The summer usually feels like an endless death march through a hot arid desert devoid of any of the life-sustaining nourishment and hydration, the intellectual and emotional pap if you will, that is otherwise provided the remainder of the year by the vicarious thrills I experience living on the edge of disaster, celebrating victory and agonizing over defeat as I watch the slowly unfolding drama of my favorite teams’ seasons of football and basketball. A truly uncivilized time of the year when one is actually left with no other option than to venture outside into the brutal nuclear light, cutting one’s own electrical umbilical cord, abandoning the mind-clearing sterility of pristine cold conditioned air for the profane breezes corrupted by inapprehensible earthly ingredients, replacing the gorgeously colorful, focus-group-approved digital images with the stark green reality of wild trees and untamed grass and weeds and the shimmering waters whose cool refreshment beckons you like a Siren to immerse yourself and feel the visceral relief of a suicidal plunge into aquatic madness and dissolution.
It is only every four years that I’m able to find some some blessed relief in the comforting growth of anxiety and apprehension that comes with the early stages of a presidential campaign when some measure of sanity is restored to the womb of my darkened cave, illuminated only by the flickering images of talking heads as I hang on the results of the endless stream of each new poll. Thank God for my deliverance from the soul-killing, existential boredom of this off-year election by the divinely-timed confluence of the rise to power of the Tea Party and the expiration of the debt ceiling. Little could I imagine that the results of the 2010 election would rain down like manna from heaven to relieve the stifling heat dome of 2011. Just as Moses raised his arms and parted the waters of the Red Sea, the Republicans have, with the same biblical majesty, overreached and used their power to reveal the deep chasm that exists between progressives and conservatives and a clear path to the Promised Land between towering walls of massive economic destruction.
The current countdown to ecstasy has been a deliciously painful and torturously slow crawl on our hands and knees toward our dominatrix who will eventually determine our credit-worthiness as we beg for her to tighten our bonds. The ultimate denouement of our unknown, yet inevitable punishment still awaits us just a few tantalizing days away. But tonight, I was rewarded for my for my slavish attention to every unfolding minute of congressional pornographic pageantry as I let fly a righteously satisfying exclamation of glee upon learning that Speaker Boehner had suffered a humiliating spanking at the hands of his own party, like an insane snake thrusting its fangs into its own body. It is a moment like this, standing on the precipice, seeing, in the near distance, the voluntary and self-induced dismantling of our way of life with misery, deprivation and increased suffering in the future of so many, where chaos and reverberating recriminations will fill the air, as our nation and world decline into a nightmare scenario where the fragile framework of our interconnected stability begins a slow-motion crash into dystopia, as we turn our heaven into hell, for this moment, I realize how glorious it is to still be able to smile.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
The Cat That Didn't Come Home
I allow my cats to do as they please. If they want to come in, I let them in, if they want to go out, I let them out. I whistle and call for them when its time to eat and before I lock up at night. They don’t always respond to my invitations. They tend to hang around within earshot but they also venture out into our quiet little neighborhood. I noticed that my old Norwegian skowcat, Weiner, hadn’t been around for a couple days so I got on my bike and looked around in the direction I had often seen him heading, toward the next street parallel to mine. I knew there were some neighbors over there who had a reputation for feeding strays and that is where I found him, lying in the sun on their little concrete porch beside a paper plate filled with dry cat food.
I was quite relieved I’d found him. I called him and he came to me, yowling in recognition. I carried him home, which he didn’t appreciate, fed him and let him back out whereupon he immediately ran away. I wasn’t sure he would return to the neighbors and regretted not putting a collar on him with an ID tag. Years ago, someone found and returned one with my info by hanging it on my front door handle. It hung there for years, a ghostly reminder of the long gone cat who had eschewed it. The next day I walked back over to the neighbors and there he was, perched on the porch. I brought him home again and put the collar on him leaving him none too pleased. He bolted as soon as I let him out of my grasp.
At this point, I started to get the message. He had relocated and if I wanted to see him, I would have to visit him there. Nothing had changed or happened at home that I knew of to make him want to stay away. The neighbors told me that he and my other cats had been visiting and dining at their place for years. For some reason, his usual habit of returning home was now forgotten or rejected.
I began to make the short walk around the block to spend time with him on a daily basis thinking that I needed to regain his trust. It soon became evident that he was willing to continue to accept my affection but only within the framework of a long distance relationship. A routine developed in which I walk up the yard to the the front porch, he utters a little cry and gets up to greet me. I either sit on the porch with him or in the grass if he has been seeking shade by the side of the house. I scratch him and pet him as he winds his way around allowing me to get at different angles and areas that need attention and insistently nuzzles my hand if he’s not getting enough. Then after five or ten minutes, I get up and walk away. When I turn around, I usually see him contentedly preening himself, apparently unmoved by my departure, much less inspired to follow me home.
