David Letterman, a public man

DAVID LETTERMAN

Last night I watched a very public man do what men should do when they go along the wrong way, he did what so few public people ever do; he had made errors, he admitted them without excuse, he stopped someone else from taking advantage of his mistakes, and is now focusing on what he can to protect all that he loves in life.

The list of public people who give in to the knee-jerk reaction of denying and lying is a long one, one that has grown continually for decades; the actions of people who ignore the truth that they are responsible. We are all responsible, we all occasionally go down a regrettable path; and then we are similarly responsible for doing what we can to make amends. Letterman has done all that, he has not asked for pity or special favor; he is paying a price now and will to pay more in the future, perhaps a long future.

That some people will feel the need to throw ashes on his head makes me ask how they have responded when they did something wrong; remember that no one has never made a misstep or two, that is how we learn, that is what we are about, it is how a man responds that shows how real qualities of character.

How do you and I respond when we do something wrong? The answer is what is relevant and important here.

A Refurbished Part for the Engine

I have never had the imaginative cues that would have me starting a book nevertheless a saga, I have never done much writing at all other than journals and these few unscripted scribbles, so I don’t know the rules or guides for starting a new chapter, finishing another. About all that I know is intuitive aided by the thoughts of just a few authors and a friend or two.

I know intuitively that I have just completed a chapter of what voyage.

Without resorting to those rules and guides for either novels or non-fiction writing I figure that a chapter has characters whose role grew, diminished or evaporated through the circumstances that the protagonist experiences and how the characters may fit and be important, appropriate or irrelevant. Out of the weather of events and fates the main character emerges into the next chapter a different person, one who is more fitting to his fate. Routes and passageways have been explored carefully so as not to damage the keel although the loss of a little hull paint is no great price as it will be replaced at the next haul-out.

It is not that there are or ever will be winners and losers, instead there is a crew who may or not be aboard for the whole voyage. One plans then begins a cruise with the idea that the plank owners, the original volunteers and the paid crew will be there at the final port; there is no reason at all to believe this, it is a wish coming from inexperience and love. At each port along the way there is the opportunity for some to leave and some to sign on; there is languishing on docks ahead a few whom I have no reason to choose or be chosen because they are as yet unmet. There may or may not be berths open at that time, and once leaving port it is rare to return to sign on someone who had been left on land.

Yesterday I was informed that the engine needed a new auxiliary part and that it would lengthen the time I can be at sea and maneuver me more easily through squalls; this addition came as a complete surprise to the engineers but it will be installed shortly.

Right now the pilot is obtaining charts of what opportunities have just been offered by the current repair, the charts he thinks he needs are now being drawn as the previous are now out of date and will be stored away in the map drawer. Like all charts they provide information, but no chart, no meteorologist, no pilot knows all that lays just beyond the horizon—and that uncertainty is what makes everyone anticipate the long cruise. The pilot has a few more lines from squinting in bright sun , he is not as quick to bend or haul a line as he had been, but this is of little concern because the tackle we carry has been proven and maneuvers well practiced.

The boat will make a test run of but a few days to check out the maintenance and fitting of the rig while thinking again on those new charts that are arriving piecemeal from the cartographer. The anticipation, that anticipation, tomorrow’s anticipation sparks the crew-ready to embark and hoist sails.

POSSIBILITIES

POSSIBILITIES

It is possible to cherish something so much that I destroy it.

It is possible to desire someone so much that I frighten.

It is possible to proclaim so loudly that they cover their ears.

It is possible to do and be all of those efforts; but it is necessary that I try again today and then tomorrow.

The possibility is the prize.

Proof of spring

Buds have formed on the iris outside my window; I noticed their thickness as I went out to pick up the morning paper. I went without a jacket, just a shirt over my undershirt, jeans over my pajamas. The light air felt good and let me think that I might be able to open the windows again today; they were open yesterday for the first time since October, letting wind erase all that winter staleness. A previous tenant had been a smoker, something I didn’t know for about four months after I moved in; then the residue began to bleed through the paint, over the winter that fustiness was captured inside the apartment, a reminder of the decades when I smoked a pipe. Now it is gone, will be gone until next fall.

Relief of another kind came with my internist recommending that I go to the Pain Management Clinic of the Rehabilitation Institute , this option had been in the back of my mind for some months, but like many of us I had planned on taking a tablet three times a day and life will then be just right. This clinic employs the variety and combination that are available from a large teaching hospital, and they are not limited to old-line medical methods. Just knowing that I have an appointment, that a team will evaluate and suggest a plan for me is a relief in itself.

