Second Chance

Category: notable posts

  • My Old Man II


    the drive along sagtikos parkway
    to sunken meadow
    learning to swim

    the way the light filtered through the trees
    that flickering sunlight through the leaves
    and we were going to the beach

    I still get that feeling from time to time,
    that time of the morning
    that time of the year
    when the light is just right
    and it hits your eyes a certain way.
    and you feel something different, something new.

    the long way this time, because
    sunken meadow was further away than
    jones beach
    but for some reason, we chose to go this way today.

    and we got there and played in the sand
    and splashed in the water
    and the old man swam lengths between the
    lifeguard’s flags

    mom would swim too, for a while
    and then she sat in a beach chair under an umbrella
    looking beautiful, and admiring her husband no doubt
    and feeling feelings only mothers know while watching her children play
    and our whole family there, it was something, I’ll tell you.

    and after a while he came in to us
    he lowered himself into the warm
    calm, shallow water of the sound
    we were standing waist deep
    on coarse, wet sand, rocks and seashells
    pretty clear today.

    and he crawled up to us, only his head above water
    and it was like he was one of us.
    and he told me to climb onto his back.
    I climbed up onto his back,
    all rough and coarse
    like an old sea turtle

    and it was warm, August, I guess
    and the Sound was salty that time of year,
    more bouyant
    and he began to swim out,
    the breast stroke
    and I rode his back like riding an old dragon.

    and he told me to do what he was doing,
    I did.
    and slowly, he began to lower himself into the water,
    and the next thing you know, I was doing the breast stroke out there in Long Island Sound.

    at least that’s the way I remember it.

    1733869556

  • my old man

    On the occasion of what would have been his 101st birthday, I took it into my mind to record a few thoughts about the old man.

    Well, my first memories of the old man are kind of inchoate. Kind of a mumbled baritone voice, coming from downstairs, I guess. Mrhmmhmm.

    Then a thumping up the stairs, and he was come to put us to bed.

    He would read to us, and when I say “us”, I mean Jim and me. We called him “Jamie” back then, the way Nannie liked to do. That was the way in the old country, but anyway.

    So dad smelled like cigarettes and coffee and maybe whiskey too. And by that time of night he had a scratchy old beard and when he kissed us good night, it kind of hurt, but I knew he loved us, in his tangled up old brain.

    In the beginning, mostly I was afraid of him. Because I knew he could get mad, and when he was mad, there was nothing that could be done about it. Anything could happen. I didn’t know what alcohol even was back then, I just knew that sometimes pop could blow his top.

    But I also knew, or knew without really thinking about it, that he always had us. He would always be there, and pay the bills to the best of his ability, and whatever else he was, he wasn’t weak, and he wasn’t a quitter, and this was the way it was, and this was the way it always would be.

    I have a lot of memories from these days, maybe before school, and before you get to compare notes with all the other kids, and compare, and later, try to figure things out.

    Dad had dreams. He had a lot of ideas, and a lot of dreams. He had imagination, and liked to save up so we could go on summer vacations to places like Lake Winnepesaukee in New Hampshire. We did that a couple of times. I can still smell the pine needles, and the woods after a rain. It was like a dream. But then these other pictures would crop up, like they always do. We’re in a restaurant, and he gets bellicose and is making a scene with the waiter. I’m aware of everyone around us glaring. So it’s always like that. He took us out to a restaurant. That’s a good husband and father. But he gets bent and some kind of monster shows up.

    Back then, I didn’t know what it was, that it should or even could be different. This was the world and this was the way it always was, and this was the way it always would be.

    Now I see things differently, and I’m a little more inclined to give the man more of a break, but really he didn’t have to be that way. Deep down, he was really cruel.

    I’m not speaking about myself so much, he didn’t really get to me. The damage he did to me is more on the inside, or maybe I should say “was” I think I’m pretty much over it now, but whatever.

    The people who really took the brunt of it, as far as I could see, were Mom, and John. John was a real sucker for the old man’s punches. And hoo-boy he didn’t pull any. So here we are in this idyllic setting by the lake in New Hampshire, nothing but crickets and lapping lake waves. We’re playing a game of cards. Old maid. John winds up losing one way or another. Dad taunts him relentlessly, “old maid! old maid! Johnny is the old maid!” And John yells and cries and the old man just laughs at him.

    I imagine he must have done stuff like that with his sisters when they were all young, and he figured, that’s just the way you relate to people. It’s funny how sometimes people can be so smart and so dumb at the same time.

