My Life on Earth: A Memoir

By Monica Rix Paxson

My Life on Earth is a most unusual memoir. It’s magical— like the stories people tell huddled around a campfire under the stars. It’s full of rich, vivid and deeply rewarding stories that make you ponder the world we live in and all its grand synchronicity.

You’ll want to take a deep breath

• Language: English
• Publisher: Relentlessly Creative Books
• Release date: May 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781942790082

Monica Rix Paxson

Monica Rix Paxson, an award-winning and best-selling author, has appeared on Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, CNN, the BBC and more. She has written a number or books from a wide selection of non-fiction genres.

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My Life on Earth

A Memoir

by Monica Rix Paxson

Copyright © 2017

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval without permission in writing from the author.

ISBN-978-1-942790-07-5

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Published by Relentlessly Creative Books

Publisher’s Website: http://relentlesslycreative.com/

773-831-4944

The Lords’ Prayer is published with the permission of the translator, Stephen Corrick.

Other titles by Monica Rix Paxson

The Fabulous Money-Making Garage Sale Kit

Dead Mars, Dying Earth

The Trouble with Level Three

Ponzi: The Prince of Pi Alley

The English Speaker’s Guide to Medical Care in Mexico

Dedicated to Kyren

Trees are sanctuaries.

Whoever knows how to speak to them,

whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth.

They do not preach learning and precepts,

they preach undeterred by particulars,

the ancient law of life.

~Hermann Hesse

An Introduction

I spent a lot of the ‘Kansas’ part of my childhood in a Zen-like meditative state. They (my parents) made me go to bed at eight o’clock until I was fourteen, although I’ve always been a night person and was hardly ready for sleep. So, I was banished to the darkness of my hot, humid room, devoid of air-conditioning, electronics nor contact with other human beings. I had to deal with that situation for a couple of hours a day, every day, for years.

In that environment, I did what was available: not much. I would sit at my bedroom window and face the starry vastness of the night sky looming above the cornfields. These were the three practices I repeated over and over, over and over.

The first was counting cars—watching the headlights appear on the horizon, approach with agonizing slowness, creeping nearer and nearer, then quickly whisking by only to recede, fade away and finally vanish in the distance. On a busy night, there might be six cars. Some nights there were no cars.

The second practice was watching distant searchlights as they swept translucent circles in the sky. (Car dealerships used them to attract people from miles away.) The twin light-saber beams blazed from carbon arc lamps the size of small elephants. The light beams pulled slowly apart, then fell together, apart, together, apart, together.

But the most empty practice was the third: watching the red light on the top of a radio transmission tower blink on and off, on and off, on and off…

The stories in this book are true stories. As unlikely as they may be, they are all real. They happened to me or someone I know. I’m not unique.. I think a lot of us have had things happen that seemed to be impossible.

Are there aspects of reality we don’t ordinarily perceive? Why don’t we see? Could it be that we’ve been so indoctrinated about what’s real that we only see what we believe?

Paradoxically, to see reality the most clearly, it helps not to have many beliefs about it. Beliefs are walls, not doors. So I won’t clutter up the pages of this book with my opinions about what’s real, nor beliefs about how things work. I’ll just tell you what actually happened—the stuff anyone could see. Your curiosity and powers of observation will show you where to look in your own life.

I will share with you, however, this single shining possibility: that familiar reality cloaks other dimensions where order, beauty, inter-connectedness and intelligence permeate everything. If you are open to the experience, you can catch glimpses of vast cosmic workings, even when you’re counting cars.

Uncle Louie’s Complaint

Some stories are life altering. Like the one I told my friend George, the bachelor. You see, late one night, George and I sat up playing backgammon and talking. We’d spent many nights like this one—playing past midnight and telling each other stories.

This particular night the topic was, unbelievably stupid things people we knew had done. Like backgammon, our storytelling was fiercely competitive. George told such good tales that I was finally forced to pull the ace from my sleeve: the story of Uncle Louie. You see, Uncle Louie did something downright brain-dead. Let me see if I can explain.

It happened at one of those noisy family gatherings—Christmas I think. All the family had gathered together at Mama Tencha’s. Everyone was crowded into her steamy little apartment in the Ukrainian neighborhood.

