Stillness is a peyote that shows what is real.

March 25th, 2012

STILL SUNDAYS

New York City can’t make up its mind whether to continue enduring pain and stay in winter or finally move forward into spring and summer.

Stillness is a peyote that shows what is real.

You can’t jump into stillness, you work your way into it and realize it is a fusion of all sorts of coming together.

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It was in Paris when James Baldwin was first able to come to grips with his explosive relationship with himself and America. Of course that is not why I went there in 2001—I have never followed in the footsteps of anyone—-this is not a boast, just a fact, just how things have turned out for me. I always learn about any similarities after the fact, much after.  I would take more pride in the trajectories of my life if any were driven by some grand ambition other than learning so as to serve best.  This is also not to say that I have not made decisions that went against the grain of my heart, although not for long. The internal bleeding when one goes against the heart can make you pass out from actually living. And when you are not really living it shows in  your skin, bones, weight, hair, work, art, and relationships, without regard to age.

Anyway, I didn’t learn this fact about him or discover him (for myself, not academically) until a few years later. Paris in 2001 is also where I realized I am so very American and how I can never be just an American. Lucky for me this realization didn’t make me feel some kind of  ‘lost’. I have never been confused when it comes to such matters. I have always known geographic boundaries are imaginary and since they never made sense to my imagination I never accepted any.  However, Who is an American? has lived in the periphery ever since. Where is America headed and who is responsible and for what? is what spins me round and round. Does that even matter? We all step away from who we are and what we know. The luckiest of us at one point or another begin the journey to evolve so as to shed layers back to who we were. We are always becoming who we always were.

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I told my mother yesterday that I should tape record everything she says. I need a device where I can simply record every phone conversation—the quick five minute ones to the long ones like last night—so I can have it with me long after her physical form leaves. She tells me that I already know everything she says so there is no need for that. I was too exhausted to tell her that I literally meant the sound of her voice, not just what she says.

The night stretches itself longer when we have questions. I think that some nights. As if the night begs you to stay with it, keep the dark company.

I have no words to describe the emotions I feel for so much human suffering borne out of desire to be liked.

I am indebted to unconditional love, a nuclear energy of confidence.

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Many years ago when I used to teach in Spanish Harlem one of my seventh grade students made a card for my birthday (none of the students knew the exact date given I would quasi-celebrate the entire month of March in anticipation of the actual day in April—why did I not do it this March?) with a beautiful drawing on it. The drawing was of two hands holding a globe. On the top it said, “Happy Birthday Ms. Syed. The world is in your hands.” I was very touched. For my students their entire world was the neighborhood where I taught and my classroom. For most of them I was the only reliable and consistent adult in their lives.  A few blocks comprising around where they lived and where they went to school made up their entire world view. They had never as much as went to Central Park. At that moment I could have just allowed this student (and others) to continue to believe that the entire world—their grades and graduation certainly—were in my hands. But I didn’t. I dropped the entire lesson that  day and I just shared stories about how big and yet small the world is. I told them the world was as much in their hands as mine. That the world is always in a moment.

Some of my students eventually died or ended up in jails, most dropped out during high school and found jobs or didn’t continue after high school, a handful went on to college or found other life-affirming adventures like working for Jet Blue and traveling through United States for free!

For many of them the world remained just a few blocks big.

Last week Thursday I stopped by an “artist’s” opening in a gallery east of SoHo in the lovely Nolita neighborhood of Manhattan. All those who were there really believed this was the entire world. This artist was “it” because a hundred people knew of him even if they didn’t really know much about art other than that Picasso used a lot of blue to paint at one point. It was amusing to think that these supposedly educated adults really thought “the world is in their hands” and there was not a single voice of consciousness that could provide for the perspective of cognitive dissonance that this was just really a pocket within a pocket within a pocket within a pocket within a pocket of a very vast world where no one knew any of the models snorting coke for their self-esteem that is the size of their jeans and artists’ so called friends who were complaining about having to be there, and then the groupies who were working hard not to be like the ‘others who are the real groupies.’ This artist and this gallery had a powerful opportunity to present something of value and yet it was just a gathering to ejaculate some grand lack within.

Yes, let’s sit with the humility that no one is really any one; you can only matter in whatever small pocket that is your universe.

In that small pocket you can either pretend to be a rock star or make some real difference. Sometimes the only real difference we make is by simply being ourselves, a state most adults seldom experience because of this insatiable, carnivorous desire to be liked. And yet ironically we forget how much we all matter in our small pockets. The only thing to consider is what value we provide without attachment to how many are receiving that value. We are all guilty of what we accuse mainstream media: making no one into something without any real merit that provides substantial value on a grand scale given mainstream coverage is grand indeed.

Of course how social media tools like fakebook and twitter amplify this–this 1000 people make up the universe phenomenon–goes without saying.

This is precisely why I will no longer be tweeting my Sundays’ writings—whatever I catch in the net of Stillness—when I am finished writing. I am immensely grateful for those who create the time to read my thoughts whenever Time allows.  I am also grateful for those who find these words valuable enough to share on via email or social media.

But there exist people who are interested in “me” via Twitter who can not tell that the person whose tweets they may like is also the person behind these thoughts on Sundays who is living with a burden of an unfinished novel and all these persons comprise only the surface of who they think they know. Getting to know someone takes time and a lot of effort and friendship is an organic process.

I consider Twitter and all social media tools powerful for sharing information that one finds valuable. I will continue to use it that way. Nothing is a more glaring reminder of one’s lack of progress towards a desired personal goal—in my case finishing a novel—than the fact that very few people understand what it takes to practice, practice, practice. Yet the desire to be connected because of what another likes trumps what the individual is actually doing. I respect that most people are drawn to others with similar interests, hobbies, geographic locations etc. as a way to connect.  In my case, I like what I like until I evolve. It’s nothing personal. It can’t be personal because I can’t claim to know someone by an affinity towards mutual interests or a product, although I can tell much.

I take the effort of writing seriously. This doesn’t mean I don’t find joy in it. This does mean I appreciate others who sincerely understand what this means.

James Baldwin:  “Write. Find a way to keep alive and write. There is nothing else to say.”

I have found a way to keep alive that allows me to serve the human condition without betraying my values or being too drained to write.

I can take as long as I have to…and until I am done I will share what I want in this little pocket in the cyber-universe and I am grateful for those who find value here.

A small campfire without marshmallows.

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Some days the Past is as big as the sky and one can never reach the horizon of Now.

Hearts don’t break in the same place twice. How strong is this ticker! Cardiac tricks.

And in the words of author Michael Ende who wrote one of my favorite classics, The Neverending Story, “Every real story is a never ending story.”

Stillness is a peyote that shows what is real. And real is filled with magic.

Related posts:

This Liminal Stillness Still Sundays Vintage Stillness