Just seeing the filling bud of the iris confirms that the hard winter is over, that a pleasant and warm time is ahead.

It would be good to have that feeling about friendship, about love, about the future; unlike spring, unlike better medical options there are human situations that have little or no promise, for those dull and lifeless futures I rely on that that I know cannot disappoint, that cannot be changed, that I found when I faced imminent death a decade ago. The knowledge and peace I experienced then will always be with me, was always there even when I was too obtuse to realize it. It is something that everyone has, that doesn’t come from outside, from another authority, from doing good acts or not; whenever I come across as a bit weird and preachy it is from this knowledge that transcends all religions and cults, has always done so.

I am as pleased as anyone to enjoy this change in seasons, as refreshed as the next person; but I am saying that it was something else that supplied happiness and truth during the long and cold winter, as it will during the next.

What was the question?

WHAT WAS THE QUESTION AGAIN?

I was feeling unsettled over something or other, and decided to drive over to Peet’s for a coffee; I don’t know what made me think of doing this, I have the same coffee at home, and the traffic on North Avenue is always to be avoided, especially on my day-off. There was nobody I knew at Peet’s, but there was a dozen people burbling on cell phones; I took my coffee and walked up past the Whole Foods store, questioning as I always did what it was that there business is about, it isn’t just good and pure food, we have always had sources for that, it is that they promise something else, something philosophical or spiritual and pseudo-scientific, I can’t put my finger on their message; but it certainly is successful, their message resonates, especially among a certain group. Could it be that people believe that if one ate just the right combination of foods there would be a special reward? That their food should be thought of as some sort of prescription that will ward off evil spirits and give eternal life; is this what Ponce De Leon had sought and never found?

I stopped in front of Transitions Bookstore , a “new age”café and store with a display of books and lecture announcements all of which seemed to be offering the one true answer, the one right path, the secret of the ages. If there was but one true answer, one great secret–why is it in any number of different books? Why isn’t it taught to every school child in the world? Why would the one important truth in life be limited to these “New York Times bestselling authors”?

I walked on through the stream of pedestrian robots with earpieces supplying the necessarily constant and deadening music, reminding me of Aldous Huxley. Next is this large store with a name that is made-up, selling makeup, that is successful, and not only with women. A lot of people paying a lot of money to pretend to not look or smell as they really do; factor that notion in if you can.

None of these observations are new, none are unique to me; but there is something more going on here, there is something behind all of this avoidance and denial.

In my work I occasionally drive people whose names are familiar, who employ people to make sure that their names and faces are familiar; I drive these people to a place, wait for them to do their thing, then drive them back to the other place. If it is a nice day I often stand outside the limousine and read a book while wait, or just stand and enjoy the passing parade; part of the parade is the awe that comes over people when they think they may be in the presence of someone famous; people who are famous for being famous.

I am far from the first person to witness and note this effect; but what is it that is going on here? How does this relate to what I was noticing at the mall.

The day after my walk through the mall on North Avenue I paid a visit to Bert in the home: He is looking even more drawn than before, I imagine the cancers in there doing their nasty work; the colors on his face and hands becoming more a patchwork of grays and whites, the food stains on his shirt more noticeable because he has just finished lunch, and more lunch is dropping from his slack mouth.

I say hello, he looks up into my eyes, after a few seconds there is a recognition, I say my name, he smiles and moves his hand in an attempt to raise it, I take hold of that cool hand, not too energetically or forcefully I give him a handshake. He is sitting in the hallway, there are about eight of them lined up in the hallway, all in wheelchairs; I pull up an empty chair in order to sit beside Bert. I ask that question that always makes me feel really stupid, I ask him how is it going? What kind of question is that to ask a dying man? What else is there to say? my options are limited here. He gives me a smile and says “oh, you know, it goes”. I ask if he is in pain, that is a required question, one that must be answered on the report form; no he is not in any pain—-good, very good.

There is one question that always brings a wry smile “well, what’s new at this place?” Boredom is the universal among the elderly and the dying, so I try and make some sort of joke about the obvious.

We sit for a while, I make my usual comment about watching the parade go by, I say it because it always makes us both smile. I ask what he had for lunch, less than an hour previous, he can’t remember; did his daughter visit on Sunday, he can’t remember. I sit, he sits, we sit, the lineup of wheelchairs sit in the hallway, near the nurses’ station where they can all be seen in a glance by the always busy nurses and aides.

I stay for about another fifteen minutes, it seems forever; there is nothing here other than hello, a few smiles, a waiting; I can’t stay there longer than that, it becomes pointless, it borders on being depressive, I feel out of place.