    But of course, John was part of the equation too. Looking back on it, of course now we say we embrace our differences, but even if we do now, God knows we didn’t back then. I can think of any number of examples, we’d come home from visiting the cousins in exotic places like Levittown or Farmingdale, and we’d get out of the car, but guess what? The old man lost the keys. We’ll have to sleep out on the lawn all night. Har, har. But who goes bawling and moaning? My big brother John. I must have been not more than 6, and even I wasn’t falling for that crap. But John was a sucker.

    I remember Dad used to get his kicks by pulling tricks like this: ask one of the kids to go down to the basement to fetch something. Then when they’re down there, quick shut off the light, which you know they’re too small to reach, then slam the door. I have a distinct memory of watching this from the outside, this grown man leaning against the door with all his might, and his kid on the other side, screaming, “let me out! let me out!”

    I remember thinking even then, that’s disturbing.

    Dad had dreams and he had ideas. He had a job and a beautiful wife and a house and a family. But you know what he didn’t have? Friends. The man may have had the opportunity to make friends at one time or another, but sooner or later everyone would figure it out, and say that’s enough of that mess.

    Looking back on it, its kind of sad. You know, not as sad as some other stories you’re going to hear, but pretty sad. He had all these talents and ideas, but he didn’t know how to connect up with human beings. Or he would connect for a while, or up to a certain level, but eventually he would go over the top.

    I’m tempted to go into all the tales about his outrageous behavior, his charms and his own story. But to me, it’s mostly hearsay mixed with vague memories of childhood in New York in the sixties and seventies. We were all in the middle of an interesting time and place. There’s a lot of angles to it.

    So I’m trying to find the measure of the man, and here’s a picture for you:

    I was six.

    And it was time to take the big trip into the city, just me and him, man to man. It was special, and rare. Too rare. And my memories are all jumbled up. We took the train, and we went to the Statue of Liberty, and we climbed up as far as we could, to the crown, because the arm was closed. But that was quite a climb and quite an adventure. And it was good. I’m not sure, but I think Nanny was there, and the climb was too much for her. I later found pictures of my Dad with his mother at the statue of liberty. He wasn’t too much older in those photos than I was now,

    Later on, he takes me back to the precinct house, and there’s the lockup. And he tells me to go in, and once I’m in, he locks it up. Har, har. The way I remember it, I wasn’t upset. I knew his tricks, I just looked at him, like “what is wrong with you, man?”

    But later that night we were down in the lower east side, maybe little Italy, I guess. [I am told it was midtown.] And we’re at this little Italian restaurant, where my old man is royalty. They love him there. I think it was called Jerry’s, as in Jerry’s spaghetti, one of the old man’s favorite dishes. I don’t know. I’m pretty sure we had spaghetti, though. And after dinner the old Italian man takes us out back, and the way I remember it he hoists me up on his shoulder. And the moon is big in the sky, and he points at this tall building, it’s 1962, and we are in the shadow of this futuristic skyscraper. And he says in his broken English, “you see-a dat? you see-a dat? That is the United Nations! That is the future! Isn’t it beautiful?” [It was actually the Empire State Building.]

    And you know what, it was beautiful, and it was hopeful, and whatever else, it was a moment I won’t ever forget.

    And I want to thank the old man for that and for a hundred other things besides.

    And I have a lot more to say, but they’re mostly the bitter memories that stick. So I’m going to stop here, and I’m going to lay down my sword now, because there’s a lot of water under that bridge, and a lot of other stuff too, and I see it all, and if he was here, all that aside, I would still just want him to see the man I became, for better or worse, and I would still want him to be proud of me.

    God bless him, my old man.

  • Is Saul Among the Prophets?

    Is Saul among the prophets?” This is a supposed adage or snippet of a popular verse that occurs twice in 1 Samuel. First when Saul is anointed king, “God gave him another heart.” And among other things, he fell to the ground, raving and acting like mad.
    And again in 1 Samuel 19:24, wherein the people remark ironically on their king who, when the spirit of God came upon him, behaved oddly. Apparently, this happened often, and the people were surprised and astonished to find their king tearing his clothes, and speaking in tongues.
    There is so much on which to ponder in this passage. First, to see a roving band of mad prophets was not in itself that odd. They went around begging, and the people tolerated them, sustained them, and either listened to or ignored their ravings, as seemed fitting. What was odd in this case was to see their king among them. So on the face of it, “Is Saul among the prophets” probably just means “has the king gone crazy again?”
    (more…)

