THE NAKED ANIMAL

When I walked into my classroom yesterday morning, the title of this post was written on the whiteboard in my hand: “Sure, I’d love to!” I’d been teaching my Korean students how to issue and respond to invitations, and all of them kept saying, “No, I’m sorry, I can’t,” or “No, thank you, I’m busy”; I was trying to get them to learn how to say yes. My life has been all about saying yes lately, which is a big revelation for me, because I’m used to saying no. But wait a minute, what am I talking about? It’s not like I’ve sat around on my thumbs for the past forty years due to an insurmountable indolence–I’ve done a hell of a lot; so much that I wonder if I can even get it all into one book..... Well, of course, I can get it all in one book–I’m a natural condenser and distiller. But to evoke the richness and texture of the life I’ve led in words is a particularly daunting challenge.

What I mean by saying yes, I guess, is that I’m learning to agree to my lighter side even when my tired old negative voices try to talk me out of it. No, that’s crazy, they say. Or maybe it’s just a renaissance of this kind of power in my life–I’ve had a long fallow period during which I’ve felt drained and hopeless, ready to ease on down the road all the way out of here. Well, I did ease on down that road; kinda liked what I saw at the end of it, but decided to come back and stick it out for some reason still obscure to me. It has something to do with healing, and I know I have to start on myself.

I’ve never had problems saying yes to things that feed my insatiable hunger for knowledge and adventure–even danger. I’ve always done it, instinctively, always to more or less intense results. The problem is that “intense” is not all that sustainable. What I’m learning to say yes to these days are my quirkier whims, the desires that are not serious, the ones that simply jazz me up and make me smile–things I’ve always denied myself because I’ve been so serious about myself and the way I’ve lived my life in the past. I think I may have looked joyful and frivolous at times on the outside, but I was all troubled thoughts and karmic worries on the inside. Now I’m finally learning how to take it easy on myself, and to say yes to silly little whims rather than saving all my zest for the voluptuous, grand ones, which are always quite an effort to come up with and carry out, anyway.

Since returning to the land of the living after my long sojourn into the underworld with the Lady Lymphoma at my side, I have been full of puckish little desires, and I’m finally starting to act upon them. It started with a belly dancing class I took a couple of weeks ago, which threw my back out, leading me into a deep experience of self healing, then into one of the best weekends I’ve had since recovering. It always amazes me how much more I grow while dealing with pain than I would have had the pain been absent.

Last weekend was all about skating. On Friday and Saturday, I taped the full seven hours of the National Figure Skating Championships, which boiled down to about two hours of actually skating that I watched Sunday morning. All day Sunday, I was thinking about my own years of figure skating, and especially focusing on the fact that I still imagine and dream about landing difficult jumps all the time. God, I thought, I’d love to do that again, but discarded it as a daydream.

The next day was a holiday (MLKJ day), so I went to Venice Beach to rent some skates. They only have roller blades out there, which I hate, but I got a pair anyway, and power-stroked my way down to Malibu on the cement skating path as smoothly as Hans Brinker on his frozen river.

Once I’d had a taste of the certain sort of glide that rollerblades offer, I wanted more, so that night I went back to my roots, to a roller rink, where I rented a foul pair of beige skates (quads, darlings, the only REAL kind of roller skates) with orange wheels and hit the newly re-surfaced glazed-wood floor. Within five minutes, I was whizzing around the rink on long, powerful edges as if I had just hit the floor for the warm-up at the world championships or something. What a geek! All the cool, dance-oriented recreational skaters were giving me the bug eye. But then some people who were even geekier than me arrived and started doing REALLY GEEKY tricks in the center of the rink, so I didn’t stick out too badly. It was weird how my body remembered.

For a few songs (middle-of-the-road dance hits and soul), I worked on perfecting a series of really fast dance steps that just came to me out of the blue–I think it was “The Fourteen Step,” but I’m not sure. Then I really started to get the itch to do some jumps–not appropriate at public session, but I did a few waltz jumps (just a little half turn, starting forward, landing backwards), and the landing felt so solidly pleasurable–almost in a purely sensual way–that my raring-to-go body was urging me to try something harder. I managed to quell its pleas and stick to some funky backwards footwork that impressed the hardcore rink rats and got me out of there without risking major injury. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the idea that it might be fun to coax those jumps I’d dreamed of since I was a kid back into reality.

Instead of waking up the next day to a more mature outlook on that particular whim, I was more excited by it than ever. I ignored the voices in my head that were telling me I was too old, not thinking straight, the biggest DORK in the world, and made an appointment for a private lesson at another rink, out in the valley near Cal State Northridge. The woman who’s going to teach me took lessons in my hometown, Bakersfield, with Natalie Dunn, who was world champ when I was a kid, and a hero to me and many other munchkin skaters. Her name is Jamie, and she agreed with me that it would be a hoot and that I should at least give it a try. Hey, I’m not totally unrealistic–I know I probably won’t be able to train hard enough to do a perfect double axel again, or anything like that, but I’d settle for a single one. Oh, and a double loop. I’d love to do a double loop again. Even if you don’t know what it is, doesn’t the sound of that just tickle you?

My first lesson is next Tuesday, and I will certainly keep the gentle reader apprised of any progress made in this latest foray of mine. The idea of doing some jumps again has effervesced my spirit so much that I will never hesitate again to say “Sure, I’d love too” when a quirky little voice somewhere deep inside my psyche invites me to do something purely meaningless, fun and joymaking. In fact, the lift I’ve gotten just from imagining the possibility has also reminded me that I once knew how to fly. And if I can do a double axel again (well, okay, maybe I WILL go for a double), I'll know that remembering how to fly is just a twitch of the wings away.

Oh, and by the way, my 40th birthday is coming up on February 10, and I'd just ADORE a new pair of skates!

