The sign above one of the theaters near my apartment.
A late summer night in Los Angeles, California. Specifically, the middle of Hollywood. A hot night, music in the air, kids across
the street milling about, cars occasionally speeding down the street on the way
to god knows where on a Friday night.
Everything that I see from my patio, everything that I hear from my
patio, has a precedent. This scene could
have happened in the 70’s, in fact, it probably did. But most of the people I see from my patio
were not even born until after the 80’s, so they mistakenly think that they are
being original. I think, as I sit on my
patio, that I am being original. What a
laugh.
It all goes down easier with liquor. the
drinking does not control me. Youth
is a shitty guardian, and quite devoid of control. At my age, I am in charge of the liquor, even
in the letting go of some control. I am
in charge.
The corner liquor store
I came to liquor late in my life, having
decided early on that I would never become my father (an alcoholic). In some strange manner or reasoning, as youth
are wont to do, I decided that if I took up alcohol, I would become just like him. Well, he was so much more than his drinking, I should have known this—but no regrets about my choices.
There is something to be said about drinking later in life. I don’t know what it is that is to be said,
but goddamn it, somebody ought to say it.
I might as well say it.
My father did not drink like I do, completely. He drank to contract, whereas I drink to
expand. At times, I could see my father
expanding when he was drunk, but it was a sad visage nonetheless—like a bird
trying to fly in a cage. Here in
Hollywood, on my patio, on a summer night with music in the air and kids
milling about and cars speeding along, I have no cage. I am expanded.
My brother drank when he was young, and it controlled him
(among other things). Big mistake, big
brother! Now, he does not drink, and the only expansion he
indulges in is the one that threatens to put pressure on his belts. The thing with control is that it too, too,
often goes against the physics of the world.
The physics of the world are the furthest thing from control; rather,
the physics of the world are all about change.
My reticence to drinking early in my life was an attempt at
control that worked until it no longer worked.
In order to enter the pool, it is advisable to wear a swimsuit, so to
speak. The funny thing is that by the
time I put on a swimsuit I preferred to enter the pool naked. Naked, when older, is a glorious thing.
On a late summer night in Los Angeles, California, I am
naked to the world. Many, perhaps my
brother, would think that I was needlessly exposed. He would be wrong. The correct assumption would be that I am exposed
to my nature. The poisons that run
through my veins are the poisons that kill the toxins of control. Control is much, much more fatal than
chaos. I suspect that my father knew
this. His flaw, the flaw that killed him,
is that he feared this.
Dad, you don’t need to worry about me. I got this.
there is a similarity between my previous career as a stage performer, and my current career as a psychotherapist. don't worry about wondering what the similarity is, because i am going to tell you outright and make it easy! in both of these careers, my experience with the "emotions" involved were one step removed. let me explain.
as an actor, i expressed some strong emotions onstage: rage, passion, grief, sadness, joy, desperation, and on and on. but though i was expressing these emotions, they were not necessarily mine. i was bringing to life a character through my body and my voice, so i liken it to drinking a hot beverage without any danger of burning my tongue.
does that make sense? it was SAFE to be an actor, because it was a place to experience intensity within the confines of the stage environment. no matter how bad it got onstage, my tidy, safe life was waiting for me right outside the dressing room door.
i left the stage for many reasons but mostly because there came a point where i felt tired of "pretending" all the time--i found myself yearning for experiences of intensity that were mine and mine only--not just those belonging to a playwright.
eventually, i became a psychotherapist.
what do i do in the therapy room? i sit and listen to the intense experience of my clients, and i "ride the rollercoaster" with them through the rage, passion, grief, sadness, joy, desperation, and on and on. but though i may be at their side, it is their ride we are on. my experience in the room is one step removed from the reality of their experiences, so it is safe for me. once the session ends, they continue with their experience, while i go back to my tidy, safe life.
perhaps not so much of a progression, methinks.
***
as followers of this blog know, i have spent a considerable amount of time this past year deciding how to be a gay man who is over 50 years of age (here,here, and here). one of the conclusions that i arrived at early on was that this milestone age marker perhaps signaled my transition from "active shaper of society and culture" to the somewhat more passive position of "observer of society and culture", combined with the adoption of the "wise elder" moniker. you know what i am talking about: the guy gently rocking in his chair with the twinkle in his eye and candy in his pockets for the kiddies. the guy who you go to if you need a bandage on your knee or a salve for your broken heart. the guy who has seen and done it all and who is now content with offering sage counsel to those poor younger folk who continue to struggle with all the existential angst that life has to offer. the guy who has lived fully but is not yet ready to die, who knows it all but plays dumb for laughs, who does not mind renouncing passion because that is, after all, a young man's game.
but funny things often happen once we come to a conclusion about anything at all. messiness interferes.
for years now i have talked to my clients about the nature of life, that it is not all neat and tidy like in the movies, nor does it abide by the rules of religion or society (as history has shown). the only rules that life abides by are the rules of physics, and the only rules that the earth abides by are the rules of nature (another word for physics), which is governed by cause and effect, and which is constantly changing due to multiple forces creating cause. thus, messiness. but nature's messiness can often be glorious--it is not at all like the messiness of a dirty clothes hamper or an unflushed toilet (which can be poetic in its own way). not at all. the messiness i refer to is the messiness i so often portrayed on the stage; the messiness i so often listen to in my therapy office; the messiness i have so carefully tried to keep outside my door.
here is the part of the story they don't tell you. that guy, you know the one i just described who is sitting comfortably in the rocking chair with the twinkle in his eye? well, he is facing his own messiness: his impending death. he may be calm and peaceful and wise, but he also knows that his time is running out, and that it may get painful on the way there. messy. and yet if he is wise, he just continues rocking away, not to avoid the messiness, but to face it.
