529.

Observations

Done deals

Have you noticed, although not all the time, how friends and people in general have no room inside to consider things these days?  All the corners in their minds are occupied and preoccupied.  There seems to be no room for expansion.  Every enclave and crevice in their consciousness is full.  They really can't hear that much.  They have all reached their finite limits and arrived at their answers. They need you for what they need you for, but anything more is an intrusion. They are, in a sense, a done deal.  Human contact no longer penetrates in a meaningful way.

Perhaps there is some symmetry in this.  Instead of being pieces of a puzzle with odd shapes and gaps and uneven sides looking to be joined and filled by other pieces, they are complete unto themselves.  The total image of the puzzle that was to emerge is no longer necessary.  Their individual shape, no matter how odd it is, is who they are and  stands on its own. 

Given this view of things perhaps a certain wholeness has occurred, albeit not the way that was expected.  The boundaries have all been filled.  They have gone as far as they can go.

The only change that can occur is for a force, different than all that came before and whose workings are unknown and unfamiliar, to lead these hardened units into a realm where their shells can soften and once again let in some trust.

528.

Vignettes

Trip to New York in June 2016  (Part 3)......H.S. reunion
(review Part 2 if need reminder)

Dinner was very Italian and I drank some wine which I normally stay away from. Dick came, maybe in the same suit he was in since HS with his Jamaican younger wife. He had been somewhat straight-laced in a non straight-laced school, and here he was proud to be with his African American wife, a statement of some sorts. When we parted Greenwich village was teeming with activity and I made a call and inadvertently became separated from the pack.

Somehow, I forget when, Jimmy had offered to give me a lift to Terry's brunch and I accepted. Early on Sunday I met them at Jodie's parents' place and we chatted and revisited our common history. They had many paintings and etchings and prints on the walls I looked at. They knew my mom and were interested in the book I put together. Later, my father said he would give them a copy and I'm still waiting for that to happen. Anyhow, we made good time to Brooklyn and Terry's ground floor apartment and helped ourselves to some food. Terry's wife said she was into a Paleo diet.

Just to recap, the previous day I ran into David. I think he originally wanted to be a musician but eventually had a family and worked in law firms. I told him I was impressed with the fact that he had coached girls' soft ball teams and his son had pitched for city college before getting hurt. I said to him everyone wants to be a star today and few want to develop and nourish others. Our high school was not very athletically oriented but my classmates and I had some interest in sports. Marvin asked questions about the basketball championships and I found myself in a very guy conversation.

Joe' s wife stated she thought our high school was an ivory tower, and that kids should go to a regular high school. I inserted that I had gone to a public school in a rough neighborhood and it was dangerous and there were fights all the time. I added that I could have gone to Seward park but that was tough as nails. Then she and someone else mentioned two ladies who went there turned out fine. I got involved with another conversation after that.

Joe was tall, nice looking and became a lawyer. Recently he found out he was diabetic and had to watch what he ate. He said for forty years he ate pasta and pizza and now can't have any of it. Debbie, another classmate who grew up close by, occasionally would study with me. She was very quiet and reserved in those days and not particularly active in school although naturally very bright. She disagreed with my stories of danger in the city as she never felt it. I said she was just oblivious. I went out, played in the playgrounds, interacted and felt the pulse. Debbie had gone to the private school Town and Country before Elisabeth Irwin High School and that was pretty insulated. A young man gets seriously challenged in the city if you spend any time outdoors.

Joe remembered everything. He lived near the school and recalled something I did on his stoop in the village, I forget what. He also remembered that at twelve between my local little league and another organization in the Bronx I was picked to pitch in Puerto Rico on an all star team. He brought back memories. I said to Dave, Marvin and Joe 'I have to say this. I won the only game down there.' In sports I had some nice moments and some not nice moments as a kid. Nothing was consistent. But Joe brought these memories back as if they were yesterday. Later his wife came up to me and I said he remembers everything and then she said he doesn't even remember to complete the to do list. I listened. So some of us, all from a politically leftist school, all talked sports which I hardly do in my normal life. (End of Part 3)

(A small remnant from high school  Others showed up at Sunday lunch, or Friday dinner, or dinner that night.)
Some names are changed in writing to protect the innocent.
Standing L-R......Steven (me), John, Marvin, David, Louis, Tom, James
Sitting L-R......Jimmy, Dorothy, Jane, Paula, Terry

527.  Past

Principles

Living

Least resistance 

What is humbling and increases our tolerance for others is the fact that we could end up anybody.  People who took a wrong turn, made really bad decisions, could have been us.  We did not walk in their shoes and a lot depends upon circumstances.  This doesn’t exonerate wrong behavior, but it tempers our attitude.

