I Know the Way

Apple Maps says it's this way, Google Maps says it's that way. Either way will take a long time. I know another way anyway, and it's not that bad a way, so I'll go my way. 

AllRecipes.com says cook it this way, Food.com says cook it that way; either way is complicated. I know my way is simpler, and it's tasty but I'll never know if it's tastier than the AllRecipe or Food ways unless I try them. But I don't care because I like my way, so I'll cook it my way.

Instagram says wear it this way, TikTok says wear it that way; either way seems ostentatious. I know my way is inconspicuous, but I like it that way, so I'll wear it my way.

The Pattern app says this will happen to me, the Sanctuary app says that will happen to me. Either happening is distasteful and uncomfortable to me. I plan to do something reckless, maybe dangerous, but far more tasteful and comfortable, so I'll do it my way.

The battery of my phone died, and I'm still here. That doesn't matter anymore. I know the way.

Why I Came

I came to your wedding uninvited. You have known the groom for three years, I have known you three hours. With him you have traveled the world. With him you have seen hundred-year-old sea turtles circle your anchored schooner along the Great Barrier Reef, fed Atlantic puffins upon the rocky fields at the Cliffs of Moher, tasted freshly picked lechosa near Angel Falls, heard the thunder of bighorn sheep head-butting in the Grand Canyon, lost your breath at the radiance of the aurora borealis in Akureyri. With him an Indian Chief in Acoma explained the oneness of the earth and humanity, a Buddhist Lama in a Tibetan gompa described the sanctity of the balep he fed you, a Wiradjuri elder by the Wambuul River told of the secrets the sun and the moon keep, a Yanomami Pata Thëpë in an Amazon rain forest summoned the spirit of the macaw. 

But in only three hours, I, no longer a stranger to you, foreshadowed all these moments. I laid at your feet the mysteries of life, and you received them as if you had been waiting for me long before you knew my name. Yes, just for the unbearable delight of looking into your eyes, touching your cheek, holding your hand. I remember the warmth of your fingers closing around mine, then loosening, as if even then some merciful part of you was practicing leaving me. You would not have gone with him to these places and listened to those wise leaders if it were not for my urging. I beheld you, beheld you, beheld you, penniless, rich with passion and desire, not of the flesh but of the spirit. Is that not what you wanted? We met years ago, but I have never forgotten those three hours with you; they have outlived meals, cities, illnesses, prayers, every sensible attempt to call them small. I have always been with you—in the silence before sleep, in the instant before laughter, in every distance you crossed with him. Your union with him may endure, but your bond with me is of stone. We get one chance in this world. You were mine for less than an evening.

You know I am here, don't you? Without looking at me, you see me. I saw it when the music began: the smallest break in your smile, the breath you swallowed before anyone else could notice. I know you won’t approach me, though your husband will eject me from your wedding without ever knowing who I am. You won’t approach me because if you come near enough to hear me breathe, if you look at me once, you know my answer will be the same as when I came to you at the start of our three hours together years ago, when you were standing alone in Greenwich Village, or was it on the Croisette, or was it on the Grand Canal, or was it near the Chillon Castle, when you asked me, in a language you were learning, “Why did you come here?”

Knowing Differences

One of my two pens is out of ink, and I've been looking all over for my other pen. I was writing about the differences between people, places, and things with the same name. We humans are remarkable that we can distinguish among them.

I would have started with people. My girlfriend's name is Onyx, and Onyx is the only Onyx I have ever met, so I can't compare her to another Onyx. I could compare her to my last girlfriend, but that's not what I'm after here. I have way too many friends named John. There's John Amato, John Devers, John Edison, John Figueroa, John Hines, John Rodriguez, and John Vanucci. I wouldn't know which two to compare, and if I did, the other five would be offended that I didn't compare them. Come to think of it, the two I'd compare might be pretty upset too. I know only two Steves, Steve Jennings and Steve Wolfson, but their likenesses are far more interesting than their differences. Maybe I'll write about those similarities some other time. And I know two Kims, Kim O'Dell, a man, and Kim Savage, a woman. I'm not in an emotional or intellectual (or political, come to think of it) place where I can describe the differences between a man and a woman except for the obvious biological aspects.