Its been a couple weeks now and my regular efforts at professing my unwavering commitment to him haven’t yielded so much as one return visit. I’m sure he remembers the way home, he obviously had been traveling it back and forth for years. I guess he’s just not impressed with my refusal to give up on him in the face of rejection or he mistakes my understanding approach for acceptance of his decision to make a change. I realize that cats make changes in their routines and the places they like to hang out but this one seems pretty extreme.
It has led me to contemplate the possibility that maybe he’s no longer my cat, that if I quit visiting him, he might be just fine with that. He’s been my cat for about 15 years. When we were living in Grandview, the Girlfriend brought him home from a family down the street that was moving and couldn’t keep him. I’ve taken good care of him and spent many hours loving him and sharing the couch and bed. When all of my cats would stake out their positions atop my supine body, he always occupied the furrow between my shins. In the last few years, I’ve watched two of my cats expire and suffered the disappearance of another one. Those losses were painful but seemed to be in the natural course of things. It is harder to accept that a pet I have loved so long and who seemed to return my affection could make a decision to leave and stay away without any apparent explanation. I still plan on visiting and can't imagine just giving up. When the door hasn’t been shut, hope keeps Love walking around the block.
I was quite relieved I’d found him. I called him and he came to me, yowling in recognition. I carried him home, which he didn’t appreciate, fed him and let him back out whereupon he immediately ran away. I wasn’t sure he would return to the neighbors and regretted not putting a collar on him with an ID tag. Years ago, someone found and returned one with my info by hanging it on my front door handle. It hung there for years, a ghostly reminder of the long gone cat who had eschewed it. The next day I walked back over to the neighbors and there he was, perched on the porch. I brought him home again and put the collar on him leaving him none too pleased. He bolted as soon as I let him out of my grasp.
At this point, I started to get the message. He had relocated and if I wanted to see him, I would have to visit him there. Nothing had changed or happened at home that I knew of to make him want to stay away. The neighbors told me that he and my other cats had been visiting and dining at their place for years. For some reason, his usual habit of returning home was now forgotten or rejected.
I began to make the short walk around the block to spend time with him on a daily basis thinking that I needed to regain his trust. It soon became evident that he was willing to continue to accept my affection but only within the framework of a long distance relationship. A routine developed in which I walk up the yard to the the front porch, he utters a little cry and gets up to greet me. I either sit on the porch with him or in the grass if he has been seeking shade by the side of the house. I scratch him and pet him as he winds his way around allowing me to get at different angles and areas that need attention and insistently nuzzles my hand if he’s not getting enough. Then after five or ten minutes, I get up and walk away. When I turn around, I usually see him contentedly preening himself, apparently unmoved by my departure, much less inspired to follow me home.
Its been a couple weeks now and my regular efforts at professing my unwavering commitment to him haven’t yielded so much as one return visit. I’m sure he remembers the way home, he obviously had been traveling it back and forth for years. I guess he’s just not impressed with my refusal to give up on him in the face of rejection or he mistakes my understanding approach for acceptance of his decision to make a change. I realize that cats make changes in their routines and the places they like to hang out but this one seems pretty extreme.
It has led me to contemplate the possibility that maybe he’s no longer my cat, that if I quit visiting him, he might be just fine with that. He’s been my cat for about 15 years. When we were living in Grandview, the Girlfriend brought him home from a family down the street that was moving and couldn’t keep him. I’ve taken good care of him and spent many hours loving him and sharing the couch and bed. When all of my cats would stake out their positions atop my supine body, he always occupied the furrow between my shins. In the last few years, I’ve watched two of my cats expire and suffered the disappearance of another one. Those losses were painful but seemed to be in the natural course of things. It is harder to accept that a pet I have loved so long and who seemed to return my affection could make a decision to leave and stay away without any apparent explanation. I still plan on visiting and can't imagine just giving up. When the door hasn’t been shut, hope keeps Love walking around the block.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
How Lucky You Got In
At the end of one episode of my favorite television show, Taxicab Confessions on HBO, there is an old guy from Brooklyn playing the violin in the backseat while he talks to the driver. He’s playing “Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life”, a song made famous by Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald back in 1935, in which the lyrics make the banal observation that the “mystery” is solved when one finds love. But while he scratches out the melody in a saccharine vibrato, he embellishes on the song’s meaning in a weary wise Brooklyn brogue. “It’s about the enigma of Life, the fact we are in existence which is a Big Number. You want to sit back sometimes and look at yourself, examine yourself and when they ponder the question, you know, its begging the question, ah sweet mystery, its the great sweet mystery of life. What a gift, heh? How lucky you got in.”
I’d been pondering my existence and wasn’t feeling my “Number” was too “Big”. After completing nearly five decades here on Earth, it felt like I hadn’t made much of that incredible gift I’d been given. In terms of my career, I wasn’t very successful. I was satisfied being a “poor people’s attorney” so I never made a lot of money or gained much renown. My job was never my passion, it never defined me. I enjoyed the respect I received, I enjoyed being my own boss and helping people with their problems but it was what I did in order to survive and do the things I really enjoyed doing like listening to live music or volunteering. When people refer to my “work”, I often say “If that is what you call what I do.”
