Still Sundays

May 20, 2012.

Today: New Moon; Solar Eclipse.

It almost feels predetermined but Albert Camus’ words came to mind nonetheless: “benign indifference of the Universe”.

It is not a surprise that I woke up thinking about Albert Camus since I fell asleep while reading his words last night.

This Sunday morning’s energy is some light in water that doesn’t move quite as you expect.

Due to travels I have been mostly unplugged. I haven’t even had time to “tweet” that I have no time to tweet. This amused me. How strange is this social media trip that constantly makes us feel as if something is happening when nothing is happening?!

Writing today feels like it once did: only a few people will read it. Some days this is precisely what motivates me to write from the truest place. Other days this is precisely the reason for not wanting to write.

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Yesterday morning I forgot my phone on a bench outside a busy coffee shop. After a few blocks I realized I had done so and ran to get it back (okay so I didn’t run; I seldom run for anything). It was left outside by itself. I was relieved to find it was still there. Sitting quietly on the bench in its smartphone way next to a coffee stain where my bottom had been earlier. This man saw me as he was walking by making deliveries and said gleefully, “Now that is lucky!”

I feigned a smile still not believing my good luck and said, “Yeah, bad day.”

He replied, “Bad day? This is the best day. It is sunny and you found your phone. Tell you what? You feel what you want to feel but I am going to be happy for you.”

That made me smile from deep inside. To be so happy for someone else’s good fortune.

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My favorite used-books stall on 68^th and Columbus on the Upper West Side neighborhood in Manhattan might be shutting down after fifteen years. It’s a spot I often stop by after an early movie or a show at or near Lincoln Center. It’s a spot that has offered me many books.

Here is why it is shutting down:

For the second time in six months the police have seized my books without a warrant or plausible cause. This bookstand will accordingly cease to operate at this location. I, however, will remain testament to what facism can accomplish. The right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures is one of the great rights. In Berlin, in 1936, the streets too were remarkably clean of clutter. The flowers bloomed.

This stand was my only source of income, my livlihood.  It was an important resource to this community. […] There are things in this world more important than clothing, sandals, banks, and $4.00 cupcakes. This stand was one of those things. It’s disappearance is a shame, a public shame. Complain.

Charles Mysak, Proprietor 

This made me very sad.

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I read somewhere earlier people click on about one of every 2000 Fakebook advertisements they see. And that Fakebook makes four dollars per user.

$4.00 cupcakes. $4.00 connections.

One thing I do give Fakebook credit for is that finally now people are talking about something I was talking about since I was eight: what is a friend? I can’t even recall the number of times I have had people tell me, including some of my closest friends, “People just don’t think about friendships and friends like you.” By this they usually mean that people just don’t think about friendships unless someone does something ‘awful’ to them personally. This ‘awful’ always, of course, varies from person to person.

In a day and age where one’s ex-spouse is the biggest “fan” in order to support you no wonder people are confused as to what is support and what is a fan and what is a friend and what constitutes as family.  I don’t think we even have words yet to articulate the questions because everything is based on something that just doesn’t exist.

I have been thinking about author Neil Gaiman’s latest Guardian article. It is a short piece about Maurice Sendak who is most famous for the children’s book Where the Wild Things Are.

I was a journalist when I started out in the writing game, and I learned not to meet my heroes if I wanted them to remain heroes, and so I never even made an effort to meet Maurice Sendak.

Meeting writers and artists in the flesh is anyway overrated.

And then Neil Gaiman ends the short piece with:

Something Sendak once said is the epigraph of my next book. “I remember my own childhood vividly.” He explained. “I knew terrible things. But I knew I mustn’t let adults know I knew. It would scare them.”

Sometimes I feel like eight again except I am an adult and people are listening but no one reacts because what I have to offer terrifies them. I am an adult and don’t have any other agenda except for the listener to think. Now I understand how fiction can be more powerful than essays: we must have the safety guard available for pretending “this just can’t be real!” in order to react to some truths.

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A dear friend reminded me yesterday that family life is the most difficult yoga.