I wanted to compare two Blue Lagoons, the one in Comino, Malta and the one in Grindavik, Iceland. They are entirely different aquatic experiences. And the differences between Broadway in Nashville and Broadway in New York, which are quite different in magnitude and culture. I cannot say much about differences between Georgia in the United States and Georgia in Europe, because I have been to the state but not the country.  I could say a thing or two about Hollywood in California and Hollywood in Florida, but why bother? However, I would enjoy writing about the differences between Neptune, New Jersey and the planet Neptune, even though I have not been to the planet, but there's a story there, only I can't find the other pen. 

As for differences in similarly named things, I am moving too far to the obvious. I could write about the differences between the bow to be tied and the bow of a ship, or the bat to be swung and the bat that flies, or the trunk that stores clothes or the trunk of an elephant, but I'm not writing to first graders. On the other hand, writing about the differences between the cell that a prisoner lives in and the cell that's the smallest unit of an organism would be interesting, I suppose.

Then you have confused nomenclature. Like Madison the person and Madison, Wisconsin, the place.  Or Aurora the person and aurora the thing. Take Wembley, England, the place, and Wembley ice cream, the thing. How can one keep track?

Back to my two pens. I know one is a Cross and one is Parker, but I don't know which one is out of ink and which one is missing because I threw out the dried up one and the trash collectors already picked it up. Maybe when I finally find the missing one, I'll see that I mistakenly threw out the one with ink. At that point, what difference would it make which is a Cross and which a Parker? And anyway, their names are different. So this is all very much beside the point.

I Know Why

I have bought books in City Lights in San Francisco, Foyle's in London, Moe's in Berkeley, Shakespeare and Company in Paris, and Strand in New York, but I cannot recall most of what I have read. I have seen art in the National in Beijing, the Prado in Madrid, the Metropolitan in New York, the Louvre in Paris, and the Vatican in Rome, yet I remain so uneducated about art. I have heard jazz shows in A-Trane in Berlin, Bohemia in Granada, Jazzhus Montmarte in Copenhagen, Stampen in Stockholm, and Yoshi's in Oakland, but I cannot tell you who performed there. I have walked the Bright Angel Trail in the Grand Canyon, Cadillac Mountain Trail in Acadia, Highline Trail in Glacier, Mist Trail in Yosemite, Skyline Trail in Mount Rainier, and if you put me on one of these trails, I would not be able to distinguish it from the others. And you, I have met you in so many places over so many years and talked with you about so many things, and here I am unable to tell you where, when, and what. But I can tell you why. May I see you tomorrow to tell you?

The Pretense of Southern Exposure

Just too much can go wrong. Starting with wanting her. The moment they separated their bodies after making love for the first time, he knew it was over. So why did he bother? 

He lay next to her considering his ex-wife. Certain things are hard to get over. She understood him better than anyone. Even his mother never really knew him. He remembered his mother once told him, "You're my only child, but for the life of me I'll never figure you out. Your father was as transparent as the invisible man before I kicked him out for good. But you're another story altogether." When his ex-wife said she'd leave him for good, a flood of confusion seized him. All that data about him would now be compromised—how he refused to eat anyone's cooking but his own, how only he could do his own ironing, how he stacked on the bedroom dresser loose change from his pocket in a tower from quarters at the base to nickels to pennies to dimes at the summit. She said he didn't care about her. But that's not true. If it were, why was he thinking about all this now? 

He got out of bed leaving her there, put on just his pants, and walked outside. The rising sun was radiating on the front of his house. The clapboard siding and shutters needed painting. The white paint from the clapboard and the black paint from the shutters were peeling, especially on the southern side of the house. He could not forgive himself for buying into the brazen lie about the advantages of southern exposure. He needed to paint but he needed a change. This time he thought, he'd paint the clapboard black and the shutters white. And he'd get started right away. He wouldn't wait for her to leave. And if she did, it wouldn't matter. Not this time.

Wanting to Make Art

I woke up this morning with a feeling I never had before. I wanted to make art of something, anything, but I'm not sure what art looks like, sounds like, feels like.

