Still Sundays

February 19, 2012.

I ate a lot of Internet this weekend. I justified it because I ate healthy and kosher. The meat of the articles was halal. Fresh sources, great nutritional articles, lots of juice for thought. And I usually don’t eat meat: I had not browsed through any of my feeds or online journals in over a week. As is often with most things that happen to me, I had tapped in to the momentum exactly at the right time.

The right place, the right time, the wrong me.

I gathered that social media is going through some mid-life crisis. I thought Internet was only a baby. Don’t you first have to grow up, live (or more accurately not really live), before you lose it to a Ferrari? An affair?

Where is my compassion for the unexamined lives wrapped in some security? I wonder if their blanket is as warm as mine made with the quilt of questions, doubts, and threads against the status quo.

What is everyone trying to figure out? Everyone is looking for something, some new place to do, to be, something. Virtual identities being stripped despite pouty avatars which no longer seduce nor satisfy. There is a digital gold rush and there is nothing left to dig. When will we learn the Internet is round no matter how many social media sites we invent?

The people who are not connected via blogs, online journals, twitter, fakebook, feel they are missing out. The people who are comfortable and familiar with social media navigation and its implications can’t help but feel they are missing out on some thing in “real” time. There is no here and there. It is just another activity like going to a bar, a meeting, an event, or turning on the television. It’s all about how often you go, with whom you go, how you handle yourself there, what you watch, what you order, how much time do you want to afford, etc. That’s all there is to it.

That being said, I believe there are people looking to connect deeply (albeit without wanting any real responsibilities that come with truly connecting and therefore not realizing it is no different than developing meaningful connections when meeting someone in person) and people who are simply interested in sharing. Most of us are simply interested in learning and sharing.

However we are all privy to the maddening plague that makes one feel whatever you have just read or learned is not enough. I propose this overwhelming feeling comes not  from NOT knowing enough but not recognizing that we already know more than enough. It is just that there are as many ways of saying the same thing in different ways as there are people so it feels as if we didn’t know.

Relax. You can’t miss out on something you already know. The nectar is in sharing and when done with the “right” people even if as few as just your immediate family or your best friend it is fulfilling. Try it.

I feel my small corner, this space, where I share these thoughts is a whisper in the grand canyon of noise. I am grateful to those who can hear me and also lead me to other meaningful conversations.

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I thought about Whitney Houston finally. “Voice of God” read some eulogies. A strikingly beautiful face too. I wonder how we would have received that voice if her face was not as aesthetically appealing? This thought reminded me of an Indian singer, Lata Mangeshkar, reverently known as simply Lataji. Most people from South East Asia are familiar with “the voice.” Bollywood actresses have been lip syncing and shimmying their hips to Lata’s songs for six decades. Lata however is a “simple”  and “ordinary” looking woman (and gloriously beautiful in my humble opinion) who never actually played any of the desirable roles in any films where her voice served as the alluring fantasy through another female body.

If we truly understood the voice of any god I highly doubt we would place so much emphasis on outside appearances that are going to fade against time. Despite the practice of yoga! We can grow old radiantly and not look aged but we will get older nonetheless.

Yoga is not an antidote to life but an oar for life.

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Mama used to have a best friend of thirty years. They were ‘in and out’ of one another’s lives for a long period as time and their lives allowed. Eventually though they parted ways for good. Mama says any friend that can’t stay your friend because of your personal development or evolution towards a more wholesome being is not a friend. Mama says not everyone grows at the same time or even in the same way but what makes a friendship last is when one friend who sees the other evolving doesn’t feel threatened by the lack of progress in his or her own development compared to the friend who seemingly is on some momentum.

This Sunday morning I enjoyed stillness with mama on the phone. She told me that someone asked her if she was a writer. Mama said, “No, but my daughter is.”

All those stories that are not ‘gifts’ passed down to me but narratives that demand someone plant them somewhere responsibly  I owe to my mother.

Mama wants me to write a story about a sun-catcher.

I can’t write on command, mama.

Of course you can!

What is a sun-catcher? I know of dream-catchers.

A sun-catcher catches light and passes rays. It matters not if the seed grows into an orange or almond or cilantro.

“That’s all we all are really doing whenever we interact with anyone,” she continues, “helping them grow into themselves.”

It is at such moments I feel New York City is too damn far from a village farmhouse in California and the legs of Life too short to jump hurdles to see her next weekend.

Money can’t buy time always feels like a smacking you deserve to wake up to the moment.

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I received an email from someone, a creative light, last night which informed me this individual will be going into surgery to remove cancer and then receiving chemotherapy. This person sounded positive and steady despite the awful news.

The tone of the email reminded me of this art piece by Brian Andreas of www.storypeople.com that I saw at a store recently and offer it to this person in case this person happens to read this at some point.

Learning to love life for what it is is slaying dragons.

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New York City is frozen. Even when I am inside a warm place often my fingers feel like sticks in cool mud. I like touching the back of my neck with the back of my fingers (the opposite of palm side). The neck pulsates with warm life. Some cartoon tree.

Often how we feel about cities is a reflection of how we are feeling inside. New York City is a big mirror in the sky and we are all changing thoughts in front of each other without knowing.

Sunday night begins with twilight, a shade of Air Force blue.

There is no moon tonight, only questions that don’t really require an answer right now.

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I end tonight with the words of George Bernard Shaw which I came across yesterday on the Internet highway. Although I am familiar with the essays of George Bernard Shaw, I must be honest and offer that this excerpt was new to me and deeply resonated with me given this is how I view my time on earth.

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy… I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can….I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no “brief candle” for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

Or as mama would say: sun-catching.

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I share a photo of this man I saw last week. I saw him while I was waiting for my bus to take me crosstown from one side of Manhattan to another. He stood there at the corner of the street not blocking anyone’s way, with arms stretched to the sky, tears streaming down his face. He was not saying anything. He didn’t appear dangerous or “crazy”. No one stopped to ask him why or what he was doing. Some people did stop and stare. His tears were real. His mouth was trembling although I could not make out the words.  His arms were indignant. I stood near him and told him I was going to take his photo and share it. He didn’t even blink. I told him I would do it with people who would be respectful of his moment with the sky. I felt he heard me although he didn’t even blink.

I think sometimes we all need to just become like fingers and reach for the sky.

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