***
i have been a bit too careful in my life--not in all areas, but certainly around my emotional life. how do i know? well, two signs. one is that my tidy, safe life was feeling, um, how shall i put this--uninspiring? just a bit. the second sign is that a big chunk of messiness just dropped into my life out of the blue. yep. and all of a sudden, i am feeling and reeling and experiencing all over the messy place. i am doing in my life, suddenly, what i have years of experience doing secondhand. i have been yanked out of the fucking rocking chair by a force of nature, and after the initial shock, i am finding that my feet can still run. and my heart can still beat. messy. glorious messiness.
i have had reasons to be careful. they are good reasons. really good reasons. but being too careful while i am messily alive is kind of like trying to dry myself off while i am still in the pool. doesn't really work.
there is a big difference between being reckless and being risky. the former is foolish and dangerous, while the latter is a way to embrace messiness. currently, i am discovering why i was drawn to portray all those messy characters on the stage, and why i am drawn to listen to all those messy experiences my clients bring into the therapy room. THAT is where life is.
"I wrote this short story earlier in the year as a contest entry--I didn't even place in the contest, but I still think it is a decent story! Plus, we are exactly in the time of the year when the story takes place, so I thought it would be interesting to take a "Fiction Break" from my usual essay style of writing and give you something different. I have populated the post with pictures that I took when I was at the beach just after Labor Day--in other words, the exact setting and time of the year for the story. How great is that?? Enjoy!"
"The Non-Endless Summer"
The
most perfectly melancholic paradox I know is the phrase “Endless Summer”.
He was in love again. Shit.
No, he wasn’t. Yes, he was. Fuck!
Where was S---- now? It had taken
until September this year for it to happen, but at least it had happened. Fuck! Where was she? He wandered north on the boardwalk with more
purpose than that demonstrated by the people surrounding him. He made good time on the stretch just below
the pier that veered toward the water only to retreat back to its original path. He then entered the cool darkness of the
tunnel running under the street that dead-ended at the pier entrance.
He had always liked this short tunnel—the
darkness inside a striking contrast to the bright-white heat of the late afternoon
pushing in at either end. He always
suspected (hoped?) that upon exiting the tunnel on the other side, he would
emerge in another time— a time most likely in the past.
This never happened, of course, and this
never failed to make him just the slightest bit sad. He walked out the other side into the
sunshine and scanned the surroundings, blinking back the light as his eyes
re-adjusted. Then he saw her—riding on
her old cruiser bicycle as if she didn’t have a care in the world besides
whether to bring potato salad or coleslaw to a bar-b-que. “S----!!!”
he screamed, startling her a bit. As she
saw him standing there she smiled and gently applied the brakes.
S---- walked the bicycle across the pedestrian
boardwalk, then between the cushion-like walkways traversing the child and
adult play areas, and eventually onto the actual bike path; oddly, it had just
as many people walking on it as the pedestrian boardwalk—a fact she has never
understood. The tunnel where she was
supposed to meet R----, the one he had just emerged from, was not so far away
that S---- needed to ride the distance, but she felt somehow ridiculous walking
a bicycle on a bike path. So she mounted
the cruiser and pushed the pedals for a couple of revolutions—just enough to
get it going—and then let it coast easily toward the tunnel.
Her thoughts along the way were a jumble, a
contrast to the ease of the short journey.
She crinkled her sunburned nose while imagining what she would say to
R---- when she saw him, the possibilities shifting each time she considered how
he might open the conversation. She only
knew one thing for certain, and that is that she would tell him the truth. The
truth.
The words dissolved in the
late summer sun as soon as she thought them.
The difficult thing about the truth is finding our way there, she
thought, noticing how the truth of the coastline was imposed upon by the pier,
by the boardwalks, by the play areas, by the parking lots, by the people. What is a beach other than the place where
the ocean meets the land? And yet, here
in Southern California, on this hot, hot August afternoon, it was a million
things more.
***
When you grow up near the beach, it becomes a part
of your personality. You become a “beach
person”, of sorts. And yet it is not the
same thing as being a “mountain person”, or a “city person”—it is not the same
thing at all. To grow up near the beach,
to have it become a part of your personality, is to ingest a mood, not just an environment. Mountains and cities can be said to have
moods as well, but unlike beaches, these environments affect us by their sheer
power—one has no choice. We become affected by mountains and cities. But beaches, well. Beaches have perhaps more power than either
mountains or cities, but beaches don’t force themselves on you. Beaches seduce. And therein lays the difference. And it is during late summer, that time stretching
from right before Labor Day up to late September, when the beach is at its most
seductive. As the tourists slowly leave,
its attention is no longer divided.
