April is the Cruelest Month

I breathe in the notion that poetry is essential to my life, to a good life, to the rhythm of things. But I haven’t read poetry in a long, long time. The contradiction, it is unsettling. There was a time when I read poetry every day, when silvery slick words poured thick into soft holes of heart and burst. These days are staccato and dissonant. The heart feels stippled like an orange past its ripe. I read it like Braille on the ATM machine. I don’t understand it, but feel hopeful that if I had to I could.

Searching for the Soul...

Searching for the soul of America….

There is an interview with Jacob Needleman in the December 2002 issue of The Sun, called Searching for the Soul of America, about his new book, The American Soul: Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Founders. I haven’t read the book and in fact I haven’t even finished reading the interview. I went to San Francisco State University in the 1980’s, and I took a general ed philosophy course from Needleman, intro to philosophy and religion or something of that ilk. He was an inspiring teacher – one of those rare academicians who wasn’t merely a subject matter expert but also has a natural talent for adult education. I still remember texts we read and bits of lectures, one particular on intrinsic will, even a decade hence.

I sit down at my computer and begin to write this in hopes of forcing my mental grammar and perhaps unsticking my stuckness. Now here is an example of what is happening – when I wrote the first paragraph, about not having finished reading the Needlemen interview, my friend Will’s voice echoes in my head saying, it’s the problem with the left, we don’t read anymore. We read what other people think about what other people think about what other people have written, but we don’t actually read and formulate our own opinion. And upon making the proclamation he asks me what I’ve read or what I’m reading lately and I tell him, Secrets of the Talking Jaguar, by Martin Prechtel, his own story of becoming a Mayan Shaman among other things. And it reminds me how long it’s been since I’ve been reading this book and how little time I’ve spent to finish it and how it’s moved from something that I’ve really enjoyed to another task on my to-do list. And it reminds me that I need to take what Will said and consider it more deeply, about how this lack of reading the actual texts cripples our ability to reflect, contemplate and integrate new ideas. And it reminds me that I need to call Will, who called nearly two weeks ago now and I’ve yet to touch base back with him and how awful this is given he’s been in poor health of late. And it reminds me that I’ve always wanted to read the Upanishads. And when I wrote how I’m trying to force my mental grammar and unstuck my stuckness a loop began running through my head, “Slaughterhouse Five, Slaughterhouse Five, Slaughterhouse Five… so it goes, so it goes, so it goes….” This is what it’s been like lately. This is how my mind has been working, or perhaps more aptly, not working.

I started reading the Needleman interview while I was on the Larkspur Ferry to San Francisco. The ferry first passes San Quentin State Penitentiary and later Alcatraz. San Quentin used to be a high security prison, notorious for its hardened criminals and stories of the horrors and atrocities that took place in this prison lead to reforms in the prison system in California. While San Quentin still has a high security wing and houses death row inmates, mostly the prison is what guards call a boy’s camp - low security, non-violent offenders, picking up trash on the hillsides. Alcatraz has a great deal of notoriety, maybe least of which is what it represented in terms of a change in the penal system in America. It was the first prison built for punishment as opposed to reform of criminals. Now one can debate whether or not the prison system, as it stands, reforms anyone, but when you look back at some of the founding principals of America, of what those Europeans were escaping, part of what they were escaping was the European justice system. The Founders, in their declarations of independence and in the Constitution were doing many things - among them was the creation of a penal system based on reform as opposed to punishment. Alcatraz was the first admission of failure to truly embrace and achieve that principle.

The Needleman interview, at least what I’ve read thus far, doesn’t talk about or address the American penal system. But reading the interview and pondering the soul of America and contemplating this rediscovery of the wisdom of the Founders – well, it strikes me that the landscape isn’t exactly an accident. I’ve often thought, on my way to work, traversing the Bay in the ferry, that I’m not suppose to allow these institutions to simply blend into the scenery and I’m not suppose to observe them passively…. Water, sea lion, island, bridge, San Quentin, Alcatraz… or maybe I am. Maybe both things are true, look at the parts distinctly, and also the mosaic they create and learn from both stories. I’m not sure. I just don’t want to grow too accustomed to them, like they’re facts. But they are facts. But they’re not. Both things are true, all at the same time.