Uncle Louie, being the youngest unmarried son, still lived at home even though he was a grown man. He participated in questionable activities. Strange smelling smoke leaked out of his room from time to time. He hung out at the margins, coming and going at all hours of the day and night. But because he was family, his rascally ways were entirely overlooked.

During this particular gathering, Uncle Louie got a pain—like a stomach ache. At first Mama Tencha and the rest of the family suggested the usual litany of home remedies— the Pepto, the bi-carb. But Louie wasn’t having any of it. Not him. He was going to be fine.

When Louie began looking a little green around the gills and took to his bed, the family grew more concerned. Maybe a heating pad or some of Mama Tencha’s hot tea?

No, Ma. I’ll be fine. I’m just gonna sleep it off.

When Louie began to writhe and moan a bit, the family grew increasingly disconcerted. Several relatives suggested he should visit the doctor or the emergency room.

But Louie said, no. He wouldn’t go. They might as well stop bothering him about it. He would be fine in the morning.

In the morning Louie no longer had any problems. Of any kind. The autopsy revealed that he’d died of a massive infection, the result of an untreated ruptured appendix.

It was a family tragedy, Louie dying like that, but nevertheless, George and I cracked up. We couldn’t stop laughing. What a fool Uncle Louie had been! What a dufus! He’d been too macho to get help. You’ve really got to be an idiot to go like that.

Uncle Louie’s story obviously won that night’s contest. George and I were still smirking when he left to go home, defeated, but happy.

The next morning the phone rang and woke me up. It was George who said, You won’t believe where I am.

"Where are you?

I’m in the hospital.

What? I asked in disbelief. Are you okay? I was alarmed.

Yeah, but listen to what happened. When I got home last night I went right to bed, but I was having trouble sleeping because my stomach hurt.

I tried to ignore it and just go to sleep—but it got worse. When it got even worse, I was still gonna tough it out because it was so late. That and I absolutely hate going to doctors. I’ll admit it. I’m pretty macho. But then I remembered how stupid Uncle Louie had been and decided maybe I’d better have it checked out.

When the doctor in the emergency room told me that I had appendicitis, I called my sister, who’s a medical student and asked her to come. She watched during the surgery. She told me that the doctor said I had the most inflamed appendix they’d ever seen that hadn’t ruptured yet.

I guess I was pretty lucky. I might have died. Thanks for telling me about Uncle Louie.

It’s remarkable how life works. Even doing something terribly stupid can end up serving someone years after you’ve died. Redemption can occur spontaneously. Contribution can happen unexpectedly. Grace arises from absurdity. A story can save your life. Thank you Uncle Louie.

Listening

I was probably eight years old. We were floating the Buffalo River in the Ozark Mountains in canoes, my whole family and a group of our friends. For two weeks, we didn’t see a sign of civilization other than what we brought with us; not a road nor a telephone line. Not even a can.

In the late afternoon, my parents pulled our canoes onto the gravel bar with the other families to set up camp at the river’s edge. After the boats were emptied, and the firewood collected, we kids were allowed to play in the river or wander in the woods until it was time to eat.

If it were still sunny, we’d tip a canoe over and swim under it or hunt for frogs. I liked to pulverize small stones with big ones. I’d mix the powdered stone with water and paint my body with slate blue and brick-orange streaks.

I have a whole vocabulary of sounds in my head from this time in my life. There is a particular quality that sound has just before dusk. I recall the distant voices of adults laughing, the axes hammering the metal tent stakes into the gravel, dry wood snapping as it was broken for the fire, the crunch of small stones underfoot, the call of the Bob Whites and Whippoorwills and the endlessly mesmerizing rush of water. We loved to hear our own voices ricochet off the bluffs. No matter where I wandered, I knew how to get back to the campsite directed by the sounds.

One particular evening I left the gravel bar and headed back into the woods to pee. It was still light, although the sun’s rays slanted and sliced through the tree trunks. I wandered until I felt I wouldn’t be disturbed.

After I’d finished, I listened for the sounds of people to direct me back to the camp. I