There are times, especially during early morning or late night, when a
person can feel that they have the beach all to themselves!
And yet, even then, there is tension in the
relationship. To understand this you
must first get that the thing about late summer is that it is, well, late. We can track the days getting shorter, the
sun setting sooner, the crowds thinning.
In some ways, during this time of year, our beach love affair is on
borrowed time—we can never be certain when the weather will turn to a
chill—when those early mornings or late nights will be better spent inside
where it is warm and bright. The joke of
it all is that we know this, yet we carry on as though it will be endless—an
endless summer.
It is a beautiful truth that the loveliest of things
always come to an end.
***
R---- watched S---- glide toward him on her cruiser,
and it took all he had to keep from running to her and bridging the remaining
distance. But he stood his ground and
waited, ignoring the stomach knot that indicated restless emotions, knowing
that if he were to release any movement at this time, more than just movement
would be released. S---- hopped off the
bike and walked the last steps until they stood facing each other in the sun. She looked at him, saying nothing,
waiting. And then it came from him, all
at once. “S----, it’s over. He is gone…this morning…with his family…back
home. He’s gone. He’s…”
Then he stopped, falling into her arms, and she held him as she knew she
would when this moment came. “I know,
sweetie. I know. He had to go, and it had to end. I’m so sorry, sweetie. He loves you, but summer is over. Summer is over.”
The crowds continued past them, meandering either
north or south on the boardwalk, while R---- and S---- stood still together
like the axis point of a compass, pointing the way to the inevitable change of
seasons. Nobody paid attention.
The sun may shine.
The waves may crash. But summer
on the beach…summer…is not
endless. That is why it is so lovely a
time.
this month i will turn 51. i have previously written about the concept of "aging backwards", and so have no desire to further espouse that topic. however, i do suspect that it would be fun to explore the idea of "leaving the age of 50", especially since the incident of "becoming 50" initially caused me a certain amount of upset. now i am aware that just because i think it would be fun for me to write about this, that does not guarantee that it will be fun for you to read. therefore, i find myself with two tasks at hand: discussing my taking leave of the age 50; and writing in such a way that you, the reader, are entertained.
i am up to both tasks, let me assure you. i will start right out of the gate by attending to the latter.
i am having fun these days. like, really having fun. this is due, in large part, to the fact that i left my job at whole foods nearly four months ago. it is also due, to a lesser degree but no less substantially, to the fact that it is summer. summer in los angeles. it is difficult for me to imagine my "alternate life" as it would look right now--you know the life i am talking about--the life where i moved to san francisco in may. while it is summer in san francisco as well, to my best knowledge, i am sure that many will agree with me that the experience of summer in the two cities are markedly different. namely, it generally feels like summer in los angeles, as opposed to up north, where summer is so often merely an implication.
this difference lends itself to a whole jumble of fun that is somewhat unique to southern california. may i list a few...?
...days without putting on a shirt or shoes, bike riding at midnight, cocktails to welcome an 8pm sunset, getting a deep dark tan, sleeping naked on top of the bed, shorts everyday, evening concerts at the pier, outdoor movies, pool parties, writing at dusk or at 3am, hollywood bowl shows, working in the planters, working out in the park, music playing through a screen door, candles on the patio, grilled steaks, grilled pork ribs, grilled chicken, grilled vegetables, grilled fish, grilling, friends for dinner, friends for lunch, friends for coffee, riding down the boardwalk from santa monica to venice, jazz at the farmers market, kids playing soccer til 10pm in the parking lots, skin, sun, heat, peaches!, sun, flowers, sand, stillness, bbq, sun, sangria, sun, lazy, sun, naps, sun, sun, sun.
having lived in southern california my whole life, i can confidently call myself an expert in summertime, and since my birthday always falls during summer's golden waning days, the summertime holds a particular significance for me, transition-wise. this year thought there is added weight to the meaning of my upcoming age-marker. i had trouble with turning 50. i don't seem to be having the same trouble with turning 51. i have read blogs that have described how it gets easier as one continues through the 6th decade of life--that there is a "relaxing" that usually happens as one discovers that life goes on, perhaps with more aches in the joints, but life goes on. as i have written before, the anxiety about turning 50 was fueled by the thought that life would not go on, at least as far as how i wanted it to go on. i thought that a 50 year old would have to act a certain way, dress a certain way, live a certain way, that was markedly different from how a 49 year old, or anyone younger than 50, would live, act, or dress. i thought that i would have to give up so much of who i was in order to not seem foolish or sad by those bearing witness to my exploits. and while this way of thinking warrants perusal, it is doomed to failure by a flaw that, in hindsight, i had to be 50 for a while before noticing.
that flaw is simply this: i was imagining being 50 from a place of not being 50.
it may sound like a silly flaw, but it is a doozy! you see, i fell victim to the mistake of predicting the future incorrectly. in imagining 50 from the place of not being 50, i was imagining that i would be exactly the same, but older, in an older body. if i were to take that idea and compound it to a ridiculous level, i would arrive at a scenario not unlike what happens in those awful "body trading" movies, where the adult and the kid somehow switch bodies with each other, with ensuing hilarity!