At any rate… I was listening to one of my favorite radio programs the other evening, This American Life. I don’t actually listen to the radio. I go to the website (http://www.thislife.org) and listen to episodes - sometimes two or three each evening. I was listening to an April 2002 episode (#210) called Perfect Evidence. Act one, Hawks and Rabbits, was the story of three boys, Calvin, Larry and Omar, convicted of a crime they didn’t commit, tried as adults and sentenced to life in prison. After 15 years and the advent of DNA technology, they were able to get a lawyer to take up their case and were released. The biological evidence did not tie them to the crime. The main interviewee of the boys who became men in prison, was amazingly articulate, thoughtful and intelligent. I’m not saying that people in prison are generally not well-spoken or that they’re not intelligent. As one listens to the program, however, it’s hard not to consider that this man’s references and abilities were tendered and cultivated in the context of incarceration. The interviewer never draws attention to this, never pauses after a particularly brilliant observation or thought by the interviewee and just says, “wow.”

During the interview, the wrongly accused and incarcerated man, Omar, is telling the story of how he needed one of his fellow alleged accomplices, Calvin, to sign an affidavit attesting to the fact that he is not an “O secretor” re: his blood type. Calvin wouldn’t sign. The last time he signed something it was a confession, construed and written by police officers, and this landed him in prison for life. In order to move their appeal forward, his signature was required, and Calvin had developed a new policy not to sign anything. He noted, additionally, that he had found God, found religion, accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and personal savior – that he put his faith in God. “That ain’t the way the God I believe in works,” Omar said. “Your faith in God in good. But act on it. You can’t say you believe in no God and not believe in your own ability to think, reason and understand because he gave you a brain to do just that with.” I thought, “Wow. That’s beautiful.”

Later Omar talks about the Declaration of Independence, which he had read in prison. He says something like this: “When I read that document I was like, wow. How it actually incorporates talking about rebelling against an oppressive government. If the government becomes too oppressive, the power is actually in our hands… That’s why, when you talk to anyone that claims, especially those who speak about the American character and what we should do, you should aks them let me hears youse recite the Declaration of Independence.” And Omar recites, “We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” And you will come to find out that the average American don’t even know it.

In the Needleman interview he says, “In my book I suggest that the deepest purpose of the United States government is to provide conditions under which our society can flourish spiritually as well as materially.”

This is where I want to and all at once do not want to stop. Here’s the mosaic without the mud. But where’s the mud?

The mud is filling the trough that I dug out around the foundation, upon my contractor’s advice, to protect the house. Instead of providing drainage and protecting the foundation, it creates a moat for the water to gather and threatens the stability of things. The mud is filling the ditch Ed dug yesterday in the front yard, to reveal the pipes that have burst coincidental with these downpours that have rendered us without water for nearly a week now. So in the midst of storm front after storm front, winds felling trees and ripping shingles off the roof, hail battering our shelter and water filling the river to its bank, in the house we are dry and parched. For days now I have been contemplating the foundation and I just can’t lightly dismiss the metaphorical implications of all of this.

I don’t put these things together and think that I am a victim or that we’re all victims. To the contrary, I put these things together and I think, “Listen to this story. There are stories being told in our lives and in the landscape and we must listen to the stories.” And perhaps the most resonating words are those reflections from Omar, “Your faith in God is good. But act on it.” How these words arise out of injustices and the pursuit of justice, the landscape of this country, this land, this house – this is not a mistake. This is not merely a coincidence. That the very government of this place, America, might be built on a foundation aimed to inspire spiritual flourishing, that someone would write that and that I would read that while tooling past San Quentin after having just listened to Omar’s words. That is not a mistake. That my own foundation is threatened and how ill equipped I feel to address it, how little I know how to right it. That is not a coincidence.