I fill out the necessary form, leave a copy on the nurses’ desk, say goodbye to Bert, then I say goodbye to a few others who have come to recognize me over time. One woman takes my hand and compliments me on my new hat, tells me it makes me look good, that she is glad that she got to see this great hat. There is a guy in one of those padded chair/beds that are used for people who have little or no control; I think that he is looking at me, I say hello, he makes a noise, I smile and then move on to the elevator.

On the ground floor, near the elevator, there is a drinking fountain where I always stop and take a long drink; there is something about spending time up there that makes me want to have a long drink of cool water. Then I leave, or do I escape?

My mind wants to make a connection between the questions raised at the mall and the experience of sitting with this dying man who is my good friend, who doesn’t know my name; there is something that is in the back of my mind, it is yelling something in my ear. I refuse to understand what it is that I am being told.

At the mall are offered answers to unasked questions, to made up questions, to stupid questions—–at the home there is no answer, no question, no worthy comment. There is just sitting in the hallway waiting.

I was about to make some comment on what other people are looking for, what is missing in their lives, what keeps them from being right here in the present and not in denial; then I realized that that would be going down the conservative way of blame and criticism, change direction. All that I observed and wrote down here is part of my trying to figure out what I am about, the only person of whom I have any knowledge or control. So what do I think that I am missing, what is absent from this life of mine, what answers will make it all right?

There is nothing missing.

This is it, complete and understandable.

If I sometimes forget this, remind me.

Looking at the garden

Looking out the window at an early spring morning, before life shows itself again.There is something more to us than owning, than beliefs that don’t lead anywhere, than relationships that aren’t mutually loving.

There is that that carries us beyond the most difficult problems, the hardest of times, that continues when optimism disappoints, that offers hope.

In times when pain is at a level that obliterates other thought; in times when anxiety and fear of what might come disturb our understanding of what it is to stay alive; at times when we are sad and frustrated with the knowledge of children tortured and murdered for sport—-at these times, times that each of us has known, at these times we know intuitively something else, something beyond, something infinite. The name, the label, the description is irrelevant unless it interferes; remember that it is always in our nature to look, to seek, to believe in that that is just beyond whatever this is now.

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I don’t have anything specific that prompted me to write the above, there is nothing dramatic going on here, no weather report of interest, no conflict with landlord or boss, nothing much at all; it is just that I need to remind myself of what I wrote, find it within myself. And I thought that somebody else might be prompted to find it also, because it has always been there. I publish this right now because if I don’t do it now the fire will die down, there will be just warm ashes.

Out of beans

I went out for coffee this morning; it was my habit to go to Peet’s every morning, did this for several years until I realized that firing up a cold car on a winter morning for a drive of less than three miles wasn’t quite right just for a cup of coffee. Today I was out of beans so I had this morning’s coffee there and bought a pound of Sumatra; I had a chance to say hello to most everyone who goes there in the morning.

Eric came in on his way to take his dog to the beach, he is about finished his police training, something he had wanted for years, now he has it. I asked if he is learning not to talk to civilians, he agreed that he is learning to stay clear of people who are not cops, people who want to talk to him, ask him, about everything in the world, or out of it. I also asked him if he was carrying, he allowed as he was; there are some crazy guys who hang around the beach where he exercises his dog, you can’t be too careful. Eric has become the attitude of the weapon: have a gun because you might meet up with a crazy guy while at the beach with your dog—–that sums it up.

I was reading that great article by Elizabeth Drew in this week’s New York Review of Books, the one analyzing the state of the political race. Steve came in, Paul came in: all three of us agreed on who should step down, why it should be soon, that the heavyweights of the party need to step in and settle things. There came out again that thing about the need for an idea that will lift us from where we are right now.

I went for a walk afterwards, stopped at Transitions Bookstore to see what books were in their window display, Transitions is a new-age store, a store that sells books at list price, that is success. All of the titles and blurbs offer an answer, the answer; you can tell the really important answers because they are endorsed by Deepak or Oprah, who are the Housekeeping Seals of Approval for answers to your life.

Yesterday I was reading Tillich’s Courage to Be, the part where he writes that faith is being grasped by that that carries you where you ought to be (the book is in the car, so the quote may not be exact).

The thread here is that every single one of us is looking for an answer, a guide, a direction: so you can spend some money to have a certified author tell you what you are missing; next month you can spend money for that month’s certified author to tell you what you are missing. Or you can wait for a political leader to become a national leader, to become an international moral leader to tell you what you need to be, to become. There seems no end of options of answers to what you need.

