Hiking, camping, meditation, playing with my son, writing, reading good books, talking about real things with real people, dancing, carrying on, listening to good music, taking long naps, eating good food, riding my bike on cool evenings, whatever.
All the waitresses in the Bob Dylan songs.
Greg Brown, John Prine, Spearhead, good-old-fashioned roots reggae, bluegrass, rock-and-roll, the Grateful Dead, Patty Griffin, String Cheese Incident, the Roots, Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams, Bobby Dylan, Sam Bush, did I mention Spearhead, Michael Franti, Cat Stevens, Blackalicious, really anything with a good, deep dance beat and a positive vibe, anything with a sweet guitar riff and sad lyrics, anything with a banjo, anything that makes me shake my bootie and smile.
How about some Pursuit of Happyness? Will Smith becomes a man. How about some Bridge to Terabithia? I saw it with Sage and Vanessa the other night. Absolutely heartbreakingly beautiful. Leave it to the kiddy flicks. How about some Tom Cruise--yes, some Tom crazy Cruise--in Last Samurai? How about some Lord of the Rings? Some Life on a String? Some Chinese martial arts flicks, you know, the ones with the scenery and the love stories and the stunts? Hero? Crouching Tiger? House of Flying Daggers? How about Sideways?
Basketball.
I need a break from writing, so what the hell: Authors, books, so on and so forth, in no particular order. Jane Hirshfield, Gary Snyder, Tim Obrien, Edward Abbey, Mark Spragg, Mark Doty. The God of Small Things. Kite Runner. Barbara Kingsolver. Wallace Stegner. Annie Proulx. L Clifton. Richard Russo. John Irving. Chuang Tzu. Chogyam Trungpa. Assorted other spiritual masters, past and present. Osho. The I Ching--it's never let me down. My friend and mentor, Chris Cokinos. Sherman Alexie. Howard Zinn. Lots of stuff I can't remember.
Nelson Mandela, my mother, my son.