or there is the case where a kid finds himself in an adult body, ala tom hanks in "big", and hilarity ensues!
the problem with this way of thinking, despite the entertainment industry possibilities, is that it is a horribly misguided way of thinking about the future. because once i hit the big 5-0, i was no longer not 50, and i realized that my thinking was not the thinking of a not 50 year old. confused? yeah, so was i. let me see if i can bring in an expert to make it easier to understand.
in his fantastic book, the antidote: happiness for people who can't stand positive thinking, author oliver burkeman latches onto the idea of stoicism as a way to see things as they are instead of how we wish them to be--resulting in a confrontation of our fears and a more reasonable and potentially successful response. in his own words:
"For the Stoics, then, our judgments about the world are all that we can control, but also all that we need to control in order to be happy; tranquility results from replacing our irrational judgments with rational ones. And dwelling on the worst-case scenario, the 'premeditation of evils', is often the best way to achieve this--even to the point, Seneca suggests, of deliberately experiencing those 'evils', so as to grasp that they might not be as bad as you'd irrationally feared." (bolding mine)
once this task is undertaken, burkeman then suggests that "using your powers of reason to stop being disturbed by a situation doesn't mean you shouldn't try to change it." you see, the stoics were willing to look directly at what we all have limited control over, while recognizing that our control is in fact limited. we run into trouble when we mistakenly think that we have more control than we do. in the case of my aging, i feel that my difficulty with turning 50 can be attributed to my reluctance to accept that i had no control over aging, and that this necessitated my making unwanted changes to my behavior, changes that i was trying to imagine from not being in the experience of 50. the process i immersed myself in for the past year, and the reason i am calmer about the whole damn thing is that i have accepted that i am aging, but i also recognize that there are choices that i have around aging that can change my experience of it. this happened after i turned 50 because i found myself sitting smack in the middle of 50, and it was not all that bad. i had to accept it because, well, there i was! and when i looked around and saw that it was not as bad as i feared, i could then focus on how i would choose to be 50, how i would choose to be an older man.
though i am not quite at the stage that this guy is at, this month i will be one year closer to it. i will be 51. i am an older man. i am an older man. i am an older man. and that ain't so damn bad.
i wrote this post in the last week of may while i was in san francisco. i decided to keep it in present tense since that is how it sounds best to me. what do i know. a lot! i have since returned home after the Ride and i have to say that i had an amazing week--much better than any "traditional" vacation by a mile. enjoy...
i am visiting san francisco for the first time in two years--and it is my first time in the city since i decided, last october, that i would not be moving here. i came up here in preparation for the aids lifecycle, and when i participate in this event i like to be here a few days beforehand so that i can enjoy the city a bit. i am staying at a friend's apartment in soma, which turns out to be just the right mix of glamour and grit. actually, there is not much glamour, but i'm telling the story, so how are you going to know what the truth is?
soma is actually very similar to central hollywood, in that every street varies in affluence and amenities. i discover that within walking distance of the apartment there is a whole foods and a trader joes, as well as the powerhouse bar. not bad. i am also offered a deal on marijuana on the street five minutes into my walk. how is that for convenience? naturally, i refuse, since i am not about to circumvent the union workers just to save a few bucks.
i am taking in san francisco somewhat differently this time. previously, i would experience the city with the wonder of someone who needed fuel for the fantasy of moving. look at the great buildings! taste the great coffee! look at the clean air and all the bicycles! look at the men with beards! now, in contrast, i am fueling a different fantasy--this being that i made the right decision to stay in los angeles and not relocate. i don't really need fuel for this fantasy, since i am certain that i made the right choice for my career and my life at this time. but as humans are wont to do, i still look for evidence that supports my decisions and makes me secure in my thinking. does that mean that you are now going to hear me trash san francisco after enduring years of the opposite within this very blog? does that mean that you are going to question your own sanity as i rip the city from limb to limb, ranting on not only the expense of living here, but the entitlement of the citizens, and the complete lack of smooth faces? is that what this has come to?
well, no. i am NOT going to do that. there is no reason to. i still love this city.
i just don't want to live here right now.
well, i would want to live here right now IF i had the money and career to support myself in the city in the way that i am accustomed to living. but that ain't the case! i have neither the money nor the career right now to live the way i would want to in the bay area. i DO have the the wherewithal to continue my usual lifestyle in los angeles, however, and that is no small consideration! (as i like to say, it is no fun being at the buffet if you can't afford to eat!)
one thing that is very clear to me is that there are no more openings for "homeless person" in the city; in fact san francisco is experiencing a glut in this area. there may still be opportunities available for "bat-shit crazy druggie", though, but those jobs seems to be filling up fast as well, especially in the evening hours. i do notice a few industrious types combining the two skills quite successfully, so perhaps one must think outside the box in order to win in the san francisco job market.