We practice yoga so we can learn how to die so we can learn how to really live. We also practice yoga to go beyond our perceived limits.

The most challenging thing about family relations is seeing those you love hurt and also not knowing how that hurt impacts your own life.

I wanted to write about my father and his relationship with his parents this morning. How he broke walls and snapped the sky in two for my mother. I don’t know where my father found the courage to love the way he did and does. I really don’t. I do know the price of that courage is being able to walk away from anyone and anything at anytime and usually when we walk away our loyalty is questioned and we often walk alone. The delicate dance of responsibility to oneself and responsibility to one’s family. My father has done more for his parents (when they were alive) and his two sisters and their children than anyone I know but it was only possible because he was able to leave them, take a stand against them, cut ties, accept that they might not like him for years but when again Time would return to show Truth like time always does, he would be the solid rock everyone holds when they are sinking. He can support them and many others because he has never lost sight of the most important relationship to him: his relationship with my mother.

I need a Sunday as long as life to write bout my father.

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One Sunday I am going to write about God. No, not “__od”. Not god. Not “divine.” Not any of the other “safe” words but the God. The one for whom we go to war and kill. The one some claim as Love. The one belonging to religions and to numerous sects.

Every one who has decided to seriously partake in the craft of creating and sharing must at one point or another confront where he or she stands about certain subjects and not in a political way like belonging to the Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street movement and not through quoting others but in one’s own words.  It is not the same as taking a stance on an ideology, philosophy or issue; nor is it for self-gratification or playing the devil’s advocate (excuse the pun). It is a clear and honest engagement with oneself about certain topics because the Energy from where we create finds itself in all that we create.  Confused energy can’t reach very far or last very long.  It matters not whether this dialogue, this information, is shared or kept private.  And most importantly to have the courage at a later point to either reaffirm that position or reject it as one continues creating.  The side of the coin doesn’t matter, but you must toss the coin and call heads or tails. At least that is what I told Ira.  But today is not that Sunday. And maybe I won’t share what I write on that future Sunday.

Ira is a gentleman I met on a plane during the second leg (the shorter of the two flights) of my trip last week. He is a devoted father of two adult children, a grandfather to one, husband to Carol for decades, passionate about photography, and works for the government in the field of environmental sciences and preservation of historical places. I also told him one day I will write a story and name the character Ira. He asked me what I did and I told him what I tell all people: I do this (fill-in-the-blank given it changes) in the fields of education or law, so I can write, write, write. This answer is followed by two: what do you write? and where can I find your writings? I offer my website.

What was interesting about this interaction was that Ira was also on my return flight! The next time we met we weren’t seated next to each other; I was two rows ahead of him. We adjusted our assigned seats to say hello to chance for an hour. In the mean time he had read some of my essays and explored the Vault. Usually interacting with someone who is familiar with my writings makes me uncomfortable.  It didn’t used to be this way but because of social networks that allow for immediate access it became that way. Often another is expecting me to say something compassionate and profound and my sharp, honest sarcasm disappoints. Or my enthusiasm sincerely appreciating their connection with my thoughts and stories misleads them to think we are friends and they know everything about me.

But Ira came from a time when you treated people like people. We didn’t discuss my writings but to the extent I brought anything up. We talked about chance and God for two minutes. I told about an upcoming writing workshop as compared to the one in Prague last summer. We talked about Prague: the breathtaking beauty despite the palpable sadness in all the stones. We talked about Santa Fe: the heavy, dead energy that hovers over the city as if angry at the tourism industry for creating a caricature of spirituality and offering manicured art.  We talked about City College where he graduated from as well. We talked about New York City. We talked about our families.

I didn’t get a chance to thank him then but just talking about ordinary, regular things after he had read and enjoyed my essays (which I sincerely appreciated) and was looking forward to my book (which energized me) was a real gift on my trip. I was just a woman on a plane who wrote stories and essays. There was nothing to analyze and I had no answers. I appreciate people who like to read, who truly just like to read, even if it is not my words. Moments like meeting Ira I was reminded that God or no God we are here together and must find a way to co-create a better experience on a very dirty and broken canvas called mistakes.

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