Just surviving means that you don’t get to to taste the cornucopia of luxurious goodies that the world has to offer. I haven’t had the expensive toys, made the trips to foreign countries, experienced the gastronomic delights, the inspiring architecture, never saw a Broadway show. Of course the best things in life are free or nearly free but I haven’t cashed in on much of that either. Despite my love of words, I haven’t read a lot of books. I never became much of a musician. I remember thinking at age 18 that it was too late for me to learn to be a good bass player. I’ve dabbled in drawing and watercolor but its not much more than child’s play. My writing is quite amateurish, I know. I would conclude that I’m too lazy to make much out of what little artistic talent I may have but I know that I am capable of hard work and enjoy it. I guess I just haven’t pushed myself beyond my comfort zone.
As for the “Sweet Mystery of Life” that Nelson and Jeanette were singing so rapturously about, I’m not sure I’ve had that revelation. I believe I’ve been in love, experienced obsession and jealousy and the black hole of heartbreak, but I’ve often wondered if I have actually loved anyone beside myself. There have been people for whom I would do anything to help them or make them happy, people I cared for unconditionally, but did I love them in a way that transcended my own interests? Did I ever make the Copernican transformation from the center of the universe to a planet in an eternal adoring orbit? I tell myself I have but the answer to my personal mystery may be unknowable, eclipsed by my ego.
There may be much I’ve missed out on in my life, many wondrous and beautiful opportunities that I couldn’t or didn’t reach for. When I seek consolation in that existential emptiness, I picture myself, marching down the middle of the street in the Short North on the Fourth of July, surrounded by a motley crew of patriotic clowns wreaking an uncontrolled cacophony of musical silliness upon the assembled crowd, clad in a short, red, white and blue striped summer dress, red fishnets and black boots, my flailing wavy white gold locks topped by a red elfin beret, my face disguised with pointy black and silver sunglasses, my head tilted in the air as I raise my clarinet toward the sun, blowing with all possible enthusiasm a joyously crazed obligato paean to being alive. How lucky, indeed.
I’d been pondering my existence and wasn’t feeling my “Number” was too “Big”. After completing nearly five decades here on Earth, it felt like I hadn’t made much of that incredible gift I’d been given. In terms of my career, I wasn’t very successful. I was satisfied being a “poor people’s attorney” so I never made a lot of money or gained much renown. My job was never my passion, it never defined me. I enjoyed the respect I received, I enjoyed being my own boss and helping people with their problems but it was what I did in order to survive and do the things I really enjoyed doing like listening to live music or volunteering. When people refer to my “work”, I often say “If that is what you call what I do.”
Just surviving means that you don’t get to to taste the cornucopia of luxurious goodies that the world has to offer. I haven’t had the expensive toys, made the trips to foreign countries, experienced the gastronomic delights, the inspiring architecture, never saw a Broadway show. Of course the best things in life are free or nearly free but I haven’t cashed in on much of that either. Despite my love of words, I haven’t read a lot of books. I never became much of a musician. I remember thinking at age 18 that it was too late for me to learn to be a good bass player. I’ve dabbled in drawing and watercolor but its not much more than child’s play. My writing is quite amateurish, I know. I would conclude that I’m too lazy to make much out of what little artistic talent I may have but I know that I am capable of hard work and enjoy it. I guess I just haven’t pushed myself beyond my comfort zone.
As for the “Sweet Mystery of Life” that Nelson and Jeanette were singing so rapturously about, I’m not sure I’ve had that revelation. I believe I’ve been in love, experienced obsession and jealousy and the black hole of heartbreak, but I’ve often wondered if I have actually loved anyone beside myself. There have been people for whom I would do anything to help them or make them happy, people I cared for unconditionally, but did I love them in a way that transcended my own interests? Did I ever make the Copernican transformation from the center of the universe to a planet in an eternal adoring orbit? I tell myself I have but the answer to my personal mystery may be unknowable, eclipsed by my ego.
There may be much I’ve missed out on in my life, many wondrous and beautiful opportunities that I couldn’t or didn’t reach for. When I seek consolation in that existential emptiness, I picture myself, marching down the middle of the street in the Short North on the Fourth of July, surrounded by a motley crew of patriotic clowns wreaking an uncontrolled cacophony of musical silliness upon the assembled crowd, clad in a short, red, white and blue striped summer dress, red fishnets and black boots, my flailing wavy white gold locks topped by a red elfin beret, my face disguised with pointy black and silver sunglasses, my head tilted in the air as I raise my clarinet toward the sun, blowing with all possible enthusiasm a joyously crazed obligato paean to being alive. How lucky, indeed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)