  • Alan Watts Blues

    Today is the seventh of July, 2011.
    Last night I got to a point where I was pretty miserable and feeling sorry for myself, and thought “I’m going to call in sick today.” I even pecked out a message on my blackberry from the dark side of the moon:
    “I feel the need to tell you that today would have been Anita’s and my 27th wedding anniversary. Sick doesn’t even begin to describe the way I feel.”
    Today would have been our anniversary. But its not, because the truth is we’re not even married any more. We both took the oath: “’til death do us part.” Even then, far in the back of my mind, I kind of knew or feared this day would come, who knew when?
    But the idea of a thing and the thing itself are not the same. (more…)

  • the big blue loop

    I’ve been struggling to write this post for a while. I have been tangled up in these powerful emotions and I’m by no means free, but there’s subjects I want to talk about other than the one that preoccupies most of my nights and days lately.
    The thought that has been rattling around in my head is that I have the strange sense that I’ve detected that life has the qualities of a loop. Or not a perfect reiteration of events, but maybe more like a spiral, with both the qualities of a loop and an arrow. Like a screw. Yeah, life will screw you, won’t it? Like James Brown said, “Money won’t change you, but time will take you on.” Uh, huh.
    This notion has grabbed a hold of me, and won’t let me go. Its related to this other idea that the concept of free will versus determinism is a false dichotomy, and that reality exhibits characteristics of both.
    But today I want to focus on this concept of cycles. They say that history repeats itself, and that there’s nothing new under the sun. For me, that seems to be true at a more personal level. Like I said, you are who you are, and it is what it is. And maybe people change, but only slowly, and not really that much.
    So our experience of life is filtered by our perceptions and responses, and so on. But what I’m talking about is coming at a different level. Like seeing something out of the corner of your eye that doesn’t look right somehow. Like when you’re not looking, the tables and chairs get up and dance around. And you turn your head quick, and boom. They’re back where they were, I think. Or like these ideas I’ve had, I’ve written about elsewhere, that seem so real, I called them “future memories.” How when Anita was sick the first time, I used to tell her how we would grow old together and we’d go certain places, and do certain things, sometimes rather ordinary things, but I could describe those scenes so vividly, it was like I was actually seeing them, or recalling them, in a way like maybe recalling a dream you had. And over our nearly thirty years together, by God, one by one, those things actually came to pass, pretty much as I had “seen” them or dreamt them. And not one went undone, that I can recall, although some did surprise me.
    And now I’m sitting in my back yard by the pool, at a table in the shade, drinking a beer, idly plucking my guitar. And I’m reminded of my little apartment on Emily Road, during another really hot summer back there in 1980. We were all young and from somewhere else, and working in the big boom town, and my neighbors and I formed a little group, guys and girls, all single and mostly in our twenties, and we’d hang out down by the pool in the shade after work, drink beer and swap stories, and sometimes play guitars and sing. And to me, that whole scene could have been yesterday, or this morning. Memory is funny that way, the associations literally are adjacent in my memory banks, and not at all separated by nearly half a lifetime.
    There’s other examples, with friends and acquaintances how when you get to this phase of life, everything reminds you of something else, and everyone reminds you of someone you used to know, and damned if your relationship with this new person doesn’t follow the same arc as with that other person you knew thirty, forty, fifty years previously. And how could it not, for all the differences, and changes time brings on, you are the still the same person you were then, and this new person is just another incarnation, avatar, manifestation of the same archetype as that other one you’re reminded of.
    And then my thoughts, and my own words form a loop, and like Pam said one time, some people have like this little tape that plays over and over again, and all you have to do is punch their button, pull their string, and blattibloop, out it comes.
    So not only does everything remind you of something else, everyone reminds you of someone else, and you wind up saying the same things over and over, and every morning you forget that you’ve been having the same dreams over and over again your whole life long, and it’s just like that tape that’s playing in your head, like a big blue loop, that doesn’t ever change. and it looks like we’re moving, but we’re really standing still.

  • I'm Just Saying…

    Let me tell you of my dream.
    I dreamt that I was in contemplation of the vast mystery of the cosmos. And it was like pondering the clouds in the sky.
    And from one of the clouds emerged the hand of God and He began to write across the heavens in an angelic script.
    And the clouds were suffused with transcendental light and the writing glowed with color like gold, but with an immanence that was beyond words.
    And I was astonished that I could read the writing, and as I read, I began to laugh. I laughed heartily and I could not stop, because what God had written was:
    “I’m just saying…”
    And all at once, I understood why He had created mankind.