Categories: skating, backstory, transformation

A cold Friday night in Los Angeles, December, 1984. I’m standing in line alone for Godard’s Alphaville at the New Beverly Cinema, already having devoured the entire oeuvres of Fellini, Antonioni, Truffaut and Pasolini over the last few months. Chatting briefly with each couple or group ahead of me is an Orthodox Jew in full regalia–shoulder-length sidelocks and bushy beard to the belly, a wide, fur-brimmed hat and an overcoat that looks way too warm for the weather even though it’s probably below 50 Fahrenheit (hey, that’s cold for LA). He seems to be selling something. As he gets closer to me, I hear that he’s asking people if they’re Jewish. Everyone is answering yes.

I wonder for an instant if he’ll do something crazy if I say no, but I say it anyway, even though I can feel that the rest of the crowd is silently urging me to say yes even if it’s not true. He looks interested. He explains that it’s Shabbat, and that it’s already past sunset, and that he can’t operate any machinery after sunset due to Shabbas law, even a light switch; so would I please come with him to turn his lights on for him? Oh, and the heater, too? And possibly the oven if his housekeeper forgot to do it, which she can do from time to time. His house is just around the corner. I can see the couple ahead of me silently urging me not to do it, but I tell him I will, thinking I’m about to have another multi-culti adventure in LaLaland-- I’ve been seeking these out on a regular basis since recently moving down from ultra-segregated Bakersfield (yup, that shit still happens, but not by law...) to go to UCLA.

“You’re sure you’re not Jewish?” he says.

I give him a look as if to say, What, you think I’m stupid?. “I have a Jewish grandmother,” I say, “but I’m not.”

“Your father’s mother?” he asks.

“No, my mother’s.”

He rolls his eyes and makes a hacking sound as if he’s going to spit at me. “Then you’re Jewish!” He hits his forehead, hard, with an open palm, and bugs his eyes out at me. By this time I’m sweating, and beet red under my black beret and long hair. I hear someone in the line snicker. In fact, the whole crowd is chattering animatedly now, their feathers all ruffled by the excitement. “I’d advise you to speak with your grandmother, son,” he goes on. “She must be meshuggah not to teach you any better.”

The people in line quiet down as he storms off.

“Good for you,” says the woman in front of me, a forty-something art maven type with a grinning rock-n-roll has-been guy on her arm.

“Why?” I ask.

“He comes here all the time.” Of course, I have to answer that I’m surprised I haven’t seen him before, that I am there all the time, just to show her how well-read I am in the literature of international film. “He says he’s looking for a Shabbas goy, but I think he’s some kind of pervert. Did you see that he was only asking the young pretty guys?” I hadn’t noticed that at all, but I got what she was saying. “Yeah, I’m sure he’s some kind of freak. I’ve seen the way the other Chassids look at him–as if he’s crazy, you know, like they want to stay away.” She pauses. “Did you really not know that the maternal line defines who’s Jewish?” I shake my head sheepishly. “Oh, well, I’d do what he told you even if he was crazy. Ask your grandmother about it. It’s quite interesting.” I ask if she’s Jewish. “Yeah,” she says, “Can’t you tell? I could tell you were the minute I saw you. I always do: Jews all have a little crazy in their eyes.”

Well, I knew for sure that my grandmother’s family was crazy–but all sides of the grandparental quadrant were, in there own ways, the other three being Greek, Scottish and English, so I couldn’t blame the Kray (formerly Krayeshka) family’s craziness on their Jewishness alone. But the fact that my grandmother didn’t even find out that she was Jewish until she was sixty (I was fifteen then), due to some digging done by her niece, may have quite a bit to do with my grandmother’s particular insanity–a slow, quiet, burning type of madness that stealthily and steadily stalks the family.

I can easily imagine what might have led her family to keep this integral part of her identity from her, even if I can’t quite understand it. They were Ashkenazi Jews who fled Kiev during the pogroms of the early 20th century, and when they got to America, they saw that Jews (at least those who were not rich) didn’t have such an easy time here, either. The two children were nearly teenagers, so they could not be protected from the sadness of what their people were going through–had been going through for millennia–all over the world.

Then lo and behold, another child comes. An American. Born on the very American soil of a grape farm outside Fresno, California. And she will be brought up a gentile because she will obviously have it far better that way. They are a light-skinned, fair-haired family, so it will be easy to blend in.

But I’d bet keeping that secret from my grandmother was not easy for any of the family to do, not easy in the least, and I’d bet it drove them all mad, just as it did my grandmother, even though she didn’t know about it. I’d bet the overall mood in the household was, to use a euphemism that has often been used to describe both me and my mother, “high-strung.”

My grandmother’s own strange little life in that nest of secrets and lies must have been full of worries that all revolved around her, none of which she could pinpoint, all of which she could sense. It must have been a lot like my own homelife, in which everyone’s worries revolved around my sexual identity. At least I finally figured out who I was. My grandmother never did. When she found out she was Jewish, her only response, bless her vague little heart, was a bemused, “Oh, hmmm. I thought I remembered seeing those funny candlesticks they have when I was a really little kid, but I thought I must have seen it in a movie.”

In fact, by the time I got to know her, my grandmother didn’t seem to care much about anything. She was very “whatever”–ahead of her time in that way, since that is many a person’s automatic response to anything the least bit challenging these days. She didn’t seem to have any opinions about anything except a few things that pertained to her personal upkeep and food or television preferences. On the other hand, she was fun to be with for me and my sister (took us shopping all the time, too!), and laughed a lot; but my mother tells me that she was really only like that around us kis. She tells me that when she was little, her mother spent entire days, for days at a time, sobbing face down on her bed. When I was a kid, every once in a while, I would catch her cussing out my grandfather with a lot of hissing and a damning sound in her voice that made me hide under my covers at night.

She was more open, though, about the copious arguments she had with my aunt, five years younger than my mom, who lived in the house, and did so until the day my grandparents were carted out of there by the authorities because my aunt had neglected them all the way to death’s doorstep. She was fifty-five at the time, and a completely stagnant human being. She most definitely has OCD (my mom says she did things like wash her hands till they bled when she was little, and I could write a whole book about her other compulsive behavioral habits), and probably some manic-depression, too, but of course she never got treated, or even looked at. Back in the 1950s, when she and my mom grew up, solid American immigrant stock didn’t cop to unnatural progeny by taking them to invasive charlatans such as psychiatrists.

