Outside the Box

Ghid

I wrote this for school. The first day, they always ask us to babble about what we did during the summer. It has a secular or Christian point of view. I think my Buddhist cousins might have similar experience. Maybe they could have written this story. I don't feel like I suffered much, except that I did disappoint the coach. I hope someone will read this and tell me what Buddha would say.

Outside the box is supposed to mean original or creative, using innovative ideas, Mom would say: taking the road less traveled. Dad would say: Asking forgiveness, not permission. Don’t wait for the committee to make up its mind. Choose the best alternative at the time. Life is not a math problem.

Noah asked, “What’s a cubit?”

Dad said, “A unit of length like meter or yard.”

His father said, “Ghid honey, a cubit is a unit of length. It is about one two-hundred twentieth of a furlong. If yal remember, you bet on Rubber Ducky, and I said that Rubber Ducky would likely not get past the first cubit, a unit of length that is about on two-hundred twentieth of a furlong.”

Grandfather is misremembering. My mother bet on Rubber Ducky when she was my age. Bad boys, like my Dad's father are a lot of fun.

During a school ice breaker, I was required to find Simon because I had Garfunkel. I had never heard of Simon and Garfukel. Neither had any of the other students, but since the other matches seemed to be first names, I didn’t consider the possibility that Garfunkel is a family name. People call that thinking inside the box.

Last year a teacher at my school found the following math problem in a third grade textbook.

Readers who cringe at the thought of math have my permission to skip to the paragraph beginning, Maybe Robert Frost.

I’m sure that as a third grader, I could not have found a solution. Before I finished the problem, I had offered three different solutions. Again maybe I did not think outside the box.

The first rectangle has a 12 cubit perimeter. The second rectangle has an 18 cubit perimeter. What are the dimensions when the areas of the rectangles are equal?

Maybe Robert Frost had a good idea in these four lines from a poem, The Road Not Taken, which according to Gramps, who heard it live, the poet read at John Kennedy’s inauguration.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,

The Road Not Taken must be about a choice that Frost made, and he thinks he made the better choice. People who think that everything has a logical or scientific explanation might wonder about Frost’s decisions and also their own decisions.

When I think about all the life decisions I have made I wonder if I made the right decisions. I know that sounds crazy. What decisions have I made? I decided to be a girl. (I don’t remember that one, but I must have made it.) I decided to be good. I decided to be Mom’s daughter. I decided to work seriously in school. I decided to have a boyfriend. (That came close to being a disaster.) I decided to train for water polo.

Yes, I decided to train for water polo. I learned to tread water. I spent the summer in weight training and throwing a ball against the garage. I learned to hit the ball like King Kong. None of that is particularly special. All the other girls can hit the ball like Hippolyta or Wonder Woman. (Or Vajrayogini)

On Friday, the water polo coach confronted me at lunch. “Ghid, what happened? Why didn’t you try out?” He stood there with his hands on his hips waiting for an answer. Before I could answer, he said, “I trained you. I spend the summer teaching you. What happened?”

Somehow it was all about him. Maybe he did not remember how he spent the summer yelling at me. I honestly believe that he didn't want me, so I said, “I’m sorry coach. I have to go to class.” And I am. And I did. And I walked to my English class. I should have at least told him that I tried out for cross country. Maybe I did have a sort of contract with him. He trained me, and for that he expected me to try out.

Granny is a lawyer. In her garage, I found stacks of transcripts, and I asked if I could read them. She told me where to look. I took some of them home with me.

Dad saw the stack, “What are you reading?”

“One of Granny’s cases.”

“What’s it about?

I grinned up at him, and I smirked, “Daddy, would you believe that a bunch of people had to ask forgiveness because they did not ask permission?”

He laughed and bugged his eyes. “Sweetie, sometime dats dah way da cookie crumble.”

In the case a realtor claimed that he was damaged because he had told a buyer that a seller wanted to sell a $300 million building. The realtor had a pocket listing, which means that the seller had agreed to give him a listing if he found a buyer.

The realtor found a buyer, but the buyer said that his family was friends with the seller’s family and that he did not want to appear to be taking advantage of the seller’s family, so he asked the realtor to wait to get the listing until he could talk to the president of the company who was in another state.

The negotiations to sell went through several iterations before the sale. After the sale, the buyer offered the realtor a $1 million finder’s fee, but the realtor wanted a $9 million commission. The realtor sued claiming he had been denied his commission. The judge threw that out of court because the realtor had some scribbles on a legal pad paper and a typed paper in which the buyer had agreed to protect the realtors interest, but not a real listing contract.

The realtor sued again claiming that he had been promised a certain amount of money.

That is the argument that coach had for me. He felt that if he trained me, then I should try out. So maybe I sinned, or from the Buddhist view I didn't practice Right Livelihood. On Sunday, before mass I will confess to my mother. If she thinks it worthy, I will take in to a priest.

Priests cringe when they see me coming. I have really juicy confessions. “Padre, I almost stripped butt naked and jumped his bones, but ...” “Padre, I was so angry. I was standing there in a bikini, and I remembered how he had ogled that woman’s boobs …” Sometimes he asks permission to use my confessions as what-ifs in the youth group.

When I think back on it, I’m such a brat. I think in the moment more than a I think out of the box, but I realize that life is not scientific, we make choices based as much on feelings as logic. I wonder if Atheists wonder about that. For that matter, I wonder if Christians wonder about that.