  • Dharmaputra

    April 29, I think.
    It’s a beautiful day.
    It had been warm and humid, but a dry front came through and cooled off at night, all the way down to the 50’s and its coming up through 70 degrees maybe, its nice, and bright and sunny.
    I felt this morning like the beautiful weather was a slap in the face put up against my mood.
    Anita has been gone two weeks now. Lizzy went back to school to collect her things. She should be back home on Sunday. Monica spent the night at her house.
    So it was the first night I spent rattling around in that big old house all by myself, and let me tell you it weren’t a pretty sight.
    For the most part I was ok. I did a little gardening, and took a dip in the pool, and sat out there and talked to her, … it wasn’t so bad.
    But I had some episodes of bawling and moaning. I really let myself go, and, there was noone around.
    Then I pulled up some old pictures, of Anita’s 50th. Actually Carol Fischbeck called and reminded me of that.
    And I went through that and then pulled out my old journal from around that time, and oh boy, that was hard.
    And I thought about that as an example of our life together.
    And I was glad that I did that. You know I pulled out all the stops for her 50th birthday. You know I blew a lot of money on that thing, the lake house, and the massage ladies, and even flying her best friends in, and the big party, and all that. But I was happy to do it. I was proud to do it.
    And at the time, I had no idea that we’d have so little time left. But we did cherish the time we did have, because as I said then, there were days when we feared we might not even see 50.
    So all this is well, I won’t say “not unexpected.”
    Ha, what is that, a triple negative? But still, you’re never ready for it. You dont think, we didn’t think it would come this soon.
    And then at one point in the night I sorted out my feelings, literally. And that was a useful exercise.
    It came to me yesterday, driving into work, what to do there, and I cut up a piece of construction paper into probably 15 or 20 pieces, and I wrote down all the different ways I feel on each one, and I had no trouble using all of them.
    And so I layed them out on the desk, and I bounced back and forth between all these different feelings, I cycled through them in various orders and sequences, between anger and loss and emptiness and numbness and even a little relief, that its over with. and I forced myself to say, “yes. this is the anger. and this is the loneliness.” and its important to know the difference. and one of the feelings I wrote down was righteousness, I am confident I did everything I could for the woman, and I did my duty. I was happy to do it. I was honored to be able to do it.
    But now all that’s in the past.
    I’m lonely, and anxious about the future.
    It’s like a page in my life has turned.
    You know when you’re young you have no idea what life has in store for you.
    But normally you think you have time, and you’re going through the process, … I don’t know … speaking for myself, I didn’t think too much, I was just living my life, just trying to survive and to have a life.
    But then Anita and I found each other, and we built a life, and it was a good life. You know making a family, and building a nest, and everything revolving around the kids, and the community and the neighborhood, and that whole thing, that whole lifestyle, it was really good. I mean storybook good.
    And now that’s all over.
    Well, you know it’s kind of like people talk about a mid-life crisis, it’s kind of a normal passage, but even then you have a life companion to go through it with. The kids grow and move out, and you have this empty nest and all, but you still have the love of your youth, the person who was there through it all, there next to you.
    But now I have to look at life on my own, and what’s in front of me?
    I’ve talked this over with the kids and a few other people, and maybe there’s something good in front of me, but you know it’s like I’m going to have to make some changes, and its going to take some energy. Energy that I certainly don’t have right now, but maybe it’ll come.
    The stabbing pang of grief should subside eventually and then I’ll move on to another phase. And I guess it could be worse, I’ve got some things working for me and you know you go through this whole process. I’ve got my health, I still feel like I’m productive, I still have some creative years ahead of me, and I still have dreams.