Throughout my childhood, when I saw her the most, my aunt Carole was a silent, shadow-like, affectless character. My mother says that, after the incident, once my grandparents were ensconced in a safe, clean place where they keep sick, old people till they die, my aunt lashed out at her about a cacophony of family concerns with a focus and rancor that she had never expressed, and that it was extremely scary. Sad to have to nearly kill your parents to let off a little steam, huh?


They are dead now. It didn’t take long in that safe clean haven for that to happen. My grandfather and his sisters told us loads of wonderful stories; that was what he was all about, so we know a lot about the Greek side of our family–more than any other, really, since my Dad’s parents were/are (only one’s dead) extremely reticent WASPS. More than any other relative, I wish I’d been able to talk more to my maternal grandmother, even though I don’t think she would have been capable. Certainly not at the end. At the end, she grew her dyed hair out long and shaggy and wore her dirty housedresses with nylon anklets out to Denny’s for the Senior Slam breakfast, just like any other crazy old lady. Crazy old ladies generally can’t tell a person much of substance. But neither can angry young ladies or stewing middle-aged ladies or seniors who have simply turned themselves off because there is too much built-up pain to deal with–and my grandmother was all of these before she became a crazy old lady.

Her own mother, I have heard (or did I make it up?), moved to a small outbuilding on the farm at some point and spent the last several years of her life willfully bedridden–just to show how angry she was at the world, I guess. That’s a rich one. In fact, this whole story is incredibly rich and I’d like to write a novel about it–because fiction is really my only option here. My grandma’s niece, Rose, nearly drove herself insane finding the very scant evidence that she did. She’s still alive though, unlike everyone else that was involved. God, maybe I should go up and talk to her about it. I don’t know. Let me think about that one. It might be a great idea; then again, it might be an utterly mad one.

In order to save my own sanity, I detached myself from my family–all sides except my dear sister–for a good long time in my twenties and thirties. My mother and I have only recently reconnected and become truly good friends–due in no small part to the fact that she was a ROCK and GODSEND during my recent year of cancer and chemotherapy. But what brings us even closer is having outlived the madness that has sucked at us all our lives like the sea does at limpets as they cling to rocks.

Not that we’re models of sobriety and balance or anything. Then again, I wouldn’t want to be all that sane; it just doesn’t look all that fun. I mean, come on, we’re Jewish–and that art maven at the New Beverly Cinema all those years ago was right, I’ve noticed it myself–we all have a little crazy in our eyes.

Okay, now I’m fascinated; most likely to be continued in some form or another soon...

Categories: backstory, jewish, family

Last Thursday, my friend Jon sent me an announcement for a free “urban fusion” belly dance class in East LA on Friday afternoon. My eyes lit up, and I RSVP’d right away. The invite had urged men to attend, and I’ve always thought that my natural style of dancing was somewhat akin to belly dancing; on top of that, Jon and I–along with a host of other close friends–were planning to go to an outdoor psytrance party on Saturday, and I thought it would be fun to get my groove on a little early.

Unfortunately, I found that belly dancing was far harsher on the hips than I was used to, and by the end of the class, my back was completely out of whack. It was our friendly faerie host’s first attempt at teaching, and he went way too fast for most of us, but I don’t blame him: I’m experienced enough to know to take it easy rather than go for it whole hog without the proper understanding of how, exactly, the body is supposed to be moving. In fact, I did think that very thing when I first noticed he was skipping over lots of things I needed to know in order to do the moves correctly, but I can’t help going at every new challenge as if I’m still 25, or rather ageless, since I don’t think of myself as young so much as indomitable. Ha! After two and a half hours of jarring, random hip gyrations, I was wincing with pain.

On Saturday morning, I woke up feeling as if I’d played several games of tackle football the day before–without the benefit of either helmet or padding. After about an hour of hobbling around and gingerly testing my small range of motion, I emailed Jon to say I wouldn’t be going on our weekend jaunt, rather heartbroken over it. Then I lay down on the floor and started doing some yoga–simply because it was the only thing I could do that somewhat helped the pain; everything else, whether sitting, standing or lying down, hurt like hell.

I ended up having a very deep discussion with my body over the next two hours or so, during which I fell in and out of trances, digging into the heart of my pain and massaging it back to life on many different levels. When I finished, my back had improved greatly, and I decided to go out for a walk, just to loosen it up some more. I made it all the way to Jon’s (about two miles), where I felt so much better that I changed my mind about bagging the psytrance gathering. By the time I got home to get ready for the rest of the weekend, I was feeling like myself again–or at least a part of myself that I enjoy more than most: the loose and happy, physically-and-emotionally-centered, ready-to-boogie-my-brains-out part.

What’s great, though, is that I don’t really boogie my brains out anymore. Rather, I boogie them in, if that makes sense. Perhaps a more apt way to put it would be that I dance myself into spiritual alignment these days rather than out of my head, like I used to. I dance because it does something for me that nothing else does: It wipes my marked-up mind clean and facilitates a friendly conversation between my spirit and the rest of the universe.

Out of the large group Jon had commandeered (he’s our family psytrance gathering expert), only he, our friend Cindy and I ended up stepping up to the dancing dirt. Because of our small number and resulting lack of preparation drama, we were able to arrive early and snag a good campsite like the seasoned veteran trancers we're supposed to be, and we joined the small group that was already dancing to summon the party gods. Around midnight, the party hit full swing. I went into a spiraling trance to an ultra-deep, core-stirring set by our friend Jon Mark for about two hours, then swirled and spun right in front of a speaker in the downtempo pavilion for another two, while Cindy and Jon shook their own groove thangs in their own special ways.

When I emerged from the music’s embrace, a beautiful blond in a teddy bear suit who was lounging on a cushion at the perimeter of the intimate dancing dirt yelled me over (Hey, you!) and told me that she liked to watch me dance; that I “hold that space so well.” I replied, without even thinking about it, “This is the way I pray.” I think I discovered that as I said it to her, and I’m still thinking about it. Of course, instead of thinking about, or even writing about it, I should probably just dance.

