thank you. >> come meet us at the table. we'll answer any more questions you have and share other bits of information. i believe the book table is in the back somewhere. >> yes. register at the front or you can purchase copies of the book. let's hear one more time for the contributors this evening. [applause] >> and if you have any questions or if you would like any of them to sign a copy, they will be over at the timetable against the wall. thank you so much for coming out this evening. [applause]

>> you are watching booktv, nonfiction authors and books every weekend on c-span2. >> now, i've been trying for i guess the last 20 something years to stop writing books. [laughter] and i keep, you know, i totally get it that i worked for the ancestors. and i sometimes will feel very free that i finished something i remember finishing the color purple 30 years ago. and just weeping enjoy, i'm done. and i have had that scenario with myself many times, thinking i'm done. but anyhow, though this book, i'm going to read first from "the cushion in the road" and wanted to read a little bit about how that came about, how did i come to think of the life that i lead which is very, when

i'm not on the road somewhere, it's so quiet. it's so meditated. it's so happy with me and my sweetheart who is a musician. one of the ironies of life, of course, is the i love quiet so much that i fell in love with a person who plays trumpet. [laughter] and so, you know, life, i'm sure -- life is always, you know, telling us who do you think is in charge? did you buy something, did you imagine that you are in charge? well, i'll just show you, so this is a very short introduction to this book, "the cushion in the road." i've learned must much from taoist thoughts. it has been a comfort to me since i read my first taoist poem. which was, sitting quietly doing

nothing, spring comes and the grass grows by itself. to me, this is a perfect poem. but there is also this thought, it wanders home is in the road. a wanders home is in the road. this is true, very true in my own life much to my surprise, because i am such a homebody. i love being home with my plants, animals, sunrises and sunsets, the moon. it is all glorious to me. and so when i turned 60 i was prepared to bring all of myself to sit on my cushion and a meditation room i have repaired long ago and never get up. it so happened, it so happened i

was in south korea that year. of course, and south koreans agree with me. in fact, in that culture, it is understood that when we turned 60, when we turned 60 we become eggy. it sounds like eggy, though perhaps this is not how koreans spill it. and this means we are free to be, once again like a child. we are to rid ourselves of our cares, especially those we have collected in the world, and to turn inward to a life of peace, of leisure, of joy. i love hearing this. what an affirmation of a feeling i was already beginning to have. enough of the world. where's the grandchild? where's the cushion? and so i begin to prepare myself to withdraw from the worldly for

a. there i sat, finally, i cushion in mexico, with a splendid view of a homemade stone fountain, with its softly falling water a perfect, soothing backdrop to what i thought would be the next, and perhaps final, 20 years of my life. unlike my great, great, great great grandmother who lived to be 125, i figured he is doing really well. [laughter] and then a miracle seem to be happening. america, america was about to elect, or not elect, a person of color as its president. what? my cushion shifted. then, too, and unsuspecting guests left the radio on and i learned that bombs were falling on the people of gaza. a mother, unconscious or so, had lost five of her daughters.

didn't i have a daughter? what i have wanted to lose her in this way? wasn't i am other -- even if reportedly imperfect in that role? well, my cushion began to wobble. i had friends who became eggy and managed to stay eggy. i envy them. for me, the years following my 60th birthday seem to be about teaching me something else. that, yes, i could become like a child again and enjoyed all the pleasures of wonder a child experiences. but i would have to attempt to maintain this joy in the vicissitudes of the actual world, as opposed to the meditated universe i had created, with its calming, ever flowing, fountain. my travels will take me to the celebrations in

washington, d.c., where our new president, barack obama would be inaugurated. they would carry me the morning after those festivities too far away burma, myanmar, which could lead to much writing about aung san suu kyi. they would take me to thailand for a lovely trip up the river were i could wave happily at the people who smiled back and smiled upon. they would take me to gaza, yes, and much writing about the palestine israel impasse. to th the west bank, to india, o all kinds of amazing places, like for instance, patrick in jordan. two new? i would find myself raising a nation of chickens in between travels and this is the holy people in kerala, oakland, with a current and dharamsala. my cushion, the fountain, the piece, because my attention to

some of the deep suffering in the world, sometimes seemed far away. i felt torn. a condition i do not like and do not recommend. and then in the dream, he came to me. there was a long asphalt highway, like the one that passed by my grandparents place when i lived with them as an eight and nine year old. my grandfather and i would sit on the porch in the steel georgia heat and count the cars as they whiz by. he did choose red cars, i would choose blue or black. it was a fitting -- it was a sitting on cushions of sorts i suppose for the two of us, because ours could go by and we were perfectly content. perhaps that is why, in the dream, the solution to my quandary was available. there in the middle of the lawn,

perfectly straight highway with its slightly faded yellow centerline, that i had known and loved as a child, sat my rose colored meditation cushion. directly on the yellow line, right in the middle of the road. so what do i believe? that i was born to wander and i was born to set. to love home with a sometimes almost unbearable affection, but to be lured out into the world to see how it is doing, as my beloved larger home and paradise. >> you can watch this and other programs on line at tv.org. >> here i am in chicago. i married. it's 1977, i have my batches degree. i'm looking at. you think they'll be looking for a young, bright articulate

people like me to come work for your firm and your company. no one. one application after another. site thought to myself, i did this in college. i drove again. but i have to tell you, it was hard. because i was driving a cab, i had some and plans and so many, i member when i went back to see my dad that christmas and he said, after all of effort and all of the expense for you to wind up doing exactly what i did, and i kept saying, dead, it's a moment have to work. i have to get my self-respect and my dignity. ..