The truth is people often follow the path of least resistance whether it be good or bad. When observing bad behavior it is good to keep this principle in mind.

426.  Past

Spiritual living

Daily recharge at times

During certain periods of time, if in the right frame of mind, I have tried to go to God for advice.  It seems to put me together.    It's as if I have no memory and have to build myself from the bottom up every day.  I have to recharge daily, reconcile where I'm at and review my direction and the “why.”

525.

Spiritual 

A mystical moment

My thoughts led me to this brief mystical moment which was: 

“to be free of entanglements and worries and to be lifted to God as if evaporating upwards into a lighter, freer place.”

524.  Past

Principles

Living

Considering all things 

523.  Past

Principles

Living

Considering all things    (from booklet 'Breakthroughs')

If you found a home,  a home for your spirit , and it is real and makes sense, how to live afterwards is not what you’d expect.  One would normally think being principled and righteous would be the way to go, but not so.  Previously you thought the world was a mess and you had to find something that made sense and change it.  But now that you found what makes sense and a home the world must not be that bad, because it led you there. Ah, what a change in perspective.  Maybe everything is the way it is for a reason and serves, in a roundabout way, some purpose.

How about the mundane, say Grade B movies.  When  left on late at night even they serve a purpose, possibly  killing  the neighbors’  noise and providing background chatter that substitutes for a scattered family.  What about those brutal boxing matches.  Well, its not the worse way to siphon off the anger from being put down at work that day instead of telling the boss off and getting laid off. And what about those miserable commercials that waste your life.  Well, they’re a good reminder to get a chore done during the break and get on with your life.  And maybe just maybe you’re not above it all, cool, detached, from a higher plane checking out the riffraff  culture down here.  Maybe part of you is, but maybe part of you isn’t.  Perhaps a baby’s cry for help is closer to where you really live, dependent, needy and scared. Maybe you’re not so in control, not such a master of your own fate, maybe everything you did was just covering up that you were a victim raised by victims.  Hey, all this is not so bad, just see it and don’t run from it.

You wanted to know the truth, didn’t you?  That is to see who you really are, to see what the world really is, and not attempt to change it or yourself through trying or effort. That just never really worked, did it?  The only opening left is to consider and see all things and ever so slightly in small imperceptible ways be drawn back to the home that it took so long to find.  This alone is the cure.

522.

Personal

Trip to New York (June 2016, Part 2)

I met Carole at a Chinese place beneath her building and we enjoyed their dumplings and she told me she had some back issues and also about the good news of her insurance.  I don't sketch enough but I did a quick sketch of her and she wanted to me to sign it, claiming it will be of value some day.  Oh, the ego likes hearing such things.  She still has her younger lover and her teacher's pension and her irritating non caring brother and friends that acted strange and I listened and contributed and went home.  I hadn't called dad and he sounded worried once I called.

Next on the activity list was the class reunion.  There were to be three events, Friday a dinner with our class and the faculty members, Saturday meeting at the school and listening to classmate James Gadsden give a talk and be honored, for he had become a diplomat to Iceland and had a Harvard type of career.  Later there was to be dinner at an Italian restaurant.   Sunday Terry who for a time was a film critic, was to have us out for brunch at his Park Slope apartment.  I chose one out of three events, to attend  the Saturday event.

Immediately upon entering the school I ran into Jodie, wife of Jimmy Tarlau. Jimmy was the former president of our class in high school, who possessed intelligence and organizational skills that he used to coordinate the extra activities around the reunion. He had visited me once in Florida where his in laws had a place nearby.  Eventually they sold it.  Too hard to go back and forth I suppose.  Here was an interesting link.  Jodie and her brother also grew up in Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper, which was snubbed in this school.  It was a little too common, too GI bill and too overly institutional.  Understood.  She also went to the high school we did which was small, super progressive, had a certain political agenda  merged with a competitive preparatory school edge.  Jodie had been in both worlds as I had and we could share notes, although she adapted better than I.  Jimmy was a upper West side child, intellectual, and had been in the school longer than I and had cemented relationships accordingly and  that was hard to break into.