I actually couldn’t stop dancing when we got home late Sunday afternoon–I continued in my room with my cat to a mix on HBR1.com that echoed the psycho-funkadelic sounds of the party’s downtempo lounge. Being with my best buddies and the rest of my extended trance party family, and getting so very deeply into the groove for so long, took me all the way from merely better to very, very good indeed. There are mirrored closet doors across the east side of my bedroom, and I intentionally tried to watch myself dance, to see how I danced, what it looked like, because I realized I had no idea. The music has always been as intense for me: it makes me enter a world full of cell division and sprouting vegetation and sacred geometry. But I feel different when I dance now, and it’s happened quite recently: like its some kind of perfect blend of my artistic, scientific and spiritual concerns, on top of the joyous self expression and release that it has always been for me.

It was hard to watch myself because my eyes glaze over when I dance (except when someone calls me out for a moment with a smile). Things outside my personal vortex become hazy and begin to morph. But I caught a few moves–and I think I’m an okay dancer; I certainly have my own style–and I wondered, where did I get this from? I tried to imagine how I’d developed this particular style of mine, which I’m going to call “psychedelic hula,” and I realized that it had been such an organic process that I couldn’t separate it from myself at all. My dancing is me and I am my dancing as much as my verbal language is, and probably more so. I wish I could do it all the time. Or at least most of the time. Though I think I could do it all the time because it actually gives me energy–not that it doesn’t tire me out physically, because I can feel it in my muscles, but it leaves me refreshed and rejuvenated.

I also go into a serious, meditative trance when I dance, the way Sufi dancers do, I imagine, though I’ve never learned any technique for doing this. It’s a natural occurrence. I laughed when I caught myself in the mirror–I was so serious! Though it feels like belly dancing to me, it looks like like Tai Chi on fast forward with a healthy dose of flamenco and a hint of Bollywood. Now, I have studied a little Tai Chi (as with everything–a little of this, a little of that), but I could no more perform “the form” than I could do a triple Axel. My memory for movement is hideous and I’m a horrible mimic, so it’s hard for me to “follow along,” but I have an innate sense of my body and the way it likes to experience space, which I can express to its full potential in the right atmosphere. The radical party I went to last weekend was certainly that. It was home. And it was church. And I can’t wait to worship again.

But what am I saying? I can pray any time. I’ve got a big room, great music, and a cat who likes to watch. I mean, I couldn’t really LIVE at a psytrance party, now could I? (Or could I?) Instead, my life is its own kind of party, I suppose, and it seems to be getting more festive. I had turned my belly dancing back injury around and grabbed on to the cord of light that is always offered, then slips away, as one sinks into the black pit of pain and depression instead of going down, down, down, and this made me feel that I was actually making some progress. Even a year or two ago, I would have wrapped myself in a cloak of negativity and missed one of the best parties of the decade.

Before I left on Saturday night, Philip told me that he was proud of me for turning it around like I did, that I had a great wealth of self-healing powers–and that these go hand in hand with my great powers of self destruction: What I have to realize and start putting into use is that they are both the same power. I told Jon and Cindy about this while we shared some wine and hors d’oeuvres in our cozy campsite before hitting the dancing dirt, and they both thought it was a cogent and beautiful statement. As usual, Philip hit my nail on its head (he admits he knows me better than he does himself). After that particular night (and morning) of dancing, I am beginning to think that it might need to take a more pivotal role in my ever-spinning matrix of healing and self-transformation. I will surely delve into this and report my findings to you in due time, gentle reader!

Categories: friends, psychedelic, music, dance, transformation

Last night I had a Japanese guest student in my evening class of Korean ESL beginners, and we were talking about music preferences. The Koreans all betrayed the mushiness behind their crisp, salty exteriors with a love of sappy pop songs. The Japanese woman, on the other hand, perkily reported that she didn't like any kind of music. I looked at her with unmasked astonishment. "What do you mean you don't like any kind of music?" I questioned her, and she said: "I just don't like it. I don't listen to it." She had no qualms about it, and none of the other students seemed in the least disturbed by her declaration, but it chilled me to my core. Perhaps it's corny, but music in all of its manifestations adds a textural layer to my life that weaves its way in and out of the other layers as an integral part of the whole fabric, and it has always acted as an emotional touchstone, diary and compass for me. In fact, music has often informed me of my emotions before I grasped them intellectually, and I have always counted on it to mediate my moods. Not to like music! It was akin to saying that she didn't like eating; which I also suspect might be the case: she was wafer thin.

Lately I've been experiencing a phenomenon that comes about in every music lover's life around the age of 40, and that is the usurpation of one's history as nostalgia both shaped and propagated by the media. I knew my time was coming when Led Zeppelin started hawking Cadillacs a few years back, going for the crowd that had doped its way through high school just before I arrived there. Now, it's 80s, 80s, 80s, shoved down my throat 24 hours a day, and it's mostly not my 80s, but the same mainstream (or poseur avant garde) 80s bullshit that I did my best to stay away from even when it was new. I have to say that I'm SICK of nostalgia altogether. It feels so two steps forward, one step back; or one step forward, one step back; or is it simply one step back, one more step back these days?

The poor generation behind mine is not even being allowed the decency of the standard 15- to 20-year waiting period: The 90s are already being packaged as nostalgia (Hey, We Love the 80s, so why not Love the 90s, too, while we're at it?). And it's not even real nostalgia, but ironic nostalgia, or is it quasi-ironic or post-ironic? Anyway, it's highly adulterated. We're not allowed to actually feel something real about anything unless we also sneer at it. But this is not about cynicism. That's a much squirmier can of worms than I'm willing to open today, one that takes thought and analyses.

Instead, I want to start on a new technique of self exploration, following phenomenological streams in my life to chart the interlocking tributaries between them, and to measure how they've flowed into the sea that is now me. I think this kind of subject-based life study coupled with the sort-of-chronological narrative I've already begun will provide me with the warp and weft I need for the kind of weaving I'd like to do. Okay, enough with the metaphors.