On the subway to my college art history class, a painting popped up on my phone, "Flaming Summer Meadow" by Brazilian artist Janaina Tschäpe. I really like it, it made me want to paint something like that myself. But when I showed it to my art professor, who won a Pulitzer Prize for criticism, he said, "Where's the art in that painting?" I didn't know how to answer him. What could I say? The sheer human emotion that I saw in it? The radiant colors that brought together what people and nature have in common? I didn't say anything becuase I was sure my art professor knows more about paintings than I do.

Then I went to the park to meet my best friend for lunch. My friend is one of the most educated, worldly people I know. He knows something about everything. While I was waiting for him, I was reading Jon Fosse's Septology. What an interesting book, I thought. All stream of consciousness, one long sentence over hundreds of pages. It made me want to write a book myself. When my friend arrived, he said, "Don't tell me you're reading that timewaster. I see you're almost finished part one. Don't bother with the other six parts. It's more of the same. Seven hundred pages of emptiness." I didn't know what to say to my friend. But on the subway ride back home, I thought about it. I realized I could have said for me the book was a deep examination of what it means to be alive, to create art in absolute isolation, to choose a life of solitude, to be a deeply self-examining Catholic, to survive troubled family relationships and lingering suicidal thoughts, that if art were life as life really is, then this book is a consummate work of art. But it was too late, and I didn't want to call out my friend on his judgment, because his friendship meant too much to me and, after all, he has read more books than I ever will and probably knows better about Fosse's book than I do. Maybe I'm just misreading it.  
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When I got home, I told Alexa, "Play 'Tití Me Preguntó' by Bad Bunny" as I lay in my bedroom. I am not a big rap fan and don't understand Spanish, but I like the swing of this song and I've memorized the lyrics in translation. I can't get that songe out of my head. Maybe that's what I should do, write lyrics for some rapper. I think I'm a pretty good writer, and I completely get rhythm and meter. No sooner did I think that than my father knocked on my door, more like pounded on it, and shouted, "Turn off that garbage. Why don't you ever listen to real music?" It's his house, and I'm living on his dime, so I can't argue with him. He’s entitled to his opinion, especially since he’s always playing sonatas in the living room on the Steinway piano he inherited from his father. Makes me wonder, how did I end up with no talent? So down went Bad Bunny. And my father did get me to think. Maybe “Tití Me Preguntó” isn’t real music. If art is forever, then he has a good point when he says that the music of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven has lasted nearly three hundred years and all the stuff I listen to disappears in no time.  

Now it's past midnight. I can't sleep. I'm in bed thinking what a weird thought I had this morning when I woke up. How can I make art when I don't know what it is. I hope the same thought doesn't waste another day tomorrow.

Living in the Past

You say I live in the past, but how can I not when I'm with you? When I'm alone, I'm in the present, preparing that Greek salad, washing the toilet, mowing the lawn, or buying groceries. True, when I leave out an ingredient, when the toilet isn't spotless, when I miss a section in the lawn, when I forget to buy an item, it's because I'm living in the future, imagining what the trip to Maui will be like, or how I can get the best possible price for a flight to New Orleans, or where we will stay when we travel to Miami. But I'm usually in the present when we're apart. 

I have known you a long time, most of the years of my life. When you lie in bed with the veins in your legs throbbing in pain after twelve miles of hiking, please don't interpret my smiling at you as a sign of indifference. I'm thinking about how those legs have walked thousands of miles with me through trails in the Grand Canyon, Arches, Mount Rainier, Yosemite, Yellowstone, Great Smoky Mountains, and Acadia, and the streets of New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Athens, Paris, Rome, Berlin, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, Helsinki, and Valletta. When I laugh apparently out of nowhere, I'm recalling your reactions when your father or mine said something inappropriately yet wickedly funny during family gatherings. When I seem distant as you talk about something we need to get done, I'm not shirking a responsibility. I'm reflecting on the many accomplishments and setbacks we have shared, and how all these events have brought us to his beautiful place. And when tears well in my eyes at the end of Casablanca, Death in Venice, Paris, Texas, El Norte, Cinema Paradiso, or Central Station, I cry not for the fate of the these fictious characters but for losing family members and friends who can no longer share their radiance with me, for those poor, humble, kind people who have served me and will never reach my status, and for those who have helped me throughout my life, who have changed my life for the better, without receiving more than a thank-you from me.

