“Every time you stand up for an ideal, you send forth a tiny ripple of hope.” Bobby Kennedy
I find myself starting my stories on Sunday and I really don’t know why. After having put one of these up right before the weekend, my self-imposed pressure to publish takes a break. So, it’s funny, when I am really not thinking about it is when I seem to relax into the next one. I know one of the results of doing this turns out to be quite therapeutic. It means throughout the week, I can revisit and revise, based on how the week treats me.
Now, I could say this story began because of a photograph, but that wouldn’t really be true. Like many of you, finding moments of peace and internal harmony are increasingly scarce. I have been going out to the side of my place most every morning, right around sunrise. First, I get into my polar bear robe, brew some coffee, slip on my slippahs and head outside. Minutes after resting this ritual on top of the mini-stoop, Shelby invariably shows up and hops on to my lap.
A couple of days ago, I got up soon after sitting down. I went in to grab my phone, because I thought it might be a cool photograph. I came trundling back and sat down. On cue, Shelby returned to her lap perch. I had my dinosaur, emblazoned mug in my right hand, ready to sip. I took the phone in my left hand and flipped around the image, so the two of us could be in the picture. I started tapping the red dot, hoping to get at least one shot I could save.
The chosen photo sat on my computer screen for a few days. The image registered in my brain. I started thinking about what kind of words to accompany it and here we are. Suddenly, James Brown just started singing, “I Got The Feelin’ “ To me, feelings and thoughts are inseparable, each feeding the other in this endless, internal dance of life.
I can’t just let the James Brown reference go by. I saw him once at MSG a thousand years ago. I remember him continually dropping to one knee, getting another cape draped over him. The song was, “Please, Please, Please”. My musical, life soundtrack has meant the world to me. It has been like a syncopated thread, sewing my timeless worlds together into a coat of many colors, only visible from the inside.
Sitting out there, my mind and my heart come together, a marvelous singularity, being in the moment. Having the heart of a sweet, little being, so close to my own, births a wonderful kind of peace. Looking up at the nascent sun in the Kauai sky, draws me up into the universe, only for a moment and maybe another moment. Adding in a hot cup of black coffee, brings me back inside myself for a breath or two, until departing for the sky once again.
I don’t think it has ever been more important for us to find moments like that for ourselves. I am not being melodramatic either. I am spend so much time under the weight of the birthing beast called fascism, a spiritual, still born at best. In some ways, it’s like bearing witness to a country that no longer feels like my own.
Weak people are drawn to power, thinking it comes from without. My buddy, the Buddha, realized the truth is not in the mirror, but behind it. True power is inside each of us and it goes by the name of compassion, first for ourselves and then the other. This is not a noisy process either, it’s one of quiet confidence and humility, an understanding of how things are and our ephemeral existence in the midst of it all.
Life is so filled with contradictions. Shrinking under the endless sky can really get you in touch with how small you are and how transient your time here. The next moment, you are flying into the heavens, filled with all that is life. Back down here on earth, the trick is always about balance. No matter what goes on, the sky is looking down upon us, the silent witness to all that happens.
The morning moments of tranquility, me and Shelby and the sky and the coffee, are like bejeweled baggage, always available to be unpacked and re-embraced as the day progresses. Looking up into the heavens is like an emotional pit stop, refueling life’s essence just enough to stay in the race on this endless track of time.
Like I said, it’s only Sunday, with a week of words ahead. I am not going to rewrite this story, only adding to it, as the days events enter my blurb blender, coming out the other end as story, at least that’s the hope.
OK, it is not Sunday anymore, but that is all I have to say. For the rest of this piece, days and times don’t matter. I really thought a lot about this story, before starting it. I swear, I write these things as if thousands of people are waiting for my next word. It is not an ego thing either. It is about how important these stories are to me and how much it matters to leave you with a just a little more than you had before reading them. I couldn’t wrack my brain and probe my heart the way I do, without this wonderfully, delusional illusion.
We seem to be living in the middle of a children’s fairy tale, using words and phrases that are guaranteed to appeal to six year olds. What the fuck is the Golden Age of America? The sugar plum fairy is going to fly into our bedrooms at night and tap her wand on our foreheads, allowing us to wake into a perfect world and it is doesn’t even matter what it looks like. It is the concept that whets the appetite of so many unhappy people. Everything has a price tag on it and sticker shock is coming. Actually, it just arrived in the form of asinine tariffs. In the 30’s, they helped trigger the Great Depression, not the Greatness envisioned in today’ sloganeering.
Fairy tales are a beautiful fiction. Growing up in Queens, NYC in the fifties, education was drilled into the heads of all second, generation Jewish families. For better or worse, ever since Charlton Heston was rescued by the Pharaoh, floating down the Nile in a basket, education has been the key to the longevity of my minority. I grew up with a bunch of very smart kids, quick-draw experts with a slide rule at the ready. In general, intellect was an admired quality. Great contemporary orators like Adlai Stevenson and speech writers like Ted Sorenson were held in high regard. JFK’s impassioned speeches blew the doors off so many of us.
I always thought being smart was cool and I still do. These days, the pursuit of knowledge, especially science, is deemed to be in the way of the latest, political whim, denigrated to the shit heap of leftist propaganda. Darwin must be doing back flips in his grave. It was the evolution of our minds that put us on the top wrung of his ladder. The MAGA Mob reacts without thinking and nothing is more dangerous than thoughtlessness. When stupid rules, stupid rulers thrive. I am sorry for the disturbance, Charley. The top wrung is not a license to do whatever we want, rather it is an honor and a responsibility.
Speaking of stupid, how about its antithesis? I am not simply talking about smart, partially because I am not sure what that means. I am talking about the freedom to speak your mind and more importantly, to speak your heart. The first move on the fascist chess board is to curtail every single means of expression, unless it is in lock step with the poisoned, pill plans.
Neil Young recently voiced concern about being allowed back into the US after a brief overseas tour. He is an outspoken critic of the moronic monolith in Our House. He has dual citizenship here and in Canada. Oscar Arias, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient and former president of Costa Rica, is now not allowed in my country. His crime is criticizing this government. Freedom of speech is the essence of democracy and demonizing it is the work of the devil, one that lives in the darkness of a fractured soul.
Time to get back to the light, which is where we began. In the midst of all that is going on, the sky is still there, silently bearing witness to our travails. The clouds do their shape shifting ballet, whether we pay attention or not. Maybe that’s what it’s about, paying attention. Each morning, when I am out back, plopped on the stoop, I look up at the sky, its silent libretto singing only sounds I can hear. It is waiting patiently there for each of us to feel its forever song.
Look up, you’ll be amazed.
LISTEN TO IT HERE:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/admin/1292459/episodes/16913580-looking-up