So I'll start with music, mostly because that music-despising Japanese student ("Oh wait," she added later. "I like the song 'Happy Birthday to You,' because I know I will soon get gifts when I hear it. Tee hee hee hee [giggle, giggle].") made me start thinking seriously about how integral it has always been to my worldview, my soul, and my very sanity. She also reminded me in an unexpectedly visceral way how much music has always moved me, whether down the road in my car or through the stratosphere via spirit, and I immediately wanted to put my relationship with it together and look at it, like a scientist with a new spirochete to examine under the microscope.

My first deep contact with music happened the day I got kicked out of nursery school in 1969. Stevie Wonder was singing "Ma Cherie Amour" on the radio in my mom's Chevy station wagon, and it was the first time I had ever differentiated one song from the miasma of environmental noise that squeezed its way through my toddler’s nervous system. I completely disappeared into that song, and wandered out when the commercials started up again, dazed and wanting more. More, more, more! I sucked up music from my environment like an anteater does its scurrying prey. I remember, sometime very soon after being initiated by Stevie in the station wagon, standing outside someone else's screened off patio in our Downey, CA apartment complex and listening to "Summerbreeze," the entire song, on their radio, certain that I was hearing "blowing through the jaspin of my mind," and almost as certain that "the jaspin" was a special part of the brain that processed memory.

In fact, most of the pleasure I derived from listening to music as a very small child--mostly on AM radio stations--came from extremely idiosyncratic misunderstandings of pop song lyrics, my all-time favorite being "Rickey Don't Loose that Gumba," (by Steely Dan) in which "loose" is supposed to mean "free," and a "Gumba" is a ferocious animal similar to a mongoose, in a cage, and the singer doesn't want this "Rickey" person (also the name of my only male friend in second grade, when the song came out) to let it out for some reason. Now, the really BIG thrill I got from this song was my imagined understanding that "Steely Dan" (of course, I thought it was the singer's name, didn't you when you were a kid?) was actually not talking about a REAL Gumba, but a metaphorical one, which was a ferocious, mongoose-like part of this Rickey's personality. I thought I was very sophisticated at the time for figuring that out. Never mind that the lyrics following this line made absolutely no sense if my theory were true. The point was that my imagination was getting a work out, and that is something I've always treasured more than just about anything else. Of course, when my friend Rickey's mom told me that Rikki (a woman, not a boy) was being advised not to lose a phone number the singer had given her, the banality of it compared to my own fantasy shocked me. I went straight out and bought the 45, my first music purchase.

Shortly after that, I got my first real album (not a Disney record with a picture book and songs from the movie)--in fact, it was a double album: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, which my mother had forbade me, but which my grandmother happily bought me for my birthday. After that it was all over. I left childhood behind very early, and secretly dreamed of being a sexy rock 'n' roll star with a deep voice. From that point on, I was far more aware of what I was listening to, and I started to consciously shape and texture my world with the music I took in, as if through my pores. At times, music felt like a second skin I could don at will to protect the first one. I hung out all the time with older kids, and made a point of reacting to music the same way they did. And the music had to be good. And new. And preferably obscure to semi-obscure. In Bakersfield, that was a challenge not to be taken lightly.

To be continued...

Categories: backstory, music

Hello, good to see you. How do you feel today?
Angry.
So what else is new? And what are we angry about today?
How about everything?
How about being more specific?
Okay, I can sum it up for you in fifteen words or less: I'm angry because the world is not the way I want it to be.
How old are you? Ever heard of a thing called reality? Giving up childhood illusions and all that?
What, so my anger is not even a valid emotion?
No, I'm not saying that. It's valid. It's just not useful, at least in its raw state.
Okay, I know what's coming next. You're going to tell me to transform it, to perform some sort of emotional alchemy on myself, right?
Something like that.
But why am I not allowed simply to express it?
How would you do that--express your anger in its true state?
Don't think I haven't thought about it. I've had visions of terrorism, but of the non-violent sort. You know what I'd really like to do? Strip naked, stand in the middle of the intersection of Hollywood and Highland and let my body convulse at will while screaming my head off till my voice gives out.
Well, I'm sure you'd be carried off and shot up with thorazine before you reached that point.
Yeah, I'm sure. But at least I will have done it.
And what will you have done, exactly? What will you have accomplished?
Release.
But you've released and released and still you find ever more anger to be released. What would it take, in fact, to release it all?
I don't know. Perhaps it's a matter of who witnesses it.
Why do you need others to witness your anger? Do you think they're somehow culpable in its long, ineluctable fomentation?
No, it's mine. It's my anger, I guess. I'm not angry, really, at anyone out there. I've forgiven all the people I've been angry at in my life.
Then do you think anger is useful to share?
I guess I do. To let others know that their own anger is nothing to be ashamed of.
Do you think everyone is as angry as you are?
How could they not be?
Some people might say, "How could you not be happy?"
Crazy people.
And they might think you're crazy, too.
Okay, I understand about different viewpoints. But I still think everyone really is angry deep down inside, if over nothing else but being a spirit trapped in a physical body. Don't you agree that it's often unbearably frustrating, not to be able to make your body do what your spirit wants it to do? Like fly and such? How could anyone not be angry about the way our physical reality works when our spirits are so much more expansive?
What about the way your life works? Isn't that the only thing you're really angry about?
God damn you, yes, I suppose it is. I love the world in fact. The only thing I hate is my own inability to traverse its inherent obstacle course with any ease whatsoever. Wait a minute. No. I AM angry at the powers that be. What is wrong with that? What is wrong with being angry about fanatics and bigots running the world into oblivion? What is wrong with being angry about a population that is so glamorized and transfixed by its own culture that it can't see beyond the spotlight? What's wrong with being angry for all those people who are too sick and tired and downtrodden even to afford the luxury of being angry? What's wrong with being angry about the fact that there's so much unecessary pain in the world, and that I seem to feel all of it, all the time.
Nothing, as long as you don't turn it upon yourself in some destructive way.
But then how DO I express it if I can't be a crazy naked screamer?
I don't know. Like this, perhaps.
Like what, sitting around talking about it?
What's wrong with that?
Nothing, I guess, but I'm still angry.
So, do you think you can do something useful with that anger, or do you think you would have an easier time simply releasing it?
Is that even possible? We've already talked about release.
I'm not talking about screaming and yelling and punching pillows. I'm talking about true release.
Again, is that possible?
I'm sure of it.
But who would I be without my anger?
So you use it as a security blanket.
I guess I do. But it's no longer cogent to my purpose.
And what might that be?
Healing.
Can you see yourself healing your anger, maybe even helping others to heal their anger, or even healing the immense wounds of anger that keep the world at war?
So now we're talking not about transforming or expressing, but about healing? I don't really know what it would mean to heal one's anger.
Then maybe you're not ready for it. In fact, maybe we all need to get just a little bit ANGRIER before we're really willing to do something about it.
No, I'm ready to get over it. In fact, I AM over it. Well, I think I am. Still, I wonder what to do about it. All the things I'm angry about. I think about how I might use my anger to change things all the time, but I can't think straight because I'm too angry.
It's really all a matter of focus, isn't it?
Something else I think about all the time, but can't seem to nurture into reality.
Well, think about it some more, then, but not too hard (and not too soft), or it'll escape your grasp...and we'll continue this conversation during our next session.
Sank you, Doktor!