So tell me, what's so bad about living in the past? Don't you?

A Walk in Greenwich Village

You are eighteen, your first day walking in the city alone. At 9:01 a.m., you emerge from the dark subway staircase of Christopher Street/Stonewall into the light of Christopher and Seventh Avenue South. Awaiting you at the top of the subway staircase stands an ancient man, stooped, both arthritic, spotted, wrinkled hands on his cane. He smiles at you, his few brown teeth rattling, He says no hardship will befall you with him beside you. You surprise yourself by nodding affirmatively, and he accompanies you, right hand holding the cane and left hand holding your right. But the walk will now be far slower. As you head north, you notice every detail, the doorframes and cornices on the buildings, the Rainbow Pride flags draped over the black iron fencing of the Sheridan Square Viewing Garden, the commemorative plaque on Stonewall Inn, the clothes passersby wear, as the ancient man shuffles beside you.

Crossing Seventh Avenue South is painfully slow with the ancient man, but he assures you the traffic will wait patiently. Not one aggressive honk comes from the bus, taxis, trucks, and private cars. You finally get to the west side of Seventh Avenue, in front of Little Ruby's Café, which occupies the southern point of the triangle bordered by West Fourth, West Tenth, and Seventh Avenue South. "This place used to be the Riviera Café," says the ancient man. "It was around for forty-eight years. When they opened in 1969, I took my wife there. We were their first customers." You want to ask his age, and whether his wife is still alive, but you don't.

At Tenth Street and Seventh Avenue South, you turn west past Small Jazz Club. "I play there every now and then when they have jam sessions," says the ancient man. "I'm a pianist. Do you know Warne Marsh? Red Mitchell? Stan Levey? I jammed with those guys when they needed a pianist back in fifty-seven. I played with lots of other guys too." You look at his gnarled fingers but have no reason to doubt him.

You think this will be a long walk, an endless walk, a walk that will age you. You begin to feel with every step that the ancient man is getting younger and you are getting older, that he is sucking your youth from you. You want to get away but you know this ancient man knows something you need to know, nothing your father knows, your older brother knows, your teachers know, your friends know. But you get to West Fourth and Tenth, and the ancient man gently steers you east, back toward the Christopher Street/Stonewall Subway Station. He asks you to take him back to the top of the staircase where you met him.

That final one hundred-meter walk down the block and across the street to the station seems a lot faster those first steps. The ancient man has quickened his pace, his cane not touching the ground, until he is leading you, and you are having trouble keeping up with him. He jumps onto Seventh Avenue South against the Don't Walk sign with traffic rapidly speeding downtown toward you. He pulls you up on the curb of the station entrance as if you were a small child. In fact, you feel like one now.

"I told you no harm will come to you," says the ancient man. He lets go of your hand, puts both hands on his cane, stoops, and stares down the staircase, just like when you met him. You stand there, winded, looking at him for guidance. He signals for you to return to the subway below. You planned to be in the Village all day, but you do as the ancient man tells you. You get to the first landing and look up at him. A young woman ascends the staircase past you. She and the ancient man exchange some words that you can't quite make out, she stakes his hand, and they disappear from sight.

It is 9:25. As you turn toward the next flight of steps to the subway platform, you realize that while you are only eighteen, with a lifetime ahead of you, you still must make better choices.

A Window

I am looking at the window that I have looked out at for the past thirty-seven years. From this window, I have seen seasons change, the morning summer sun spreading across this room as an invitation to join the world outside, the early afternoon autumn leaves fall from the dogwood and the grass browning like a defeated old man succumbing to his sorrows, the late day snow creating a soft blanket of hazy forgetfulness on the lawn, and at dusk the white flowers bloom on the dogwood promising life to an awakened spirit.

But, as I said, I am looking at, not out, the window. Its wooden frame, once stained a walnut matte finish but now overpainted white. I can still see what it once looked like and still long for the darker look. What was I thinking? But I no longer possess the ambition, patience, or skill to strip the paint, sand the wood, and restain the frame to its original appearance. So white it shall stay.