    I’ll tell you one thing; I don’t want to spend the rest of my life alone. But I think it’s right and its ok to want to be alone, and it comes naturally to me, like Carol said, to “go solo” for a while.
    I think about people out there who never had this life that I’m mourning, never experienced that kind of love. I won’t lie to you, a devotion and an intimacy that only comes from sharing life threatening experiences together, and then sharing other life transforming experiences, a love life so fantastic it was transcendental, and then creating a family, together, to be part of this cosmic eternal dance to add another leaf to the tree. For those who’ve never gone through all that process, and now, what is there to hang on to?
    Well, this is just awful.
    Oh yeah, I got an email from Barb too, and it’s kind of nice to know people are thinking of you. And it helps at some level to know there’s nothing unique about any of this. Every single one of us will share the same fate and every one of us has some experience with grief and loss, of a parent, a sibling, a child, a spouse.
    And well, Anita was young, and though we were sensitized to the possibility that she might not have a full life expectancy, it still feels like we were robbed of something.
    You really can’t grade them; you can’t compare different forms of grief. And losing a child is just so wrong… so unjust and disturbing. But the intimacy of that relationship is comparable I guess in a way to losing a spouse before her time.
    Another part of me is infantile about it though and says no, this is special and unique. This is different. It’s not, but it is my time, it’s my turn. It’s happening now. It’s happening to me. It’s happening to me now. So in that way, it is different.
    And another part of me feels like its assuming a role of some kind.
    I tell you, I read this version of the Mahabharata years ago and it just resonated with me.
    I’ve thought about this one main character, Yudhisthira, a lot over the years.
    He was a king, but flawed. He lost his kingdom gambling, if you can believe that. To his cousin Duryodhana, who tricked him into it and then cheated. He was a bad guy. But what king puts his kingdom up at stake in a game of dice? Yudhisthira had been tricked, but he was a compulsive gambler. And it was a hard lesson, but he honored his debt and gave up his kingdom.
    The Hindu perspective is different, but similar to the classical perspective I think, like the assignment of different attributes to different deities and the claiming of descent from one or another of these deities, either transferring or personifying that attribute in an individual.
    So Yudhisthira was called “Dharmaputra,” being the mystical son of Yama, the god of death, also called Lord Dharma.
    And “Dharma” is a Sanskrit word that we don’t have a cognate for in English. It’s kind of deep and mystical, meaning destiny or duty or character, and also righteousness.
    These concepts are all tangled up together, and so your fate — we each have our fate assigned to us, and it is our duty to live the life we’ve been given and always to do the right thing, the right thing meaning you’re following your destiny, being true to yourself, no matter the cost, no matter the difficulty.
    It’s not about free will vs. determinism, it’s just the way it is. You are who you are, and it is what it is, and it’s bigger than any of us, and it’s awesome and beautiful. Don’t fight the wave.
    And there’s so many anecdotes that reinforced that message, that kind of resonated with me in terms of my relationship with Anita: It was our fate to meet just when we did. And it was her fate to get ill. And it was my choice and my duty and my destiny and a defining aspect of my character to be the one to take care of her.
    And I thank God for the opportunity and the privilege to be able to do that, to become the man she needed. And I am grateful, and I tell you the rewards were sweet, and the honor was mine, is mine. And its not for us to understand the whys and wherefores of the thing, but even if it were, I wouldn’t change a God-damned bit of it, except to have her with me for one more day, and one more day after that, and for us to ride off into the sunset together, in love forever and ever, Amen.

