Negotiating

Posted on November 8, 2025

“It seems we lose the game before we start to play.” Those words from Lauryn Hill’s song “Everything is Everything” always resonated with me. “We never argue.” I told my boss when I was twenty-two. I was aiming to relate how perfect and idyllic my life with my parents was to him. I was living in Paris and not ever planning on moving back to the states. He stared at me, wordless. Right then, I knew something was up. I had said something wrong. And I was wondering how to backtrack. Of course, he didn’t straight up reply that that policy was abuse. He finally said something along the lines of, “I don’t know about that.” Looking back, I recognize that at that time: …

Categories: Memory, Mindfulness

Tagged: Keith Abbott, Keith Kumasen Abbott, Narcissism, naropa, Persephone Abbott, Richard Brautigan

“Do you have any unfinished business with me?”

Posted on October 12, 2025

A friend of mine related to me that her father had asked her this particular question during a visit to see him. This was about ten years ago. And recently her ninety year old father, a former scientist and teacher at MIT, died. “No,” my friend had replied to his question. So before her father passed to the great beyond, she spent ten years with him, hanging out, working on a book of his memories, marathon watching educational videos, enjoying a meal together, etc. Imagine. I am working on a book with my father, except that he’s been dead these past six years and I have a truck load of unfinished business with him. It’s complicated. Keith wrote a memoir of his friend, Richard…

Categories: Memory, Poetry

Tagged: Downstream from Trout Fishing in America, Keith Abbott, Keith Kumasen Abbott, memoir, Mordecai of Monterey, Richard Brautigan, Trout Fishing in America, unfinished business

Lots of Fans in Roswell?

Posted on September 7, 2025

I was inspecting the google analytics page listing the cities where people are interacting with Routine Apparitions. Roswell. That must be the UFO connection. And how have I gotten to Roswell? Here’s the trail, interview style, for fun: What am I doing with my days? I am looking for my father’s missing archival materials. What did my mother do with them before she died? And who was involved in the disappearance of the materials? Why weren’t they sent to the archives in Bellingham? Fact: they are not there. And how did this come to pass? Well, first I have to consider the stories my mother told about my father. A load of bad ones, that’s for sure. In her narrative, I got flame torched…

Categories: Announcements, Book, Memory, Mindfulness

Tagged: Amsterdam, Archives, Bellingham, Colorado, Keith Abbott, Keith Kumasen Abbott, Longmont, Missing manuscripts, Mordecai of Monterey, Persephone Abbott, UFOS

Beat Scene 112

Posted on June 9, 2025

My piece on my father’s missing manuscripts and notebooks was published in Beat Scene. Thank you Kevin Ring for highlighting this matter and supporting Mordecai of Monterey! Maybe some of Mordecai’s melanoia (the feeling that good things are going to happen) will grace us all! #keithabbott #keithkumasenabbott #beatscene #beatpoets #mordecai #monterey #longmontcolorado #naropa #persephoneabbott #watergate #zen #buddhism #bouldermennonitechurch #rhinoritz

Categories: Book, Memory, Mindfulness

Tagged: 1046 Grant Street, Beat Scene, Buddhism, Colorado, Keith Abbott, Keith Kumasen Abbott, Longmont, Mordecai of Monterey, naropa, Persephone Abbott, Zen

Some thoughts while transcribing my father’s memoir on his acceptance of Zen Buddhism and his relationship with Kobun Chino Roshi

Posted on April 12, 2025

I was, by all means, skeptical. My father had never shown any interest in organized religion, but there he was in front of me in his study in Longmont, Colorado. He was talking to me about sewing up his little pouch and explaining how my mother had helped him. This was possibly a few years after his refuge vow ceremony which I missed. At the time I had been in the process of moving from Singapore back to the Netherlands. I don’t recall if I actually had been invited to witness his vows. It seems to me that I had been told about the occasion and was, in some way, expected to show up. Didn’t I understand the importance? In years prior to Keith’s…

Categories: History, Memory, Mindfulness

Tagged: 1046 Grant Street Longmont, Buddhism, calligraphy, Keith Abbott, Keith Kumasen Abbott, Kobun Chino Roshi, Longmont, naropa, Persephone Abbott, Zen