i also notice that many of the gays here are just too precious--i notice this. it is odd--they seem way fancy to me. their masculinity is not "forced" like it is with los angeles gay men, in contrast, it is more fragile, as though one look from me or a "BOO!" would shatter them into a million shards of glass. there is an entitlement that i sense as well, which is easy to understand, because this city gets on its knees for the gays, and they know it. but that level of special care can engender a false security--it is the same thing i see in west hollywood. they walk like they own the streets but have a look in their eyes that suggests otherwise--i see caution when confidence would be the expected response. to be honest, everyone, not just the gays, appears to be angry or depressed here to an extent, and when i catch their eyes, they seem to be blaming me for this state of mind. or so it seems. (or maybe i am just making it up.) at least in los angeles i am outright ignored, and therefore out of the path of accusation. i think i prefer the latter!
what would it have been like for me had i moved here? i can't know, but i can imagine that i would have found new and different challenges to accompany the triumphs. i like to think of it this way: i pulled out of san francisco before committing to a relationship with the city. had i moved here this year, it would have been way too soon, and we would probably have ended up fighting. this does not mean that i hate it, it means that at this time, we are not a good match. i remember one time, many years ago, when i did a dating experiment. i started seeing a guy, and i told him that i didn't want us to have sex for at least a month. gamely, he agreed to this proposition, and as the month went on and eventually concluded, i came to the realization that i did not want to continue seeing him. at first i thought that the experiment had failed in that it took away the fuel that would keep the fire burning (sex). but the reality was that i simply discovered, without the gauze of sexual activity, that i was not really into this guy. it has never failed to astound me how clearly we can think about things when we "bracket" our emotional response to the issue.
san francisco, i will always have a crush on you, but that is certainly not the same as being in love. i really think that it would be best if we don't sleep together. don't feel bad--it's not you. this one is all me.
i am still perplexed by this thing we call "turning 50". i have never in my life run up against something this perplexing! everybody told me that after a while, life would just continue on as it had before, but how long before "a while" has passed? cuz i am here to tell ya that life is not as it was before. damned perplexing, it is. tonight i was planning to attend a "bike night" at the hammer museum in westwood.
it was part of the los angeles "bike to work week" that occurred this week. it sounded fun! there was going to be all kinds of bike related activities" photos with you and your bike, t-shirts made, new products, art, films, and lots and lots of people on bikes. just look at how crazy fun the poster looks!
and i was planning to be one of the crazy bike people. but damned if the evening didn't arrive and i just had no energy to make the trek to westwood, which would have involved either a 45 minute bike ride, or a 30 minute bus ride and a 10 minute bike ride, and then reverse that for the return trip. you see, what most car drivers take for granted is the ease of getting places. that is why i am amused at how upset people get when they have to wait for a few fucking seconds in their car. it must just be unbearable sitting there in your car with temperature control, comfortable seats and stereo music. just unbearable!
now when i have to go someplace, i have to pedal there. with my legs and with my feet. true, i rarely have to wait for anyone, but i don't move unless i exert effort. physical effort. and must i remind you that i am 50?
well, the effort to get to westwood tonight was just too too much for me to think about, despite the premise of fun that potentially awaited me. but let's face it, who wants to be around a bunch of fun folks when the eyes are drooping? not me, kids!
the funny thing is that i would have fit in just fine there, despite the fact that most of the attendees would have been half my age or more. because i just don't "look" 50, at least as far as people expect 50 to look.
couple years ago at a bike event
a year ago for halloween--i apologize for NOTHING!
a few months ago at work
and that is the rub. i seem to be aging "backwards" from the way most people age. most people, it seems, lose the body and the face and the youthful appearance WAY before they lose the youthful way of thinking.
and that sucks. who wants to be in an older body with the thoughts and desires of a younger man? (think woody allen in "manhattan") i, on the other hand, seem to be reclining into the thoughts of an older man, while retaining my youthful body and such. in other words, imagine having a perfectly working order espresso maker, but you no longer want to drink coffee. what becomes of the appliance? you can't throw an expensive item away, so you keep it on the counter, and friends come over to your house and comment on how beautiful it is and how great it is to have it, to which you respond, "yeah, it is nice, but i really have no use for it anymore, so it just sits there, unused".
get the picture?
i am not ready to start thinking like an older man. tonight, i did not "think" like a man of 50, i "thought" like a man of 60, or at least how i imagine a man of 60 would think. and meanwhile, my "appliance" sits there, in fantastic condition, unused. i am aging backwards.
my good friend marlene has a number of weeping buddhas in her home, and she told me that she finds comfort in them. there are those who doubt the veracity of the figures as an actual expression of buddhist principles, but as an existentialist, i could give a shit about whether "meaning" is officially authorized or not. if you get something out of something, then in my book, it has validity. anyway, as the story goes, the figure depicts a warrior who has discovered that he has just killed his own son in a masked battle. the warrior sits on the ground with his head in his hands, consumed with grief. they say that the figure has the power to take away one's grief if a person rubs its back.
okay. i have heard crazier things.
once, when i was visiting marlene, i noticed one of the figures on a table, and i decided to test the theory and rub its back. mind you, i was not actively grieving over anything at the time, rather, i was excitedly anticipating a lovely homemade dinner with conversation from the aforementioned marlene. but i thought to myself, there is the buddha figure, what have i got to lose? so i rubbed its back.
the backs on the weeping buddha figures are usually very muscular, which, in my opinion, accentuates the poignancy of the weeping. you might agree with me that there is great power in the image of a strong man displaying the vulnerability of emotional pain.
very weeping buddha-ish
the wooden back muscles of the figure felt smooth and cool to my touch, yet there was "life" to the surface of the figure, perhaps due to the fact that they are usually carved out of wood. i don't know if i can honestly report that i felt calm and serene, but there was certainly a sensual aspect to the rubbing, and i will leave it at that. i don't blame marlene one bit for collecting these things. i don't blame her one bit.
