It has almost been one year since I started writing this blog. What a peculiar year it has been. For the first seven months I wrote without intermission. Those were good months. Still, since Willi became ill and then died in June, things just haven’t at all been the same.
The same as what?
My Mom is still bursting into tears about Willi. Stephen is still bursting into tears about Willi. Yvette is still counting the weeks since his death… and my reaction is the most surreal of all; I count the weeks until mine.
The long and the short of it is that, in a 100 year life, there are 5,200 weeks… (Who do we think we are, Bob Hope?) Anyway, at 42-and-a-bit, I have used up almost half of 100, give or take a few fractions. But, if I live to the ripe old age of 70, like my father, then it’s substantially less than half. If I die “young”—and lets face it, dying in your 40’s or becoming President of the United States of America are the only two circumstances in which a person in their 40’s will ever be considered to be “young” again—then there is precious little time remaining. “Oh… he dropped dead of a heart attack at 42, and then became President. Wow… young!”
Practically the only thing I’m too young for now is to drop dead of a coronary… almost everything else is fair game. I have now entered the realm of “young for your age” which has the simultaneous benefit of being both flattering and insulting… just depending.
But life begins at 40. Ya, ya, ya. I think more accurately, a life in which you can become acutely aware of your own mortality can begin in earnest… but doesn’t have to. (Never underestimate the power of denial.) Face facts: You will die…sooner or later. Are you ready? Did you live your dreams? Did you stay inside your comfort zone until it became a prison? You have X amount of weeks left, if you are lucky, what are you waiting for? What are your dreams for the future and what are you doing about them? Time is marching on and waits for no one.
Depressed? Relax. Don’t stress! Stress is bad for you! But did you know that depressed people are much more accurate in their assessments of reality than people who are happy? Happy people tend to see things on the bright side by about 35% too much. Depressed people tend to die 6 years sooner than happy people. Hmmm.
But anyway, life begins at 40? Actually the only thing that happens at 40 is that you wake up to how high the stakes have become, and so you may find yourself habitually placing 50% of your chips on black and the other 50% on red, hoping all the while that big roulette wheel of life doesn’t stop on those big ugly green zeros. This is called stupidity.
At 40 you begin to realize that life is a game in which the big casino of eternity will win even if you play it safe… especially if you play it safe. I say throw some caution to the wind. I am not a big fan of the stupid risk, but I am wonderfully enthralled by the calculated variety. Let’s face it, risk makes life interesting, it spices things up.
So what do you have to lose, your life? Guess what, that’s a done deal. Now what? Even if you were born today, and you lived to the ripe old age of Bob Hope, it’s only 5,200 weeks, and who the hell wants to live to be one hundred years old anyway? Please no!
And so a new day begins…and counting.
I wake up…this I consider to be a good sign. All the votes have not been tallied yet but the way I figure it is…if you are still breathing, then as soon as humanly possible, you should find a way to be filled up...filled up by life. Find a way to be fulfilled because at the end of the day, there is nothing else, just you, your fulfillment or the lack of it that will be ringing in the air after you're gone.
Even in the unconscious automatic act of breathing you are trying to be filled and refilled, so that you can take another stab at it…the “it” being your life…the life you want, the life you dreamed of. You need to dream of it again, and then breathe it in, filling yourself up with it until the beauty of life has your heart nearly bursting…so full is it.
What else is there to do?
And so a new day begins…in the true sense of the phrase.
In the truly artistic mind there is a fine line between the abyss and creativity. It is difficult sometimes to know which side of the line we are standing on. This morning, my fog has begun to lift. In no way am I out in the clear yet, but I began the day with some early morning writing, something I haven’t done since Willi died four weeks ago. From writing I moved into sketching and painting
all before 8:30am. I am sorry if this seems like a frivolity to some of you, but my depressed brain needs the frivolity of play in order for it to rebalance. For some of us, play is very serious stuff because as adults we have forgotten how to do it without guilt and shame.
Ran into Victor and Raff at the mall yesterday…meant to call them and invite them for dinner and then there they were…Hello! Sunday…if it’s nice, a BBQ by the pool, plus sun and some engaging conversation…what could be finer?
Things are shifting; I have noticed a distinct increase in personal synchronicities. I feel strangely disencumbered this morning. What’s the worst thing that could happen…I could die? Na, the worst thing that could happen is that I could live for yet another sixty-five years. I am completely unprepared to last that long. At forty-two I sometimes already feel like…hey that was enough now.
My mother says we grow younger again as we get older…this coming from a woman who has just twisted her ankle. Ouch. Stay off that foot. I don’t feel as if I am growing younger yet, but I haven’t given up hope. Perhaps when I have learned the art of holding the other cheek, things will improve exponentially.
And so a new day begins…with a glimmer of hope…no matter how fragile or delicate it may really be.
In my mind there are two distinct periods of time; the time before and the time after. This picture is obviously from the time before. Here on a sunny September day back in 1994 I was enjoying being a tourist in my beloved New York City. I say my New York City, only because I was born in a hospital on 5th Avenue off Central Park. This is where I took my first breaths, and so for better or worse my story begins in New York City and some part of me will always be homesick for this place...even though I have never lived there...
yet.
And so a new day begins…in the time after.
I wake at 6:28am and wonder what is the point? Not just to waking at 6:28am but to waking in general. It is my body that wants to live, I unfortunately feel sometimes as if I’m just along for the ride. It breathes me, it wakes me, it aches, it moves me about.
I am as flat as a stretch of two-lane cutting through the middle of nowhere.
I drew a picture of it with my left hand without knowing I was drawing a picture of anything. I do this, I doodle while talking on the phone, a kind of inadvertent creativity. It looks like I was drawing…the inside of my mind, and what immerges is not a pretty picture of anything.
Why draw
Why sing
Why express
A goddamned thing
And so a new day begins…enjoy!