On the other hand Tillich leaves his answer as “that that grasps you”, you can’t be less specific than that; but he is right, just as Jesus was right when he suggested that whatever I require I already have. If I would only accept that I have it all I could stop searching, why do I hesitate?

It takes a whole bunch of courage to look deeply, to examine clearly each brick of my foundation, to know what it is that I am about, to peek at pillars that are usually left in the dark; a truly scary experience.

It’d be so much better to open a beer, watch some television, read a new book, work a little bit longer; that would be so much easier.

I visited Bert in the home yesterday, he was hospitalized earlier, now his agitation is so strong that he can’t talk about anything other than a single idea, he cycles it again and again, there was nothing to do but leave—nothing that I could do but to leave him. That is hard idea to accept.

There are more than a few hard ideas to accept, but I bet that I can.

Frying

Everyone is familiar with the notion that life can be pictured as a leaf floating down a stream, moving from place to place, occasionally caught for in an eddy or against a pebble, stays for a while before moving onwards and downstream. It is a pretty good metaphor, but what about this one:It is as if I am a piece floating in hot oil, where it touches my outside there is sizzle, after being in it for a short period I develop a crust that protects my inner part from drying out, from being denatured. I float on the surface, I bounce from interaction to incident, being heated by the very hot grease, but not burned.

Yesterday, because of weather delays at O’Hare and the nature of the fare & pay system I earned less than minimum wage for the day; on the other hand I was paid while I was reading volume 3 of Tillich’s Systematic Theology , a book that will take me the rest of my life to read, a book by someone who still surprises me with the depth of his understanding; not paid very much while I reading him, but it wouldn’t be right to be earn big bucks while doing that.

I drove a couple of young corporate types out to O’Hare, their studied shallowness and superficiality pained me to experience. “I was like”, “he was like”; every fourth word was “like”, every fourth word was like experiencing a sleet storm hitting my face; but then it was over, they went on their shallow and controlled corporateness.

Yesterday I was informed that I had a ‘charge-back’ on my pay, a passenger from weeks ago disputed that I should be paid my full gratuity because he was unsatisfied; I remember the order, it was fucked-up from the time it was phoned in until the moment he left the car, nothing about it went right, just the way things go sometimes. It cost me almost a day’s pay; on the other hand there has recently been additional $100 bills handed over at the end of a few orders, just the way things go sometimes.

A couple of days ago I had the painful experience of not being able to see my dying friend Bert, he had just been returned from the hospital and was not to be disturbed; that I am not allowed to know his medical condition, that I am just the anonymous and occasional visitor is a role that I know, it is a well reasoned and predictable role; but it hurts to be turned away, turned and kept ignorant of his condition. On the other hand I have had the warmest smiles from that man that I can remember in my whole life, smiles that were so pure I could barely stand them; it is because we have no history between us, have no agenda between us, that those pure smiles and a thank-yous can happen.

Relations between my landlord and myself are strained, they were never close even though he lives nearby, but they have now been strained; the beauty of the tenant lease defines what I do, what he does, there is no mention of friendship or cordiality, that ain’t part of any lease or contract, that is the beauty of it.

I am back up to 375 mg. of Lyrica; it makes me a little drunk in the morning, but the fibromyalgia pain seems to be gone, I am going to stay at this level as long as I can.

It is now before dawn, I am alone; in order to understand and move through all of this, being alone is necessary; sometimes I am lonely, the loss of family and friends is painful, should be painful, but it doesn’t destroy me.

A few people will read what I write, almost no one who I know face to face; anonymity allows me to write about this journey just before dawn on a Friday in early springtime. I do think that this can be viewed as a journey in boiling oil, oil full of energy and the ability to change who I am on the outside, if I don’t have some sort of crust on I would be destroyed. After a while my time in the oil will be done, I will be removed, as will each and every one of us; the trip is eventful, it is painful, it is hot, it is disturbing, it impinges, it is wonderful.

The sky is becoming lighter in the east, the coffee in the pot is luke-warm, Aged Sumatra is the label on the bag, great tasting stuff that I can still taste a few hours afterwards, great stuff that stays in my blood and gives me that coffee jolt.

It is important to have a book, or books, that I will never completely understand; for the last while I have been giving books away, books that I never go near anymore, that don’t have anything more for me, I have drank all that is in there; certainly I have the Internet for data, for searching; but I have a few actual books that move me each time I open one of them. I once read that the Bible is not holy unless it moves the reader in a spiritual way, only then it becomes holy, and for just that time, otherwise it is just a collection of works decided on by some guys on an island a couple of centuries after Christ died, guys who needed to stitch together an empire of land and thought.