  • Creepus Jersiam in Hamptonia est

    Here’s something to think about.
    There are resort hotels on the beach near Montauk, on Long Island, just east of Hither Hills State Park, where camping reservations need to be made a year in advance. You can book rooms at some of these resorts in Montauk about six months in advance if you want oceanfront, but it will cost you more than $300 per night. that’s more than a luxury hotel on Central Park South in Manhattan.
    The strange thing is except for Fire Island, with a few little towns accessible only by ferry, and segregated by income and sexual orientation, you have to travel seventy miles west before you find another beachfront hotel, and that is in Long Beach, not too swift. then you have some swamps, JFK airport and then pretty much the next stop is Coney Island.
    All of those miles of beautiful beachfront have been carved out for private homes and the occasional town beach, excluding all nonresidents with just a few exceptions (Jones Beach, Robert Moses State Park and Smith Point Park), and the remainder, including large chunks of Fire Island National Seashore, has been transferred into private hands under circumstances that are murky to say the least. A local journalist tried to look into it once — tracing the details of title transfers of oceanfront property from public to private hands, back in the 70’s. He quit after receiving death threats to his family. True story.
    The most peculiar thing about this observation is that it is so obvious, and yet so obscure to the two or three million people living on Long Island, not to mention the millions more living in New York City. Of course its no accident that they are kept out of so much of what should by all rights be more accessible. But the folks who own it now, as well as the folks they’re trying so desperately to keep out, are all living in a bubble.
    Its odd how complete the encapsulation is for most “wrong islanders” being as they are extraordinarily proud of the beaches from which they are for the most part excluded. Its a strangely linear existence marked mainly by your exit from the L.I.E. or your stop on the L.I.R.R. all the way out to the end of the line, your measure of success is how far you have gone, like degrees on a thermometer, you’re either hot or you’re not.
    But for the millions of folks who know they’ll never be able to afford to live out past exit 72, on the beach, where for the hundreds of years previously when more sensible folk would never think of living — its kind of like the Californians who live on the fault line — living in their own bubble.
    Its remarkable in a way how little is know about this strange enclave, how perfectly self-contained it is, and given its proximity to New York City and the generally high achievement level of the people living there that literally nothing has been written about it, at least nothing significant since F. Scott Fitzgerald I guess, nor anything of the fact that the rest of the universe likes it just that way — keep Long Islanders barely contained, like so many Africanized bees.
    Yet Long Islanders in general look with disdain on everybody else, too, and their resort areas — wouldn’t consider a summer vacation to the mountains — “where’s the beach?” and if they have a beach “where’s the surf?” and likewise wouldn’t consider traveling to any other beaches than “their own” (which of course, or rather ironically, they’re not really). New Jersey beaches? Please. Cape Cod? too cold, and anyway the people are stuffy, never mind that they hate New Yorkers, with all the limited passion they can muster. all those pushy Jews, smelly, hairy Italians, or drunk Irish, and they’re all too loud and just take over a place when they come in, so don’t make them welcome, don’t feed them, or like stray dogs, they might just stay. its a kind of prejudice, just short of that reserved for blacks, but don’t worry, Long Islanders have plenty of that animus of their own. they all hate each other just as much as everyone else hates them. Long Islanders from exit 62 look down with pity on those from Queens, just as they are in turn looked down upon by those further out.
    Let’s just skip over Virginia Beach, and people literally look at you blankly when you inform them that yes, Delaware and Maryland do in fact have nice sandy Atlantic beaches. Forget the Carolinas and Georgia, all that Deep Fried South stuff. more of that mutual antagonism and the southerners are just as happy to be overlooked. next stop, south Florida, there’s an exception. and if you go there, its like a Long Islander’s dream. that’s why there’s so many retirees living down there, at least from the previous generation, because it seemed reasonable, but not so much anymore, and with the combination of rising prices in Florida and reduced opportunities in New York you have an equation that makes it tougher for folks from my “not the greatest generation” to make the transition.
    But like so many parts of the country these days, most of the island is little more than a worthless succession of strip malls separated from one another by fig leaves of tree stands, here a decrepit old school building, there a tract of a thousand decaying split level homes built in the fifties or sixties, there so many McMansions popping up in the sand dunes like mushrooms after a rain. its all the same, merely a matter of degree.
    But here, let me say that Long Islanders are strong, capable, and hyper energetic, even aggressive people, despised by practically everyone who knows them as something as desirable as fire ants, but who live more or less contentedly inside their own little world which encompasses New York City and the boroughs, except Staten Island, which is for some reason beneath contempt, sort of like New Jersey, of which it is really a part, geographically speaking at least (look at a map). the Bronx, which is a kind of no-man’s land, don’t ever go there, ever. for any reason, except maybe a Yankees game. or Brooklyn, from which most of our parents escaped, or Queens from which our cousins and peers may still be trying to escape, and into which the current flood of immigrants pour, just like our grandparents did, only now not from Italy, Ireland and Germany, but from Korea, the Phillipines, Russia, and Latin America.
    And these odd little carbuncles of the Hamptons lie out here, with their Sotheby’s realtors and their queer chi-chi clothing shops and tons of traffic you don’t even want to think about on the weekends, all wealthy New Yorkers, or as my brother John once quipped “Creepus Jersiam in Hamptonia est,” paraphrasing Dad’s oft mumbled complaint of “Jersey creeps” (think mobsters) via Caesar’s Latin which pretty much sums it up in a nutshell, when you think about it, especially if you knew my brother and my Dad.
    But the Hamptons don’t want you, either, whoever the fuck you are, and just wish you would go away, and everyone is thinking ‘we came out here to get away from all this crap, and all you low-life creeps, but we forgot to put up a fence so here you are’ but what they usually don’t realize is that everyone they’re looking at is thinking exactly the same thing about them.