I’m reading this book that I can’t seem to finish that talks about the Mayan way of life - about how houses aren’t built to endure but to be in a constant state of repair and how this reparation is an event that bonds and strengthens community – ties it together. And I think how the plumber who is suppose to help us fix this leak is my neighbor and how he failed to show up today or even to call despite the week wearing on and his commitment. And I think of how the contractor hasn’t returned my pages or calls for a simple reference for a roofer and how he mislead me around the problems with my foundation. And I think again that these things aren’t merely a coincidence, how these things are not a cosmic mistake – how instead they are telling a story. And this story is both beautiful and shameful – titillating yet difficult to look at.

I am not searching for the soul of America, I’m only searching for my own soul. I work for a non-profit – it’s about the big We. And my inability to work today is perhaps a mirror for how I’m stuck in the big I, how I can’t really find the mud or the glue that holds us all together even when it’s threatening to seep under my own doorway and over my own thresh hold. I see all the pieces, but I don’t see what’s holding them together and I don’t even see the connections between them with striking clarity. I don’t feel my faith in much of anything these days, making it incredibly difficult to act on it.

This really isn’t suppose elicit pity or a sense that this poor girl is stuck. And so here I pause and stretch and look around my cluttered study contemplating that this is not what was intended, this is not how things were supposed to be, and instead of finding my soul I find a stack of paper on the floor, a clutter of this and that, unopened and unpaid bills in little piles amid junk mail and flyers and I think that perhaps I can’t act on my faith, but I might act on clearing the clutter and maybe, in some small way, this will help – but I’m not sure how and I can’t help but think it’s just another distraction. The dog is nestled in pillows on the bed, curled into a cozy ball of warm fur and downy pillows. She’s snoring lightly and it makes me smile.

Salon

sa·lon (s-ln, sln, s-lô) n.

1) A large room, such as a drawing room, used for receiving and entertaining guests.

2) A periodic gathering of people of social or intellectual distinction.

3) A hall or gallery for the exhibition of works of art.

4) A commercial establishment offering a product or service related to fashion: a beauty salon.

[French, from Italian salone, augmentative of sala, hall, of Germanic origin.]

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.

Couldn't Bare To Be Special

Well, I did it. I pruned the hibiscus tree in preparation for winter. I’ve never pruned a hibiscus tree before. Hell, I’ve never owned a hibiscus tree before. I stood on a chair on the deck with a massive hedge clipper, a cigarette hanging from my lips and a big cup of coffee on the table, and I just started hacking away at the damn thing.

The neighbor, Kathleen, gave me morning greetings and reminds me that while she’s slow on the draw she’d like to replace our hedges with a fence. I’m all for the fence. When I see her I seek her advice on gardening. “I’m just hacking away at this thing, does that seem like the right thing to do?” She pauses and looks bewildered. “I suppose,” she replies with a decidedly skeptical tone in her voice.

The dog looks up at me from her safe haven beneath the table with a worried look as hibiscus stems fall from heaven. The sky is falling – or at least the tree.

I swept up the dried pale lavender lacy petals of the potato vine and cut the straw-like stalks of agapanthus from their leafy beds. I cut back the roses in hopes of one more fall bloom – refusing to embrace the end of the season. I attended to some of the mire I’ve been living in – neatening stacks of paper in hopes of discovering what’s inside and rearranging this and that in closets and the what-not. Putting things in order sometimes makes everything feel a bit more optimistic.

After dinner I took Secret to the ballpark to play fetch. Two men parked a pickup truck across the street and wandered onto a bench in the darkness not even twenty yards from me. They sat in the cool night air and got stoned while Secret mauled a purple Frisbee. They invited me to join them, which I declined graciously – opting for the clear night air, a clear head and watching the joy of her running and catching and happily bringing things back. As she chased a ball into the darkness I looked up to see a shooting star streak across the night sky and fizzle into a sparkling display of death. They say it’s good luck to see a shooting star, but I’ve never figured our who they are.