The single-panel double glass pane, its weatherstripping still holding after all these years. I have seen the unsightly consequences of air entering the space between the two panes, causing a cloudy appearance. I have spent years, off and on, worrying that such an unpleasant situation would befall my windows. I am pleased to say that all this concern was entirely unnecessary. But why is so much air passing between the sash and the casing? Why is it so cold in here? I see no daylight, yet something must be wrong.

But those ornery lift bars. Only half an inch separates them from the stool, making it challenging to lift the windows. Don't push them down too quickly or your fingers will get jammed between the bar and stool, likely breaking some bones. Who thought of such an impractical design? Doesn’t the manufacturer do usability testing? Aren’t there laws such dangerous mechanisms?

No wonder I’ve been looking out, and not at, the window these 37 years.

Lost and Found

Have you seen the things I've lost? Just asking. Thirty-four years ago, I lost my high school senior ring when my house was burglarized. I know you and I have never met, and I know the burglary was a long time ago, but that ring must be somewhere, right? Maybe it ended up in your possession by way of a garage sale, a visit to an antique store, a find on the street, or some other way unfathomable to me right now.

I am also looking for Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, The Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser. I know I lent those three books to different people, though I cannot remember who, and at different times, though I can't remember when. Actually, I have a good suspicion of who borrowed the Csikszentmihalyi book, but I dare not ask him out of embarrassment because he has gifted me so many books over the years. Sometimes I will bring up this matter in a conversation with him, saying something like, "I'm still trying to find that Csikszentmihalyi book but can't for the life of me find it." I get no response from him, which makes me wonder if he has lied to me about many other things throughout our long friendship. I still want to look up things in those books, but I refuse to buy another copy in the hope that someone, maybe you, might return them. One point I should make about the Rukeyser book. My wife insists that I never owned it, that it was just a wish list book. But how can she know all of the thousand or so books I have owned? Plus, I recall like it was yesterday thumbing through Rukeyser's poems, feeling alternately helplessness,  numbness, hopefulness. How could I have not owned that book? For this and other reasons, I have stopped lending people books. They never return them unless I ask for them, and I cannot bring myself to ask. 

Now you might be thinking if I cannot bring myself to ask people I know to return the things I've lent them, then how could I possibly ask you, a total stranger, to return something in the improbable event that they ended up in your possession? I would say you've got an excellent point, I would thank you for raising it, and I would reflect on that fine piece of logic, as I also ponder all I have lost. But, believe me: even though I have no proper answer for you, I will still ask if you have them. And who are you not to answer?

I Am Forever

I can see nearly forever from here, but not quite. Everyone I know is beside me. Everyone I ever met but do not see any more is behind me. Everyone I have never met but will is before me, but even if I look ahead, I cannot see them. 

I look beside myself. Those beside me see what I am seeing, some beyond my range, some before my range. Some of them I agree with about what I see. Some I disagree with but understand why they see what they see, and they understand why I see what I see. Some I disagree with but understand why they see what they see but do not understand why I see what I see. Some I disagree with and will never understand why they see what they see, but they will understand why I see what I see. Some I disagree with and will never understand why they see what they see, and they will never understand why I see what I see. 

I look behind myself. Very few of those behind me ever met can still see me. Those few who can still see me see someone different than what I now am. Those many who can no longer see me still carry me with them without knowing it, so they are different than they would have been if they had never met me. I too carry them with me and I am different than I would have been if I had never met them.

Although I cannot look before myself, I try. I imagine that some of them will pass by in an instant and move behind me for good. Some will stand beside me for a while and then move behind me for good as well. Some will stand beside me and stay with me until I move behind them for good. Those will expand the range of what I can see. 

There are also those who may seem to be before me but will never stand beside me or move behind me. But the more I think about those, the more I see that they never were and can neither be nor will be. 

Then there are those who can no longer be beside, before, or behind me. Those I still see, sometimes  more clearly than those still standing beside me, even though I have changed because of those beside me.

Finally, there are others too, but I have no way of placing them beside, behind, or before me. Because of all those beside, behind, and before me, and maybe those someplace else, I am forever.