  • the unit of time

    The unit of time we call seconds relate, I believe, to the beat of a man’s heart when at rest.
    Minutes and hours are constructed in a way that relates seconds to days using a numerlogical system based on the number 360, the approximate number of days in a year.
    The numbers 12 and 360 were sacred to the ancient mesopotamians, as were the shapes circle, square and triangle. This mystical numerology and geometry crops up often in ancient religion and science, from the Pythagoreans to the Mayans. These numbers are special because they relate the number of lunar cycles in a year (about 12) to the number of diurnal cycles in a year (about 360). They also allow a circle (representing either the heavens or the earth) to be divided into symmetrical units we now know as degrees, minutes and seconds. The square represents the cardinal directions, and the triangle generally represents relationships, such as that between heaven, earth, and man.
    Originally, there were 12 hours in a “day”, defined as the duration between sunrise and sunset. Think of a sundial, rather than a mechanical clock. So such “hours” relate to days as months relate to years. The arc of the sundial would be divided into 12 equal segments, although the duration of each “hour” would vary in absolute terms by the time of year, depending on how far from the equator the observer was.
    The brilliant men of the ancient Levant, encompassing a fertile crescent-shaped region from Lebanon, through Turkey, Kurdistan and Iraq, of the Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian civilizations happened to be living relatively near the equator, and so this seasonal effect would be negligible within the limits of their ability to measure.
    Other brilliant men living in other parts of the world in other times, such as the Chinese and the Mayans appear to have independently developed some sophisticated systems of time measurement with comparable predictive ability, but it was the system of the Mesopotamians that formed the basis of our modern calendar and time system, which is now accepted without reservation throughout the world. If only we could establish such accord in other realms, such as language, religion, and dvd formats.
    So.
    The partitioning of time into years is in relation to earth’s revolution around the sun;
    Into months, the moon’s revolution around the earth;
    Into days, the earth’s rotation on its own axis.
    But weeks?
    The ancient Babylonians marked time primarily by the lunar calendar, and divided the roughly 28 day lunar cycle into four quarters, basically by the quarter phases of the moon, with various rituals associated with the respective days of each phase. Eventually, this seven day cycle lost its connection to the lunar calendar, but certain rituals remained associated with the seven day cycle.
    Centuries later, the Greeks followed this model, naming the days for the sun, the moon and the five known planets, themselves named for the gods Hermes, Aphrodite, Ares, Zeus and Cronus. The Romans followed the greeks, substituting gods from the their own pantheon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. The germanic tribes, influenced by roman civilization, substituted gods from their own pantheon for the romans: Tiu, Woden, Thor, Freya. Thus in English we have Sun’s day, Moon’s day, Tiu’s day, Woden’s day, Thor’s day, Freya’s day, and only Saturn’s day remains from the Roman pantheon in the English names for days.
    The Judaic calendar probably derives, either directly or indirectly from the Babylonian, substituting traditional Jewish rituals associated with the Genesis story of creation, and Judaic numerology, in which the number seven was considered sacred, for on the seventh day, God rested.
    The seventh day is called the ‘sabbat’ meaning to stop, to pause in one’s work (rendered in English ‘sabbath’). We are taught to stop for a reason. To reflect, and ponder God’s work. To rest from our own work, and to give thanks. Something for all of us moderns to consider. Rest and contemplate and honor the sabbath. It is a commandment from your Lord.
    The division of time into weeks is thus unique, and different from all other conventional time divisions we use.
    According to the Mosaic law, there is in addition to a sabbath day, a sabbath year. In the ancient tradition, fields were to go fallow for a year, anyone could eat the fruit that grew untended, slaves were to be set free, and all debts and grudges were to be forgiven.
    One was to have been fortunate and prudent enough to allow for this, or one might rely on the support of one’s family and community otherwise.
    For some of us lucky moderns, the sabbath year lives on in the so-called ‘sabbatical.’ I think there is a lot of wisdom in this. If you can’t take a whole year off, at least pull back a little bit, reflect, contemplate the mystery of the cosmos, be grateful and honor those around you, your friends, family and even your servants. And take care to forgive any grudges you may be holding. You will be glad you did.
    On the seventh cycle of sabbath years, in other words, every fifty years, there was the Jubilee. It is named for the Jubal horn, the special ram’s horn, which was blown in celebration. In contrast to the sabbath, which occurred on different cycles for different individuals, the Jubilee is like a sabbath year observed by the whole community. In Jubilee years, God-fearing elders would compete with each other in acts of generosity, showing their gratitude for God’s benevolence by freeing all their slaves, and forgiving all debts, and sharing all their possessions with one another.
    Something to think about.

  • "il miglior condimento e l'apetito."