So we had an omen of good luck, but it didn’t help me out much at the bank when I went to see if I won between $10 and $10,000. Everyone wins $10. That’s what I got too. I was part of everyone. I just wanted to be the special one. But it wasn’t me. Not this time. Maybe it will be me tomorrow. I wonder what I’ll do to find out.

Couldn't Bare To Be Special

Well, I did it. I pruned the hibiscus tree in preparation for winter. I’ve never pruned a hibiscus tree before. Hell, I’ve never owned a hibiscus tree before. I stood on a chair on the deck with a massive hedge clipper, a cigarette hanging from my lips and a big cup of coffee on the table, and I just started hacking away at the damn thing.

The neighbor, Kathleen, gave me morning greetings and reminds me that while she’s slow on the draw she’d like to replace our hedges with a fence. I’m all for the fence. When I see her I seek her advice on gardening. “I’m just hacking away at this thing, does that seem like the right thing to do?” She pauses and looks bewildered. “I suppose,” she replies with a decidedly skeptical tone in her voice.

The dog looks up at me from her safe haven beneath the table with a worried look as hibiscus stems fall from heaven. The sky is falling – or at least the tree.

I swept up the dried pale lavender lacy petals of the potato vine and cut the straw-like stalks of agapanthus from their leafy beds. I cut back the roses in hopes of one more fall bloom – refusing to embrace the end of the season. I attended to some of the mire I’ve been living in – neatening stacks of paper in hopes of discovering what’s inside and rearranging this and that in closets and the what-not. Putting things in order sometimes makes everything feel a bit more optimistic.

After dinner I took Secret to the ballpark to play fetch. Two men parked a pickup truck across the street and wandered onto a bench in the darkness not even twenty yards from me. They sat in the cool night air and got stoned while Secret mauled a purple Frisbee. They invited me to join them, which I declined graciously – opting for the clear night air, a clear head and watching the joy of her running and catching and happily bringing things back. As she chased a ball into the darkness I looked up to see a shooting star streak across the night sky and fizzle into a sparkling display of death. They say it’s good luck to see a shooting star, but I’ve never figured our who they are.

So we had an omen of good luck, but it didn’t help me out much at the bank when I went to see if I won between $10 and $10,000. Everyone wins $10. That’s what I got too. I was part of everyone. I just wanted to be the special one. But it wasn’t me. Not this time. Maybe it will be me tomorrow. I wonder what I’ll do to find out.

Mean Food

“I don’t eat tofu,” I told her. “I think Tofu is Soylent Green.”

“Soil and green?” She asked.

“No. Soylent Green. S-O-Y-L-E-N-T.”

“It’s bean curd,” she says. “It’s a soy product.”

“No. No. Soylent Green. Like Soylent Green is people.”

She looked at me puzzled.

“Anyway,” I went on. “I don’t like tofu. And I don’t like sprouts either.”

“Yeah,” she said, “I don’t understand sprouts.”

“Spider legs,” I replied. “Sprouts are like eating spider legs.”

We both agreed green peppers were terrible. They corrupt everything.

The Reunion

The Reunion

Ed and I rose at the break of day and stumbled around the hotel room, gathering our manies and fumbling about as we bumped into one another and wiped sleep from our eyes. We took a taxi from the hotel to the airport and slumped wearily in uncomfortable vinyl chairs waiting for the boarding call. I slept heavy on the airplane on the way back to San Francisco while he dozed and read a bad airport novel – written for travelers who crave distraction without demand. Occasionally I’d wake up and look over his shoulder to read a paragraph or two, make a comment about the bad prose and resituate the pillow.

We’d been up until near 3 a.m. I’m not exactly sure why. The reunion came and went. I still don’t understand it but it’s a good thing to do once every twenty years or so I suppose. Good to remind. Good to remember. Good to go back and see what’s there.