Categories: healing, emotions, transformation

I had a two-week vacation over the holidays, and I sobbed my heart out (boo hoo) all morning yesterday just thinking about going back to work. My first day back (today) was not as harrowing as I'd imagined. I was able to take on my English teacher persona without much discomfort, though I must say that working a split shift is absolutely dreadful. Going to work twice in one day has a wearing psychological effect that is difficult to sustain. And the relief of getting home from work twice does not offset it. Though I've managed to start using my time productively between shifts (1:30-6:00pm), it still kills me to get up the gumption all over again for that evening class (6:15-9:15). And then it's a late dinner, going to bed on a full stomach, and barely any time to decompress [violins come in here]. Okay, I ADMIT IT--I DON'T LIKE TO WORK, no matter what the job. All I want to do is dance and sing and heal and cook meals for large groups of people (for reasons still hazy to me), but I can't seem to get those passions in alignment with my personal support. In fact, I have no developed talents for any of those things. My life has been all about writing. But writing is getting to me. It feels so removed from the source. Words never quite say what they mean, and meaning itself is so elastic as to make words mere playthings.

Yet I can't say that in general, for I greatly enjoyed reading during my vacation--something I have no time for while working because all my "free time" is spent writing. I sometimes find it unbearably ironic that I'm creating more words and more meaning for the world when there's so much of both already out there that I'd really like to take the time to sit down and study to my heart's content. But I have to work. I have to do. I have to generate product. And sell it. Or sell my time, which is my current situation. It would be nice to harmonize my passion to live and my need to survive. I do believe I can do it in this lifetime, and I'd like to say I'm going to do it lickety-split, but my life feels terribly amorphous and quantum these days: all possibilities existing at once, none of them working their ways into physical reality--at least at any pace discernible to the human eye.

I can see that this is quickly becoming what I'd call a "classic" journal entry. My first impulse is to censor myself and say something clever, make it all into an entertaining piece of inoffensive prose, well-crafted and bloodless. Or maybe I'm being too hard on myself. Anyway, censor be damned, the journal entry continues:

What would I do if I didn't write, which has never made me much of a living anyway? Well, I really don't know because my psyche and soul are barricaded in by a confounding number of walls based on beliefs that I find repugnant, but somehow can't help buying into. Beliefs such as this: that I'm too invested in my life as a writer to give it up; that I'm too old (forty next month) to take off on a whole new tangent; that I really don't have any talent for any other form of expression; that I really don't have any talent at all, just a certain skill for stringing sentences together. And there ya go: I got to that point. That point where the other voice in my head goes, "Wait a minute here. You're not that bad. What are you talking about? Why are you taking yourself so lightly? Why denigrate yourself when you've actually achieved a great deal? Be grateful. What are you so resentful about? Your mind works like a clock, against all odds you're still alive, and you live with a wonderful little family in a nice, comfortable apartment. What do you want, a million bucks and a McMansion? Why can't you just be happy?" And then I think, well, higher-(and rather preachy)-self, that's a question I've been asking myself all my life.

Now, let's see. Maybe it's time to go over this again. Why am I not a happy person? ... You know what? I can't think of one reason off the top of my head except that it's a habit. Like many things. Unhappiness is merely one in a panoply of long-running addictions that have all outlived their usefulnesses. A funny, very pundit-like friend of Philip's swears one needn't so much get rid of old habits as replace them with new ones. Like eating carrot sticks or meditating instead of smoking cigarettes or pot. Like drinking water instead of wine or eating fruit instead of chocolate. Like hoola hooping or hiking instead of sitting around in a foul mood. Like stretching instead of sitting hunched over in front of my computer, wondering what the hell I'm gonna pull out of my ass next. Like loving myself instead of hating the world. Like loving people as much as I love animals, plants--even things. Like doing all the things I know I must do to heal myself instead of just planning to do them someday. Like realizing that someday never comes instead of hoping that it will. Like being happy with the center instead of always having to go to extremes. Like courting balance rather than derangement. Like transforming anger instead of letting it transform me. Like expressing myself instead of worrying about how I am going to express myself, and what effect it might have on others. Like being happy instead of being sad. Sounds so simple.

On. Off. Zero. One. The endless flip of the switches. The machinery of the duality whose expression is life itself. Would we suddenly stop living if the myriad forces that naturally oppose each other suddenly merged? Life is repelled by such merger, I think. The fact that it always remains one step away, or experienced only in certain ways and fleeting moments, as through sex or ecstatic dance or other transcendent practices, is what keeps us alive; the reaching for it fuels our will to live. At the end, we'll merge, soon enough, back into the soup of energy from which our tiny spoonfuls of existence are drawn. Ah, metaphors. They make it so easy to attractively gloss over things you really don't understand. "Oh words are trains for moving past what really has no name"--That's by Paddy McAloon from "I Couldn't Bear to be Special" by Prefab Sprout, a new-wave art band of the early 80s whose lyrics still resonate with me. That line in particular is one of my favorite sentences in the English language. And it expresses beautifully and exactly the conundrum I find myself in these days, as a writer who is sick of words, or at least sick of my own manufacturing of them, and who is going to stop generating them for today (and their little meanings too!) as soon as he finishes this sentence.