    010930
    Lake Travis, Texas
    Maybe that which we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly. Or rather “il miglior condimento e l’apetito.”
    In any case, yesterday was another one for the books. Our little boat, neglected for so long, came through for us once more.
    Late in the season, when the weather moderates a little, many of the summer boaters are already putting their rigs up for the winter, but for us, that body of water held up from flooding the towns and farms downstream on the “little Colorado” river, by dams built in the late forties and early fifties of the last century, named for a hero of the Texas war for independence, and commander of the doomed garrison of the Alamo, Col. William B. Travis, our refuge and oasis, Lake Travis welcomed us once again, as it has so many times before.
    It is one of those ironies of life that if it were not for a serious misfortune, we would never have been able to afford her.
    Back in 1984, we had just moved down from Dallas where Anita and I had met. The long paths that led us there must remain the subject of future excursions into our peculiar histories.
    But for me, it was a “coming back” to Austin. Compared to Dallas, Austin seemed so much more accomodating — looking back who knows what other paths might have uncovered — but days like yesterday, on the one hand glorious, perfect in so many ways, on the other hand only emphasize the brevity of life. To think of all the other possibilities, the other paths not taken, is to miss the point.
    Julian of Norwich said, “history is nothing more than a pattern of individual moments, each perfect and infinite in itself.”
    It is in the pondering of such moments that all insight comes. I stood in one — knee deep in flood waters, the rain falling on my head — and in another I first launched this little rig into the waters of the Colorado — and many years have passed between those moments until now — but the distance is meaningless — no, less than meaningless — it doesn’t even exist, except perhaps in our own minds.
    The physicists have an explanation for it, the mathematicians formulae and theorems. The theologians have riddles, but lovers have the best and truest explanation of all.
    To them I dedicate these pages. One of their number, I know what they know, what Julian knew, what an infant knows in her mother’s gaze — the fools may prattle about us, but we pay them no mind, as the sun sparkles on the water in moire patterns — shifting and hypnotic — the birds cry, the wind blows, and to us — it is all the same.
    Ponder one of these pearls with me, as the pleasant afternoon sun filtered through the canvas shade over a hardwood deck halfway up one of these innumerable limestone cliffs dotted with junipers, live oaks, rocks. The air filled with the hiss of chirping crickets, normally quiet this time of day, but now that it is cooling off, their song has a poignancy — how much time left? how much time left? how much time left?
    But they don’t know that time is an illusion — they don’t know what I know, as my sandals slap on the deck and I approach my wife from behind — she doesn’t hear me yet, approaching her — this neck I know so well, this hair, this contented smile, obscured behind her sunglasses, looking out on the water, positively high, but not the wine — well, maybe a little, but the wine, as they say, is no more “il condimento” than “l’apetito” — the heart longs for this moment like salt for water, like gravity, understood without comprehension — and the boats play down below — so commonplace, but made otherworldly in this moment because they don’t know that they’re merely pieces of glass, turned in a child’s kaleidoscope, no more than candy for our eyes, and in this moment I can forget that the truth hurts, like anticoagulant on the needle in our veins, the needle that brings life to others, or blessed relief.
    In this moment I can forget that life is God’s challenge to us: “And what are you made of?” He seems to ask with every test, with every temptation, with every blessing.
    How is it we come to be here, somewhere up this lazy river, on the Sandy Creek arm, not a quarter mile from where we once camped in a breathless tent on a steamy July Fourth in 1983, I guess. Who knows? Who cares?
    And above us the sky is cloudless, but for a few wisps, down below is our little honeymoon boat, nameless, trusty, quaint, humble, adequate — and she doesn’t look the part of Gateway to Paradise, but looks can be deceiving.
    There was a groove in my step and you know my life had a soundtrack as my sandals slapped that deck and everything was perfect in that moment as I approached my wife from behind, and that was a groove as she turned to see me and she smiled and the blue water sparkled behind her and the green hills caressed the pale sky but I didn’t see them, because all I could see was the love in my baby’s eye and we kissed.
    And later we cruised out into the main body of the “lake” — just a wide river — but so much more to us — and our lives are like that river — so much water has passed under that bridge since we first floated out on an inflatable raft — the first S.S. Lowe, I dare say, so many memories, always mixed, always tinged, alloyed with the spirits of those no longer with us, and we ourselves are no longer the people we were in those moments — and the river is no longer the same river, but here it is and here we are, and the sun is going down now, fiery orange hiding behind a few wispy white clouds, and I’m getting bold enough to cut the engine out here as we have done so many times before, and the sailboats glide by us, each silently telling its own tale about lovers and families and lonely sailors, who all share this need to come back to the well, where we find renewal, better than any church, because, believe it my friend, God is here, and here He smiles on all lovers of the water, and as the faithful, ancient sun descends, the shadows lengthen on the fingers of the hills, and the big birds tickle the drafts that hold them up with their finger-like feathers, otherwise motionless, timeless, and this little boat carves out a space of air just for us two, as our thoughts fly back, ten, fifteen years when we were both younger and sitting together, right here, looking at the shadows stretch across these same hills, warming to this same now yellow, now orange, now red ball of a sun, farewell, old friend, see you tomorrow, God willing, but meanwhile, we have each other as companion. And once we floated out here when Anita was expecting, and now that person is a teenager, and once we did so again, and now that person is ten, and once we did so with my brothers, and we swam in the black water in the dark and watched the meteors shower, the sailboats grazed by us unlit, like ghosts in the night, and still we return, and still this faithful old girl conveys us and keeps us dry and carries us once more to port.
    And like old hands, we tie up to the familiar moorings, making her fast, and we’re exhausted from joy and pleasure and love, and God bless us, we’re lucky to be alive, and thank Him for another day on this earth, another pearl on this thread, and for each other.
    Drink deep sweetheart, this is what life is all about.

    “Chain Lightning” by Steely Dan