***
my mother lost a child, a daughter, but i never saw her even once approximate the weeping buddha pose. had i known of the depths of her loss and grief, i surely would have purchased a weeping buddha for her to rub. as it was, i was scarcely aware of the incident at all, due mostly to the fact that it happened before i was born, but also due in part to my mother's reluctance to talk about her daughter's death--at least not until i asked her about it as an adult. when i did finally discuss this with her, i discovered that my mother was nearly destroyed when it happened. fortunately for her (but not so fortunately for me), i popped out a month after my sister's death and demanded immediate and constant attention, thus distracting her somewhat from the paralyzing grief. the role that i played in this drama was one that i never auditioned for, nor was it one that my mother intended on casting me in, and yet it was a role that created a certain unbreakable bond between me and her--even if it was a bond encased in ice.
and yet let it not be doubted: my mother loved me beyond the stars and the moon. of this there is no question.
Mom as a young woman
she died years ago, and during the stage of her dementia when she was aware of her failing body and mind, she was buoyed by the belief that when she died, she would finally, after nearly 50 years, see her beloved daughter again. i get that. she didn't have much else to look forward to at the time. a once strong, stylish, and beautiful woman, she was, in her 80's, slowly reduced to a frail, old woman who wore sweatshirts everyday, and she was aware that her time was nearing the end. i can't fault her for finding comfort in the idea of a long overdue reunion. i can't fault her one bit. but i don't believe it myself. the way i see it, my mother is not with her daughter, she is just dead. not an easy sentence to write, but then who said that death was an easy subject to write about? my personal grief has mercifully faded in color over the years after the initial burning shrapnel of losing her, though i am certain that it will never fully recede. there is simply no preparation for living without the one person with whom i had been connected to since i came into being. there is no "closure" when it comes to that grief--but that does not mean that one can't go about one's life. (i would like to strangle the person who coined the term "closure".) my blogger friendron writes similarly about his journey through grief around his mother's death.
mother's day used to be hard, but now it is more like valentine's day and easter--just another holiday that everyone else celebrates while i go about my usual day. and yet, and yet, it seems a bit unfair that i no longer get to celebrate the holiday just because mom is gone. i have written previously about what i would do on mother's day if she were still alive, and i hold to that imagined plan, but these days i am more likely to reminisce about how close we always were, and how much i miss her on a daily basis. there is a bittersweet gift one gets when their mother dies, in that you stop being someone's child. figuratively speaking. that, in itself, is an unexpected "gift from beyond the grave", in that it has forced me to consider my own legacy in this world, knowing that one day i too will die.
but not yet!
with the average life expectancy rising to the age of 100, i am with all probability square in the middle of my life, as it were. though i often miss being my mother's "child", i do relish being an adult with purpose and agency, a celebration that could not have happened had my mother not given birth to me in the first place. in that respect, i will always be my mother's child. and so i leave the grief behind, somewhat, and move into cherished recollection and increasing gratitude, because, let's face it, i am alive.
happy mother's day, mom. happy mother's day, from your child.
the last picture i have of us together, in the care home. she was holding her "baby doll".
we all have them. all of us. and don't ever underestimate the power they have over our lives, these unrequited loves.
i often wonder, when it comes to unrequited loves, if perhaps the "one that got away" may actually carry more influence over our lives than the ones that stayed at home. if i were to experiment on myself, i would then have to assess which category of experience i carry more frequently in my thoughts. hmmm.
there is a way of thinking that goes like this: we want most what we cannot have. many would argue that the best example of this is shakespeare's romeo and juliet.
viewed through a modern lens, the love affair in this play seems almost silly to me now--i mean who could take seriously the "love" between two teens (romeo was 16, juliet was 13)? and yet, in its time, the characters were very much able to experience passionate love. hell, in its time most people were married by the age of 16 and dead by 50, but i digress. where today you would simply have a crush between two young schoolkids, back then it was life and death love. what made the difference? for me, the difference is that the love of romeo and juliet, unlike a modern schoolkid crush, was forbidden. and didn't proust say "rejection is the greatest aphrodisiac"? not exactly the same thing, but close enough.
of course, for teens, love is most always super-duper passionate, and that seems to be the case no matter what age we are in. now that i think about it, a good cinematic example of passionate young love surfaced during the last century, and since i recently re-watched this film, it is freshly present in my mind. i am referring to "endless love", the brooke shields vehicle from 1980. though not a romeo and juliet per say, it is a portrayal of a very passionate love, or at least a very obsessive love. it starts out as a lovely snapshot of the times--free love and permissive parenting--beautiful young people exploring passion for the first time.