Anyhow, at the school James Gadsden was speaking and I could hardly hear him.  It was in a side room.  He used to be a tall black man but had shrunk a little.  He was a scholarship student from the south and had slept in my parents apartment a few times.   For me the school was an alternative to tough local schools, yeshiva, and maybe the Quaker school Friends.     For others, going there was a political statement.   Later, when having dinner, I touched James on the shoulder and he said he just had surgery on that shoulder so I should be careful.  I joked  and said too much writing and tension in the wrist from too many degrees.  At dinner, with another classmate Paula listening, the one comment he said to me was how beautiful he thought my sister was, with long black hair and fine manners and how nicely spoken she was.  While I was always more photogenic and received some serious jealousy for that, Gail had Mona Lisa classical looks. I later told Gail his comment and how surrealistic it seemed.  Of all the things he could say to me this is what came out.  I'm sure all his years of academia and being a diplomat forced him into certain roles.  When free of these boxes what blurted out were his basic primal feelings and reactions without layers.  Go James.   I told him it was very nice to see him and it was.

It was a small school and not many showed up, partly because of distance, partly circumstance, life and last minute obligations.  The nice thing about being older and going to one of these reunions is that you are able to ask questions that bother you and fill in the little pieces of puzzles that you've always wondered about.  Why did Joe leave and go to Stuyvesant HS?  (Some peope had switched schools but  came out of some loyalty to the school, and out of respect for Jimmy's effort. Jimmy is who I am referring to, not to be confused with James the diplomat.)  Why did John leave as he played guitar, was a precocious writer and fit the Little Red Elisabeth Irwin image?  Turns out his father, a practical dentist, sensed it would turn into a bottle neck.  Not sure what that implied but somehow it made some sense and might have been prophetic.  Anyhow, John pursued an academic career.  How and why did Marvin become a camera man after being in Africa in his college junior year? He seemed ambitious now and wanted to make films after many years, according to him,  of just having a good time.  More men than women showed up.  Maggie, my ex wife,  had an interesting reason.  She said it's harder for women to appear because they are judged more harshly on looks, marital status and so on.  Men can just be men, and if they have money they can look like anything.  Some truth in this.

Paula and Andrea seemed nice.  Paula had been a red diaper baby and Andrea pursued art in NYC.   The latter didn't come to dinner.  Paula looked well and at the 18th  reunion had commented she admired how Jimmy and Jodie got together from same high school.  I've observed in my life that many second marriages happen between ex classmates from their early years.  You know from whence they came.  She was always a  bright lady and I wished I was less preoccupied so I could  inquire more about her life. (Part 2 ended)

521.

Belief

Once again proof was needed

Once again I sought answers from others.  There was a certain incompleteness I felt within, a configuration I could not solve.  Whoever I spoke to could just give so much.  Experience taught me not to push, not to expect, not to ask if it wasn't offered.  What do you do?  Living just within yourself and being fully self-contained did not work either.  That is why you sought people in the first place. This was a scenario that seemed new but wasn't.

I needed someone who knew me better than I knew myself.  Who could this be?  No one I knew.  No wise person from the past.  No words from a sage written centuries ago would satisfy.  Who then?  I needed something bigger than myself, something larger in breath and depth.  I needed someone from another dimension.  Why stop there though?  Why not go to whomever is in charge of this dimension, of all dimensions?    Why not go to the biggest of big, to what is all encompassing?  Why not go to a God, or the God?  That's what was needed.  If there was no God, I would invent him because I needed him.  If I'm going to live in an illusion, might as well go for the biggest one.

Then I recalled I do believe in an almighty, in a god.  I recalled all the roads I took and traveled to find this out.  I remembered I had been seeking for many years and seemed to have a relationship with the above.  Of course I could not demonstrate this.  Of course I could be wrong.  However, once again, lost in space and suspended in a void and having no memory from the past, step by step I seemed to be led, in a particularly unique way (they always are) to rediscover something from nothing, somewhere from nowhere, and God from no God.

The process was a personal one that worked on me internally and brought me from chaos to knowledge.  Of course I could not prove this, but something was proven to me from within.  Each time it's as if I started from scratch and had to rebuild this proof.  Each time this proof varies and lasts for five minutes or five  days or five weeks. Each time in a different way I am reconnected with what I am meant to know and each time I forget.

520.  Past

Principles

Living


Need for others

It is not enough to be alone, to be on your own journey and to do it all alone.  There is a need to confirm what we see with others, to speak to another who witnesses the same things.  What is real and true is reinforced for both of you.