Categories: addiction, emotions, meaning, healing

further notes for an autobiographical strip search; world traveler module, 1989-90, Asia; inspired by a rather titillating feeling of absurdity that overcame me during the celebration of a moment in time about 39 hours ago (happy new year)...
Time is arbitrary in India. The difference between Nepal standard time and India standard time, for example, is fifteen minutes, so residents of border towns are obliged to change their watches whenever they cross the imaginary line, and change them back on the way home. This constant temporal flip-flopping renders time a slippery concept on the sub-continent, at least if one enters it from the north. But localized technical aberrations such as this do little to explain the overall discombobulation of time in India. Time is simply a far more spirited, multidimensional and elastic phenomenon there than most westerners can easily imagine. Take a little trip with me, and I'll show you...

When my boyfriend Leon, my friend Nina and I entered India at the Nepalese border on a cold December morning in 1989, the sun slid into a buttery sky at five a.m., illuminating an already bustling border town. Spindly children ran across the unpaved street carrying sweet beige tea to groups of chattering men while silent women with stern, slick hair opened gift shops and drugstores for the early tourist influx.

Before we could divest ourselves of a few rupees to obtain provisions for our long bus ride to Lucknow--home of the nearest train station--we were ushered into Passport Control with the rest of the group we'd traveled with from Kathmandu the night before: six lanky Norwegians lugging skis to their Kashmiri mountaintop destination, a group of German lesbians headed for the holy waters of the Ganges at Varanasi, and a few other wayward travelers like ourselves, courting any new experience that might arise.

The bus was scheduled to depart at seven. The passport officials took so long humming and shaking their heads over each of our visas that we thought we might miss it, but we boarded at five 'til, charmed by the way things always seem to work out just right, no matter how last-minute, when traveling.

The seats on the bus were not wholly uncomfortable and, with our luggage stowed on the roof, there was even room for our knees. The driver was dressed in layers of gauzy white, and bore not a passing resemblance to Pearl Bailey. He puffed his ample cheeks out as he rewrapped his turban, tighter this time, giving the effect of a quickie facelift. The Norwegians jumped aboard with their last-minute purchases of bidis and Life-savers. The engine chugged to life, then all activity seemed to detach itself from the tyranny of time.

The driver leaned from the bus entrance like a wide-eyed tourist on a San Francisco trolley and called out in quickstep Hindi, then English, "Leaving for Lucknow!" A few crimson-clad women carrying macrame shopping bags straggled out of aquamarine doorways and took the last empty seats. Nina, Leon and I conferred with each other: of course, he's just trying to fill the old heap up. After all, he's gotta make a living.

For the next large chunk of time, people crawled out of every nook and cranny of that tiny town, and the bus continued to fill. First, we rearranged ourselves to fit three to a seat, then four, then children and small women were placed on laps. Soon, people were jumbled together in jigsaw proximity, limbs splayed into the air, torsos twisted to fit narrow crevices. When I managed to catch a glimpse of the dainty gold watch on the wrist of the plump, red-saried woman who was perching on my shoulder, it was already ten o'clock. Time for a coffee break.

A few lanky men peeled themselves away from the top layer of bus humanity to follow the driver to a tea shop down the street. The rest of us shifted in tiny, painful ways while we watched them pop gooey gulab jamun into their mouths. Nina tried in vain to open the window nearest her; the man sandwiched between her knees reached up and hit it with his forearm. It quivered, dropped and crashed to pieces in its cavity. By eleven we were on our way. I was pleased to have found a practical use for my years of yoga and meditation practice.

The two-lane highway we barreled down sloped so precipitously on either side that I was amazed the bus didn't roll off into the marshy grasslands we passed. Two hundred miles out of Lucknow, we slowed to a stop where a band of young men and women blocked the road. A student uprising, we thought. A woman in a jeweled, brocaded kurta and a man in dingy white Ghandi-like robes approached the bus. The driver talked to them in hushed tones for about fifteen minutes, then made an announcement in Hindi to his passengers. The woman on my shoulder leaned down to us.

"You are understanding?" she asked.

We shook our heads, no.

"He is saying the woman is high caste, fighting against too many lower caste people getting government jobs, and the man is lower caste, fighting against too many high caste people getting government jobs. So they will be stopping transportation services all over Uttar Pradesh to be making their point."

"Both sides together?" Leon asked.

"Yes," answered the woman, "both sides fighting together."

"Then whose point will be made?" I countered.

The woman shrugged. "Does not matter. The driver is saying they will be throwing rocks and puncturing tires, then we will be getting it mended, then they will be letting us through."

"Why don't they just let us through now, then?" asked Nina.

"Ah," said the woman, wagging her head, "it is not proper yet. They must be making us lose much time."

Nina and I nodded as if we understood. Leon looked irritated--never a good sign. He'd seen similar meaningless political oddities in his native Soviet Union. And he was never one to be kept waiting gracefully. Again, time had taken an unexpected philosophical turn.

Rocks were thrown, windows broken. Everyone ducked as best they could, and, miraculously, no one was hurt. The passengers cheered when the front right tire gave up its air with a loud pop. Since there was nowhere to turn around on the road, the driver ground the gears into reverse, and we sped backwards for twenty minutes to the last roadside town. There we were allowed off the bus to purchase Nehi strawberry, grape or lemon soda--the only refreshments available at the gas station where our tire was being repaired. There were thirty-year-old Nehi posters and advertisements all over the place. Leon and I figured a Nehi representative had been the last dealer in "western culture" to make it that far into the hinterlands.

When it was time to reboard, the Norwegians climbed on top with the luggage. The three of us followed their lead, spreading out between duffel bags, using bedrolls as pillows. The driver yelled up at us to get inside the bus, but when none of us made a move, he started the engine and forged ahead. It was a little scary feeling we could be catapulted off the roof with every rock we hit, but it was worth the exchange for space and fresh air. As promised, the band of high caste/low caste protestors let us pass, and even waved and yelled greetings at us. They seemed to be having quite a good time, mingling and drinking beer and even dancing: time bandits on break.