but then it takes on the romeo and juliet factor: the love becomes forbidden, and all hell breaks loose. by the end of the film, parents are divorced, a house is burned down, one father is dead, and everyone is fighting. but you know what? the love between the two teens endures. very much unlike shakespeare.
but back to unrequited loves. love can certainly be unrequited because it is deemed forbidden, but that is not the only cause. love could become unrequited because it is unattainable due to distance, culture, or age. love could become unrequited because the object of love does not return the affection or share the feelings. love could become unrequited because of self-denial, such as a married person not acting on a work crush. or love could become unrequited because someone decides that it would not be in his or her best interest to pursue the object of affection. this last instance is the circumstance i want to comment on in this post, since that is how i view my relationship with san francisco.
***
my decision to not move to san francisco broke my heart just a little bit--even with the relief and the confidence that came with my choice to stay in los angeles. the decision has been on my mind a lot lately, because had i gone through with the move as planned, i would currently be negotiating the last weeks of my los angeles life. i would probably have made the move in april or may at the latest, and by all accounts, i would probably be freaking out. but i also would have been excited, a bit.
now i have gone over the decision to stay in los angeles in other posts, so i don't need to cover that territory again. but i do realize that by not moving to san francisco, i may forever hold the city by the bay in my heart as an unrequited love. and maybe that is not such a bad thing.
the city of san francisco has a mythical appeal to many, including me. my favorite myth is that it is where the lost souls of atlantis, reincarnated as current folks, gather to reconnect with one another.
Atlantis by Chris Diston Puddle Jumper by "Antiker" Rendered in 3d Max 7 Clouds made in Paint Shop Pro 7
i like that myth, even though i don't believe that atlantis ever existed, or that we have souls that can be reincarnated. but i digress. i enjoyed thinking of myself, even if only in my imagination, as a wandering holdover from a long deceased advanced society, and that my move was merely me finding my way home. haha. i do love san francisco, i do. but i also wonder if i would continue to love it had i consummated the relationship with a move. would the mythology hold up among the reality of making a go in a new (very expensive) city? would the sheen begin to dim as i became more familiar with the annoying crowds of hipsters or the violence in the east bay or the ridiculous cost of living there or the cold damp weather? would my love become tarnished as i arrived at the realization that i had left behind my entire support group and all my cherished friends?
when i moved to los angeles, it was not because of love. i moved here because i wanted to make it as an entertainer. there was no illusion that i was going to love the city. i guess you could call it a "marriage of convenience", devoid of passion, but not unbearable. los angeles and i used each other. over time, i have grown fond of this city (and hopefully it has become fond of me), or at least certain aspects of it, perhaps in the same way that one becomes fond of their partner in an arranged marriage. you deal with it, because that is where you are.
san francisco would have been a move for love. but would it have stayed that way? well, i may never know. but i do suppose that i would continue to love it, maybe in a different way. it is a great and beautiful city after all, and there is so much to love, and it is so right for me. but this is not the first time that i have made a decision against passion in the name of good sense, and i have accumulated very few regrets along the way. one might say that my life is littered with unrequited loves. perhaps yours is too! and that, in my opinion, is a good thing, as long as we have some requited love right from time to time. it is possible that i love san francisco more because i am not moving there, but that is not the only shift that is happening. i also find that i can no longer hate los angeles--because i have chosen to stay here. so i get to uncover myths behind my being/staying in this city, and along the way, who knows, i may just fall in love. i just may.
This is Part 2 of 2. To catch up on Part 1, please go here.
i started getting real christmas trees around the time i was in my mid-forties. before that time i am not sure i ever really thought about doing so. when i was a kid we always had an artificial tree--we used the same one every year that i can remember. i still remember how the branches were color-coded on the ends so that we knew where on the trunk to attach them. can you imagine just going bonkers and attaching them any which way? now THAT would have been fun, but alas, we stuck with the rules in our household. my mother did all the tree decorating, at least until we were old enough to help her, and back then she used to make a lot of the ornaments by hand. i actually helped with the ornament creation at one point, being a "creative" young lad. we would use push pins and sequins and cover the ornaments with our own "designs". it was fun. these days, my ornaments are designed by jaclyn smith and martha stewart. ha.
my christmas tree 2012, with "designer" ornaments
the time that i started buying live trees for the holiday coincided with my desire to have my own "adult" christmas in my own home--the way i wanted it to be. this didn't mean having orgies and booze flowing down the walls, it just meant no more going to my brother's house. both of my parents had died, so there was no longer any obligation there, and i hate travelling during the holidays anyway. part of this desire to create my own christmas holiday was the feeling that i wanted to make something happen that i had never experienced on christmas--namely, a home filled with warmth, good friends, holiday music, and great food. so i began a tradition of having an open house on the eve of the 24th, inviting my los angeles friends and preparing a dinner buffet spread complete with desserts and beverages. i have been doing this for six years now.
