telling how long. Sometimes it is 15 minutes. Other times it is 35 minutes. This is why it is best to wait here. It’s unfortunate but this is how it is.”

At that time the old granny comes up to the lady and says, “The bus will be here in 10 minutes; you should stay.” The men huddle around their guffaw. “Granny! No one knows how long this bus takes!”

Exactly after 10 minutes the bus arrives. The men are embarrassed and the lady with her three sons is relieved. Soon thereafter the word spreads that there is an old granny who ‘knows’ the timing of the bus with an accuracy that can’t be matched! Now while people waited for the bus and she happened to be there, they would bring her food, fruits, flowers, to express their reverence for her ability to predict when the bus was going to arrive.

At first the old granny felt uncomfortable by these gestures although she surely appreciated the food and respect. It wasn’t very long before people were coming up to her at the bus stop to ask her to make other predictions. She didn’t know what to do so she went along with it. She told one woman about her marriage, another about her children failing school, a man about losing his job. Sometimes she was right. Other times she was wrong. The times she was wrong no one cared because no one precisely remembers what they are told about the future unless it is something drastic like death that comes with a date and everything else is too far away.

The old granny was dubbed as “shaman of time.” No one wanted to accept that the predictions she made were ones anyone could make if they actually accepted what was happening in their lives.

And most importantly, they never realized that they too could know when the bus would arrive on any day if they had only walked up to the tree next to which was an old rusty stone on which there was a stained paper where the bus schedule was posted.

The person who told me this story ended as I end now: “No one can tell you something you don’t already know and those who know something you don’t know are paying attention to something you are not.”

October is vanishing into the holiday season. 2011 is over. I have decided, if one did his or her homework he or she can graduate to 2012 to new experiences.

It’s a still Sunday to be shared.

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