We stopped at the next little town to let off a few passengers. This time, the driver climbed up on the roof and told us we would have to get inside the bus or he would not continue. He explained that he had been caught with passengers on the roof in the past, and fined five hundred rupees. Nina, Leon and I decided we didn't want to do anything to rock the bus any more than necessary, so we reluctantly slithered through the sea of people inside and wedged ourselves on the corner of a seat near the back. The same red-saried woman sat on my shoulder. "Hello once again," she said.

The Norwegians were not as cooperative. They sat on the roof smoking bidis and yelling back at the driver in Norwegian, which did nothing but make him angrier. Soon everyone inside the bus was yelling back at them in Hindi and broken English. A few men near the front started rocking the old heap from side to side, hoping to pitch the Norwegians off the roof. They only succeeded in making several of the passengers sick. Nina was one of them. She clutched her stomach and groaned. I watched her face drain of its usual rosy color and fill back up with a sickly violet-green.

The Norwegians finally conceded when the driver threw their skis off the top of the bus. They wiggled their way into the crowd cursing in English, and continued to smoke their bidis once they had situated themselves like fenceposts down the center aisle. Nina was beginning to show signs of intense nausea. Her forehead was iron-hot. A little over a hundred miles to go, and it looked like we were free and clear from here on in. I stroked her hand and told her we'd go to the doctor as soon as we got to Lucknow.

A few minutes later, a cloud of dust spread across the road, obscuring the driver's view. As we slowed to a stop, the dust cleared to reveal a huge mob of people, all holding rocks and bottles and sticks. The driver got out and yelled something at them. A young man and a young woman came forward. This time the man was dressed well and the woman was clad in rags. They whispered in each other's ears and giggled like lovers as they approached the driver. The three of them huddled for a few minutes, then the man and woman each yelled something, which caused the mob to break into two factions and lay down their weapons.

They then retired to a small village that was set off from the road beneath a few immense banyan trees. Within minutes, women and children from the village had set up a lean-to and started selling tea and freshly made chapati to the bus passengers and the few mob members who were brave enough to strike out on their own. The driver and the two spokespersons sat in conference at the only table, and their very own tea boy hustled fresh hot water and batches of steaming chapati over to them as they discussed strategies.

Nina was going into convulsions. The over-sweet chai didn't help. A group of curious young children who were too young to help their mothers with their new enterprise gathered around Nina and ran their hands through her long, blond hair. The red-saried woman, who introduced herself as Mira, explained that they probably hadn't seen anyone with blond hair before. Some of the village women came over, too, and soon Nina was encircled by a small mob of chattering people, all grabbing at her hair and stroking her white skin, ignoring the chartreuse tinge. An undeniable product of her guilty-liberal, Marin County, California upbringing, Nina was embarrassed and annoyed by the attention but loath to shoo the crowd away. Mira took over, swatting at the children like flies and chastising their mothers for letting them misbehave so brazenly. Nina's fever was rising, and I was afraid she would pass out if we didn't get her to a doctor.

An hour or so went by. The three strategists now seemed to be having a sort of party, sharing smokes and passing around a bottle of homemade moonshine the driver had kept stashed in his voluminous white garment. Leon was so irked that his usual steely composure was beginning to visibly melt. He was beginning to throw up his hands and gesticulate in an extremely Russian way, indicating a silent cry that went something like, "Oh, why is the world so full of idiots that do nothing but plague me and make my life miserable?!!" Mira advised us to go over and tell them my friend was sick. I asked her to do it.

"They will not be listening to me," she said. "I am part of this because I am Indian. But you can play like you are not understanding. Go try."

I hated pulling rank as the privileged Westerner, but I was really beginning to worry about Nina, so I thought about it for a moment...then convinced Leon, who had a far more imposing affect than I, to stride over to the table and say, "Excuse me, but my friend is very ill, and I need to get her to a doctor."

Before he could even add a polite request to get moving as soon as possible, the driver stood up, threw a wad of rupees at the teaboy, shook hands with the two spokespeople and shepherded everyone back onto the bus. He cleared out the front seat for Nina and Mira while Leon and I perched nearby. Looking at his watch, he said, "Time will be flying now," and started the engine.

The bus reached alarming speeds as we zoomed by the several bus stops on the way into Lucknow. The driver wouldn't stop to let people on or off; he kept smiling back at us triumphantly and patting Nina on the knee. The passengers who had wanted to get off at those stops were apparently caught up in the joint cause of getting this beautiful, tall, very ill, blond American to the doctor as quickly as possible, for they cheered along with the driver. I wondered if he was going to pay them off, or even drive them back; what were they getting out of this? A good story, probably, just like me.

When we reached the Central Station at Lucknow, twilight was just beginning to spread its garish pinks and oranges across the sky. The rest of the passengers exited the bus in a state of flushed excitement; some of them came up to us and shook Leon's hand.

"You see," Mira said, "you have been doing something we would all like to be doing. But we Indians are not making things work. Instead we are only making time."

She showed us where to find the station doctor, and gave us her phone number in New Delhi in case we should pass that way. We thanked her and waved at the driver, who winked at me and gave me the "OK" sign.

Nina threw up in the gutter on the way to the station doctor's office. Her face slowly regained its true color, and she stopped grasping at her stomach.

"I thought I was going to pass out," she said. "I can't believe we're really here."

The train to Agra was three hours late and counting. We washed up, played seven-card stud with two men from Bombay in the waiting room, watched a Tamil soap opera on television, drank A&W Root Beer (Lucknow's answer to Nehi) and ate delicious onion fritters made by an old woman with a little portable cauldron. At midnight, the station was still hopping. Trains due at six were just pulling in, and a noisy musical was playing on the waiting room video machine. We dozed sporadically and played twenty questions.

Our train came, finally, as we knew it would. It was crowded, too, but much less crowded than the bus. No one complained about the train's not being on time. No one apologized, either. In fact, no one seemed to notice. Nina, Leon and I were too tired to care. As far as we were concerned, we had all the time in the world--or in India, at least.

Categories: backstory, friends, travel, India