Still Sundays

March 6th.

The New York in films that allows one to look at the City as if one’s reality is a movie. Three tiny bite-size portions from Iqbal, Victor Frankl, and Camus.

If you would like to know what Still Sundays is about, please take a quick gander here and just read the third paragraph. Thanks.

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Some Sunday mornings the stillness that has been filtering the input received from the entire week cracks open at my marble seams. Other Sunday mornings I bring my stillness microscope and examine the week. Either way I am learning that stillness is a magic lamp and I don’t really need the genie to grant me wishes; stillness will be the question and the answer.

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This weekend I saw the newly released film The Adjustment Bureau starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt shot in Manhattan.  I am not much for reviews given most glean over any artistic merit and only offer criticism which is mainly opinions and we all have plenty of them. Mainstream or otherwise, if a movie strikes my curiosity I will check it out.  You can find out about the details of the movie and others’ reviews elsewhere; I liked it, it wasn’t as predictable as I had anticipated. Go see it for yourself it the trailer intrigues you.

That being said, here is what fascinated me.  Very few films set in a location where one lives, in this case New York, are able to create a double consciousness, the sense of looking at one’s surrounding through the eyes of others. Often when I see movies set in Manhattan I don’t realize they are set in Manhattan except for the buses, the yellow cabs, and the prevailing stereotype, accurate for the most part, “crowded.” When I see movies set in New York, I don’t really feel it is the New York I live in; it very much feels like watching a movie about a city I don’t live in. There are welcome exceptions to this generality of course. And for one who often feels as if she has been placed in a set while walking in New York City, The Adjustment Bureau portrayed the nooks and crannies of New York City very well.

Manhattan, despite being approximately 23 square miles, remains a maze even to those who have lived in it their entire lives. Everything below Houston street is a labyrinth where memory fails you at certain cross streets and unless you visit a spot regularly you may never find it again. And then there are streets that offer déjà vu served in a golden tray as if experience is royalty and you are king.

If we can’t even scratch the surface–with maps, guides, anecdotes, photos, underground blueprint—of exploration that is 23 square miles, what does that say about knowing what we think we know about everything else?

Keep walking….into surprises, memories, dreams…

The Adjustment Bureau’s plot rests upon the chance of two strangers running into one another  “randomly” despite all odds given New York City’s massive population, but in fact this is not that odd; it is quite probable. When I first moved to New York City, this man, a stranger, someone who had lived in Harlem/Upper West Side for over forty years, welcomed me and said, “You stick around long enough, you will realize it’s just a big town.” I didn’t believe him. A decade later, it is indeed true. Perhaps it is because, prior to my writing life, I roamed in and out of  diverse social circles. Perhaps it is because everyone you know knows someone else and we are not that enamored with celebrities. It isn’t just me though. New York City is not an echo;  if you live here, you will more than likely run into people you have run into once before or know someone who knows them. Our politics are personal and word spreads fast.

The exclamations—“oh my Gawd! What are you doing here?” or “Wait, didn’t I meet you last year at fill-in-the-blank’s dinner party?” or “What? Get out of here! I live around the corner too!” (never to run into this person again in the neighborhood but surely some place else)—are often overheard on the sidewalks and subways. Six years ago I ran into my social studies teacher from seventh grade whom I hadn’t seen in too many years to count. Mrs. Lucas. She was retired and lived on the Upper West Side where she always had. She recognized me first and said, “Of course I recognize you—it’s like an older you that just grew into her eyes.” I haven’t seen her again. We take running into one another for granted sometimes.

All the aforementioned being said, it does take one by surprise every.single.time when he or she runs into someone from a previous meeting.

We don’t believe even when we know something may happen again. We take for granted even when we know something may not happen again.

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Of course, as was to be expected, the suitcase carrying questions of free will and destiny had to be inspected. This subject used to have an unprecedented allure for me some years ago: choice determines the path, no choice is just an illusion; a God must have just set things in motion and stepped back to watch with a cruel sense of humor versus a God that has a very clear plan  to there is no God, and all that cute attachment that is like gargling.

What are you doing?

I don’t think I have per se found any more a satisfying answer than before, I am just interested in experiencing the present very differently.

Iqbal’s understanding that there exists laws which govern the Universe, laws like gravity and consequences for every action, regardless if there is a plan or destiny are closest to my personal view: “The transcendence of man is in the process of discovery through an exercise of his own will. Man is a hidden meaning made to defy.  A living, revolutionary clay.”

Vikor Frankl’s words are my torque:

The salvation of man is through love and in love.  I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world  still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved.

Being human is being responsible — existentially responsible, responsible for one’s own existence.

Albert Camus wrote,

When I was young, I asked more of people than they could give:  everlasting friendship, endless feeling. Now I know to ask less of them than they can give: a straightforward companionship. And their feelings, their friendship, their generous actions seem in my eyes to be wholly miraculous:  a consequence of grace alone.

I choose the responsibility of exploring love and still remain to be convinced of any other risk bigger than loving.

I ask even less than Camus: straightforwardness. Be responsible for coming when you come into someone’s life. Once or again and again.

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I had a dream last night where a very old man and a very old woman wanted me to dream a particular dream so I could find a note that said, “desire is destiny.”

Something to explore…

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