the shiny blue grasshopper
3.23.00

One day early this month, I was at Borders and I noticed this book on display: Work as a Spiritual Practice. It looked appropriately trendy yet helpful, so I bought it. But then I forgot about it. In fact, my then-boyfriend commandeered it for his towering stack of bedside books.

The next time I saw the book in action was on 3.16, the morning that my boyfriend, his son, and I were getting ready to go to Six Flags in Dallas. My boyfriend had put the book in his pile o' goodies for the car trip. Before we left Austin, we discovered that the weather in Dallas was horrid. It was cold and getting colder and the weatherman promised some much needed rain during the day. Great. The Houston forecast was warm and sunny, so Astroworld it was. We got dressed and left for Houston. (I stole the t-shirt my boyfriend was going to wear, so all he had left was his "Bill Bradley for President" t-shirt, so he wore that.)

On the way, my boyfriend told his son and me about the first chapter in Work as a Spiritual Practice. I'll quote it here, as I can't remember his exact words:

One morning in late September, during our Wednesday meditation group, a grasshopper began to make its slow way in the predawn shadows across the hardwood floor. As I watched out of the corner of my eye I wondered, "How does the grasshopper know where to go?" From his vantage point, the floor was huge and featureless, like an ocean. One direction was much like another. He could even come to me. I wondered if he would.

Slowly, at insect speed, crawling, not hopping, he made his way past all of us and vanished into the shadows.

Later, when I was giving a talk, I mentioned the grasshopper, and asked, "How does he know where to go?" This is a big question. How do any of us know where to go? How do we know what to do? What choices to make? Where to work? Whom to love? How to live?

As I was finishing the talk, I turned to gesture toward the small wooden Buddha statue on the altar, and there, to everyone's amazement, perched on top of the Buddha's head, was the grasshopper, shiny blue-green in the sunlight now streaming through the windows.

This is a true story. I am not making it up, or even exaggerating a bit. Six other people were there, and they can all tell you. But why should you even wonder? This sort of small miracle happens all the time. It happens to me, and it happens to you. It is all around us. Why did the grasshopper seek out the top of the Buddha? Was he attracted by the light of the candle? Was he trying to find safety from the cat we heard meowing in the doorway earlier?

These are explanations, but they miss the point. The point is not to say "Wow! What a miracle! How special, how spiritual!" but simply to note that this is the way the world is. Shiny blue grasshoppers are always lighting on top of the heads of Buddhas, or on top of my head or your head or your boss's head or your coworker's head. It is not a matter of miracles, but a matter of noticing...

The shiny blue grasshopper is what we live for, and work for, and love for...

As we were taking down the altar and putting away the cushions and mats, I carried the Buddha statue to the window, with the grasshopper still on it, and let the grasshopper hop down onto the windowsill. It remained there for a moment, still as a stone, and then slowly, deliberately, it spread its wings and was gone.

But not entirely gone. From that moment on, the grasshopper was within me and all who were there and saw it come and go. And now that I have told you about it, the grasshopper is within you too. That is how the grasshopper moves among all of us.

If we could work together at our jobs with the feeling the grasshopper inspires in us, then the workplace might become a wonderful, joyful place. Even if we can't, the grasshopper is perched here and there, waiting for us to notice.

Where is the grasshopper now?

Before I go any further, buy this book. If that one section inspired you as much as it did me, you must buy this book and read it as soon as possible.

As I said, my boyfriend told us this story. His son and I were both intrigued. Not only did we have shiny blue grasshoppers on the brain, but we listened to Shawn Mullins' Shimmer quite a few times during the trip.

At Astroworld, we all had fun, but his son had that "I'm 9 years old and I don't hafta worry about how Six Flags is swindling us" kind of fun. After the park closed, we grabbed dinner, then stopped at a gas station and got on 610, heading towards 290.

About 20 minutes outside of Houston, we decided to hit the next gas station to get my boyfriend some caffeine. We stopped at this rinky-dink gas station and the boys ran in, while I leaned the carseat back to get ready for my 2 1/2-hour car nap. I had my eyes closed, but I opened them for a second and I saw this attractive, khaki'd, middle-aged man a good distance away from my car, but quite noticeably looking at it. He walked up to the pay phones and asked the folks there something, pointing at my car. Then he turned back to face me again and I recognized him. Charles Gandy! He ran in the Democratic primary for US Senate, slated to go up against Kay Bailey. And I had voted for him.

He started to walk away, so I put my carseat back up and opened the door. Just as I was about to call out to him, I saw he was already talking to my boyfriend. He saw his Bill Bradley t-shirt and said "I need to meet you," holding out his business card. I ran up and said "That's Gandy!" (Am I a dork, or what?) We both told him we voted for him, to which he said "thanks" and smiled.

He had noticed my Bradley and Texas Democrat bumper stickers and come looking for the owner of the car. We introduced ourselves and said we'd been working on the Bradley campaign. Turns out Mr. Gandy was working on the Bradley campaign, too. He said, "So, are you working on a campaign right now?" My boyfriend told him we'd been thinking about his campaign, actually. He told us that he'd be in a runoff election with Gene Kelly on April 11th, and he needed help between now and then. He was heading back to Austin after meeting with Harris County precinct chairs that day to garner support for the runoff.

He told us to give his office a call in Austin and said "I'm glad we had this meeting."

We got in the car and realized that this was the biggest grasshopper of the day. (Maybe someone was trying to teach us something us by lobbing a big one like that to us.) The Giant Purple Grasshopper with Pink Polka Dots.

You can probably guess that the Gandy Grasshopper inspired me to work on his campaign.

I hope to use this site to chronicle the shiny blue grasshoppers in my daily life. And I want you to share your grasshoppers with me. Remember -- "it is not a matter of miracles, but a matter of noticing."