My Plumber, My New Guru
If I had known I would meet my new guru today, I probably would have tried a little more. I would have worn better, more uncomfortable clothes when I answered the door. I would have left my bass out lying around. Not the xylophone, though. No, some things about yourself you want to be discovered. Sure, I hadn’t learned to play these instruments, but damn, they add a vibe to a room. Instead, when I answered the door to meet my guru, I was dressed like some colonizer in my khakis and t-shirt. He didn’t look like the traditional guru. His large, gruff frame was neither fat nor muscular, just a square-shaped mass of humanity. I might have even mouthed “boomer” to myself as he passed me.
I had called him because my toilet wouldn’t flush, and, now, standing in the basement with him, I saw the first flash of this man’s brilliance. He was staring at a pipe running up to the first-floor bathroom. “Plugged or not, you have a crack in this main out pipe.”
“I tried to see, but I couldn’t tell….” I trailed off.
“Sometimes to see, you have to look,” he replied, still staring up at the pipe. My jaw almost hit the floor. The message was so simple yet, so powerful. You could put that phrase on a t-shirt and make a zillion goddamn dollars.