A pre-reunion event was planned at a dive bar on Excelsior Boulevard – an informal no-host gathering. In truth it was the best part of the reunion because you could hear the person settling weight across from you and have some semblance of conversation. If it hadn’t been for that I wouldn’t have marked the time as worthwhile.

Entering Al’s bar I recognized no one and was overcome with a sense of foreboding. As I settled in, however, pearls of remembrance flittered by and it wasn’t long before I was hello-ing and what-have-you-been-doing people. It was empty chatter. I largely found myself bored before I even asked the questions. This was the problem – the context. People were in a mad rush to connect and move on – say their paragraph and drive to the next stop to say their paragraph again. I’ve never been inspired by stop and go schmooze. It doesn’t make it wrong. I’m not judging it. It’s simply not my thing. That’s okay.

Eventually two old high school friends arrived, bringing along a beautiful Texan girl as one of their companions. We sat, we talked, we bought each other rounds of this and that and something started to feel a little familiar – like color was entering the outlines. It was pleasant and far less contrived and the evening moved from a hair shy of unbearable into quite pleasing. This was good.

Reunion day approached and Ed and I collected our things and ambled over to the hotel with a collection of snacks for sustenance. We arrived later than we’d hoped and didn’t have time to avail ourselves of the pool or the hot tub. Instead we lounged in the room and watched a special on the attempt to salvage some wreckage from a Southern California breakwater region. Despite heroic efforts the salvage crew failed and left the fate of the disaster to nature’s devices in the end. We dressed with reluctance and eventually descended.

I was titillated, excited, to see old friends who were old friends, learn about lives and indulge in a feast of discovery and rediscovery. It didn’t really turn out this way. I actually had more substantive conversations with people I hadn’t known at all in the day and some of those who I was most anxious to see had few words and seemed readily distracted. One of the women looked at me rather passively and sighed, you just dropped off the face of the earth.

Yes. I did. Perhaps I thought we all did. But it was true. I did. It was taking more than just the weight of what we all had together to hold me to it. We were strikingly different creatures, moved and motivated by different things that weren’t apparent to us then for all our self-indulgence. But as the evening passed, at least among those women, I realized that my own self-indulgence was perhaps the mirror I was seeing. The weight had kept them together and grounded with one another. They had marriages, children and connected lives – they passed holiday cards among themselves and were genuinely involved with each other’s lives. In witnessing their ease, comfort and joy with one another I found myself looking on this with reverence and respect and a chapter of a book had written out its ending for me. I had to unclench a fist on that reality and admit that something real and enduring persevered out of it. A rather beautiful little epiphany unfolded and those women molded together to be an emblem of it. They closed a cold circle, but it’s the coolness that often lets the caste harden into shape. Not for a moment could I find myself begrudging that. To the contrary, it was a reflection of how we all chose to live out this story and it seemed impudent to resent fate in the face of beauty. I held to awe instead and let the pen fall.

I spent the evening largely with three of the boys turned to men over the years. For some reason men seem more willing to let life happen and remold even in the face of varied journeys without making it a betrayal. Maybe it’s simply more an expected and accepted gender norm. Ed inspired dancing and we waded through music and laughter. The rum and the whiskey loosened our spirits and our lives. We didn’t speak on the past, just the now. So we bounced around the evening with a casual disregard and this was good – an honest form of grace in the evening. Ed maneuvered his usual antics, stirring events to benefit the underdog and rise a little ire. He was a gem for the evening and we danced and we laughed and at some point late in the evening we fell into a short quiet sleep and it was over.

I’m left with a montage of stilted conversations – some of which it would have been interesting to carry through to some conclusion or another. Instead most will be left as things unfinished that were suppose to be in just that state of growth and decay. The evening was a little ribbon on the past – decorating something that’s perhaps more interesting when it’s left unopened as a perpetual surprise waiting to happen.