you know when you have a sense of something that you want, and even though you have never had it, you just know what the experience would be like? perhaps this sense comes from witnessing such events in other situations, but nevertheless it always amazes me how possible it is to create, in reality, the experience i long to have.
my tabletop "mini-tree", decorated just like daddy tree
the christmas eve gatherings were an instant success, for me and seemingly for my guests, and i felt as though i had indeed created the kind of holiday i had always hoped for. friends came and went, the drinks flowed, the food filled tummies, and at the end of the evening i would feel...happy.
my living area with decorated christmas trees
each year i would make adjustments to the menu, adding a new recipe, repeating some favorites, offering more, paring it down. and concurrent with that i would try to tweak the house decor as well. i would place the tree in a different area, have a changed color scheme, add new decorations. this year i went all out, and i truly feel that the apartment has never looked better for the holidays. after a rather subdued "winter blue" color scheme in 2011, i decided that i wanted color--lots if it--bold primary colors brightening up the place. so i started with traditional red and green, and then i added blue, noting this color combo in one of martha stewart's magazine spreads. i couldn't have been more pleased with how it all turned out--though the full decorating process took over a week.
close-up of the ornament colors on the daddy tree
i had decor of some sort all over the place. i found this great tinsel garland tree at target for 18 bucks and thought it would be perfect for my office, and it was.
i placed a small spotlight underneath it so that at night the tinsel was lit from within--it was gorgeous! i found little evergreens at trader joes, perfect for the end tables. i put lights in the windows that simulated snowflakes, and "candles" that would turn on at dusk and turn off at sunrise. it may sound like a lot, but i think it was just enough.
trader joe's always has fun holiday greens
the whole shebang accented and followed the main color scheme. i should do this for a living!
the classic "bowl of balls"
and of course i had a welcome sign on my door, because that is where it all begins!
for the buffet table at my party, i had a vision of a sort of fantasy christmas scene: a tree surrounded by a train track, with a christmas train of course. and fake snow. of course.
and then i imagined that the buffet dishes would look great sitting on giant christmas "presents", wrapped in the same color scheme, of course!
a gay man NEVER places buffet dishes flat on the table. levels are EVERYTHING!
the whole table, ready for food!
i share all these details so that you might appreciate my friends' dismay at how much i am into the christmas season. for some reason, they equate my atheism with being a party-pooper during the christmas holiday season, and the truth is really quite the opposite. the best way for me to explain it is that atheism, for me, released the holiday from its religious constraints. in my mind, christmas, at least culturally, is in a war with itself. it tries to be both one of the most sacred of observances in christianity, while also being the greatest tribute to consumerism that occurs during the year. this results in the conflict of interest i described in part one. most people, religious included, have a fairly easy time incorporating both aspects, since that is what most of us grew up knowing, but as christmas has become bigger business, the divide as started to grow.
my ascent into atheism forced a different meaning onto christmas--a deeper meaning, one that related directly to me and the kind of life i wanted to have. it was less about getting stuff and more about giving stuff, less about consumerism and more about community. i always say that meaning is more powerful if it is self-assigned rather that externally sourced, and that was certainly the case here. my dream for a certain christmas eve experience lent the holiday the power to connect me socially to my friends and peers. it lent the holiday the power to re-cast me as a creative type, something i have lost a bit of touch with since my 40's. it would not be an unreasonable reach at all to connect my increasingly elaborate christmas decor to my increasingly meaningful lack of faith. there is simply nothing to feel guilty about anymore!
and this is the secret that the faithful never suspect when it comes to atheism. atheists tend to enjoy life more, because we spend less time feeling guilty. what we DO spend time doing is making sure that we live life fully, because the reward is in this life, and there are no do-overs, so everything carries more relevance. we don't have the "luxury" of eternity, as the faithful do, so there is a vital urgency to what we choose to do, and an greater attention to the present time. so for me, i can answer my friends that i celebrate christmas so big because the chance to create community means so much to me. in fact, it is practically what i live for.
i read an article in the new york times early this year about some of the benefits of being an atheist, and the author, susan jacoby, wrote this absolutely fantastic line about the atheist value system: "the absence of an afterlife lends a greater, not a lesser, moral importance to our actions on earth." the way i understand this is that life and death, cause and effect, for the atheist, are under our power to notice, engage, and influence, as opposed to being simply events we are passive audience to. for us, "thou shalt not kill" is a choice, rather than a commandment, and so our decision to not kill is more solid; it is more of a statement of purpose in life. for example, i don't kill because i don't want to be a killer--it would not be a pleasant experience for me (or for the other person!), NOT because it is "bad" according to someone else' rules. because of this, i assert there is a greater chance that i will not kill than someone following the ten commandments. if you don't believe me, just look at the incidences of abuse in the catholic church to understand how ineffective outsourced morality is.
for the holiday, my desire for community is not something i can simply "pray" for--if i want to be surrounded by community, then i had better do something to make this happen! and this is how i end up with a buffet full of food and a house full of friends every christmas eve.
ready to eat! carved ham with rolls and condiments, roasted butternut squash salad
proudly standing in front of my creation!!
this, for me, has meaning. and this is why i am sure that i love christmas more than you do.
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