Paradise

Posted on March 31, 2025

I had thought about it. The American Photography exhibition at the Rijksmuseum. Then my phone via Facebook or Instagram or Osmosis-Goo suggested that I seriously consider buying a ticket, like right now, click the link and chakka-gotcha! The Rijksmuseum sits just around the corner from my apartment, a five minute walk. Motivated, I took the bait. Walking through the exhibit at 9 a.m. on a Monday morning, I thought about my age. From my memory bank I can understand the subject matter in the photographs, either because I was already born or my grandparents were alive during the early to mid 20th century era or because the historical photographs of locations were still somewhat recognizable to what I recall seeing when I lived in…

Categories: History, Memory, Mindfulness

Tagged: Amsterdam, Keith Kumasen Abbott, Mordecai of Monterey, Nevada, Persephone Abbott, Washington

Pilgrimage

Posted on March 16, 2025

Reading Shakespeare and drinking tea are pleasant occupations. And drinking whiskey and reading Shakespeare are also pleasant occupations. A friend of mine and I meet up every so often and read a play together. We switch the parts freely. She’s a health care professional and during the break between transitioning from the tea to the whiskey part of the evening she said to me, “You know, living with a narcissist ages a person.” She meant literally ages a person physically, mentally and spiritually. I remembered myself at the age of seventeen when I couldn’t recall what I had done an hour previously. I wasn’t taking medication, I wasn’t under the influence of any substances. In despair I dyed my hair grey for a period…

Categories: Amsterdam, Memory, Mindfulness, Spirituality, Tourism

Tagged: Amsterdam, Keith Abbott, Keith Kumasen Abbott, Narcissism, Persephone Abbott, Pilgrimage

She Put Me On X

Posted on March 12, 2025

Keith sighed and looked down into his beer.Sitting next to him in Beer Springs his good buddy asked what the matter was. “She put me on X.” “Who?” “Persephone.” “Well, you named her.” Don’t miss out and check out Routine Apparitions….or X

Categories: Announcements, Memory, Poetry

Tagged: Ghost Story, Keith Abbott, Keith Kumasen Abbott, Longmont, Mordecai of Monterey, Persephone Abbott, Routine Apparitions, Twitter

After the Diagnosis: Part Four

Posted on January 19, 2025

“When will this stop?” I was exasperated. My therapist at the Hersencentrum in Amsterdam looked at me. “You said you did not want medication. Do you want to talk about medication?” * The exasperation on my part was due to my growing acceptance and understanding of the difficulties that I was experiencing just trying to navigate life, trailing the footsteps of a “normal” person and hopefully checking off tasks as I supposedly met my own and society’s expectations. * Mid-therapy for late diagnosis autism while an active situation involving family trauma was at hand, I decided to take up the challenge to access better suited job openings. Everytime I turned around a recruiter was trying to sell me a job as an office manager…

Categories: Autism, Memory, Mindfulness

Tagged: Autism, Keith Kumasen Abbott, LSD, Medication, Persephone Abbott

Routine Apparitions: a fictional novel in blog form

Posted on December 25, 2024

Routine Apparitions (a fictional work and an online novel in blog form that is free of charge): Keith Abbott’s important notebooks and manuscripts have gone missing. But so is Keith because he died years ago. This doesn’t stop the ghost of the Soto Zen monk from wandering around Longmont Colorado looking for his stuff while busy solving crimes with his zany buddies. Of course he has the help of three teenage rebels. Meanwhile the city is in the grips of formidable conspiracy theory and oddball religious zealots, a few in the shape of Tirzah Pyrestone, Gator Matcha, El-Don Mast, Teary Filisteinsdatter Mast, Rabbi Dianne T. Lakein and so many more! Drawing on Rhino Ritz, An American Mystery Novel by Keith Abbott, of course the…

Categories: Announcements, Book, Poetry

Tagged: Archives, Blog, Blog Novel, Colorado, Ghost, Keith Abbott, Keith Kumasen Abbott, Manuscripts, Mystery, Novel, Persephone, Persephone Abbott, Routine Apparitions

Posts tagged “Keith Kumasen Abbott”