I am going to have a morning nap after reading a few pages of Larry McMurtry’s Telegraph Days, loaf around until it is time to go back to work.

Cook a piece of trout

I met a guy I know in the supermarket the other day, he asked me what I was cooking, I showed him the fillet of trout; he told me that he was going to make some kind of soup with a standard soup recipe; then he told me that he liked fish but was afraid of cooking it. His fear keeps him from what he really likes; fish is just a little bit of flesh, to be cooked as any other kind of flesh, and if he screws it up the worst that could happen is that it is thrown away and he has to make a peanut butter sandwich. I suggested that if he is afraid to cook fish that that is what he ought to be making.

There is this really bright and effective guy who has done something that caused him to lose his big job and strain his family.

There was a time when I often used sex as an antidote to anxiety. I don’t know if I have ever written that before, admitted it before:– it really doesn’t matter in the scheme of things what I did, what anyone did, and so we might as well admit to them.

There are people who feel the need to put down their children’s aspirations, who can offer only conditional love and acceptance; there are people who are so afraid of human interactions that they must have everything on a competitive or unemotional level; there are people who do all sorts of things because of anxiety and the other demons. These demons are in the nature of all people, always have been, always will be. Perhaps we could admit that, and go on from there?

Now that nature has relieved me of the sex option, or toned it down somewhat, I need to live with and face my anxiety without the sex option, which I have been doing for about a decade now.

I write this with the understanding that it is not guy talk, not something to be discussed, and that is the problem. All of us have something or other, the more we sit on that something or other the more it hurts both ourself and others.

I am fortunate that I am in a position now that I don’t give a shit who knows what is going on, I have more important matters of concern; I now spend my energy examining what has been called the ultimate concern.So maybe I can do a bit of service by just putting down here what I feel, I experienced, I did, without the worry of concealment.

I don’t know if the guy who lost his big job yesterday has anxiety problems, don’t really care because it is none of my business; but he does have something that he tried to conceal, concealing causes a lot of damage. A decade ago there was this guy who nearly lost a very big job, because of concealment of something that affected him unduly. His wife may not get that same very big job because it is perceived that she conceals herself.

I have written previously of the instances of family members not admitting that dad is dying, keep believing that a new medicine will keep him from dying, that the medicine he now gets is making him act the way he is; family members who are looking away from what is the most natural thing in life, who are missing the opportunity to share and befriend dad as he goes about his business of dying.

I have no illusions that admitting to anxiety, writing about avoidance will change anyone’s mind; but I feel that it needs be said, that yesterday’s example will be taken by at least one person.

Buy a piece of trout, cook it just like a hamburger; the worst that can happen is that you will have to eat a peanut butter sandwich.

Use Another Label

I was reading the review of Nothing To Be Frightened Of by Julian Barnes in the Times Literary Supplement, there is this quote from him and an addition by the reviewer John Carey: ‘ “I don’t believe in God, but I miss him,” he admits — a perfect summary of the modern western predicament.’

That line stuck in my head, a day later I am putting down here my reaction to it. The intuitive need for a Spiritual life is the clue to follow, get to know what it is that summons, that offers more than is obvious. Become intimately acquainted with what you already know, have always known; be your own guide and tourist; for the time being stop using labels and rules, look to where intuition has always been willing to guide.

Never forget that the church is an institution, set up as an organization by a bunch of guys who wanted to please an emperor, have a creed that all would obey; they chose writings that would be allowed in the book, and those that would be forbidden, wrote that promise of obedience–the creed. I have no idea what the intentions were in these men, I do know about the emperor, the meeting on the island, orthodoxy; all may have been done for noble reasons, but no other person can know the divine better than any other, that is the essence of being acceptable, it has been the power of the example for two thousand years, it is in the nature of being.

The symbols, the rituals, the liturgy will return and be even more important, but only after one knows the nature of the divine, one has looked inside and found the truth. All the other stuff is nice, and it fits; it is supplementary, it does not lead one to understand the ‘ultimate concern’.

By whatever name one uses the absence of it does leave a void, the important missing part; the need and the quest to know are the basis of the First Commandment, true then true now.

The word “God” carries so much baggage for me, so much that is not my own that I refrain from using it when I look into my own soul and when I write; a term that often fits for me is “wellspring of being”, it portrays not only the source, but is active and ongoing, has the mystery of the source of the spring. Most often I use no word; attempt to be beyond words; to be beyond emotions, accept them, transcend them; step slowly and carefully into the void, with the courage to go towards the infinite.