Today is a great day in America. We can breathe again. No words are needed. I offer you this.
Being. Home.
A quiet Sunday today with a couple of long phone calls to close friends, adjusting to being home. Adjusting to being... not doing, not driving, not coping with a trauma, not teaching, not in someone else's space, not living out of a suitcase. Adjusting to home... waking up in the middle of the night after more than a week- still wondering what bed am I in, which side of the bed do I need to get out on, where is the bathroom, what is my once-normal morning routine, how did I used to fix my coffee, where is the coconut oil? Oh- there isn't any. I took it on my road trip and left it at Mimi's house two months ago.
Listening to a hawk outside, feeling grateful and exhausted, physically, mentally, emotionally... but better than yesterday. As I settle into myself I think, "I feel like my heart has been pulverized"- having watched my son go through a recovery from neurosurgery that took a downward turn before he started coming back. He did... he has done amazingly well. And now I am starting to come back. My body got back 10 days ago. The rest of me is taking longer.
I am allowing myself to be quiet, to only talk to the people I am ready to talk to. I don't know who that will be from one day to the next. Simply allowing the urges to connect or to withdraw as they arise in the moment.
My heart is soft (pulverized). The image is a chicken breast that has been pounded to tenderize it. My heart has been tenderized! I like that.
I was deeply moved by a speech Leonard Cohen gave after being given a poetry award in Spain. I wept at the end. That is when I realized the condition of my heart. I don't think I want to change it. I like the pliability, the feeling that I don't need to harden it, to steel myself against the waves of emotion. I was told years ago by an astrologer "Your power lies in your ability to feel." That ability has just been ramped up a few notches.
Happy Birthday Mr. Cohen
Well, it's actually after midnight but I'm still up so in my book it's still today and I am here to wish Leonard Cohen, the poet who came down from the mountain, a very happy 82nd birthday with my gratitude that he is still with us. The recent passing of David Bowie, two days after his (and my) birthday is very present.
One of my favorite movies is the beautiful documentary and tribute concert to Leonard Cohen, I'm Your Man. Martha Wainwright did an incredibly poignant rendition of his song "The Traitor." I think you would have to be very near death not to feel as if your heart was being wrung out like a sponge with this one.
What Makes a Story Worth Telling?
I just watched Nick Cave's very myopic movie "20,000 Days on Earth"- I
LOVED it!!! If you don't like Nick Cave you would probably find it
extremely irritating at best. It could be interpreted as narcissistic I
suppose. I was captivated by his music the first time I saw "Wings of
Desire"- not music I would hang out and listen to ordinarily but in a
particular context I find it hypnotizing. When I saw the Leonard Cohen
tribute film "I'm Your Man" I saw a different side of him and found him
not only fascinating as a musician but as a person- eloquent and
thoughtful.
So I was very excited for this film to come out and was deeply disappointed not to be able to see it at the time. I was so happy when I saw tonight that it was on Amazon Prime. My TV is hooked up to a great stereo so it was perfect.
I was so taken by it within the first 30 seconds or so that I grabbed a notebook and began taking notes. It was so meaty and I knew that I would quickly forget much of what struck me.
Some of the things I wrote down (and some slightly adapted for the purpose of this blog):
Wonderfully myopic film by/about Nick Cave. I am haunted by his music. His father [said to him after a concert] "You are like an angel."
Thoughtful, beautifully eloquent
Biggest fear "Losing my memory... because memory is what we are."
"Those moments when the gears of the heart really change."
He was talking about daredevil stunts they used to do as kids and I thought, My childhood was thwarted by fear.
Before you go on stage you don't know how you're going to do it. It seems impossible. Then something happens when you get on the stage. Everything else falls away.
Here is where I have to interject and put in my two cents worth. He is talking about the transformation that happens for the performer and by virtue of that to the audience, and he tells a story about Nina Simone- a concert where he opened up for her and she was raging before the concert- angry and demanding, the impression of someone snarling like an animal and scaring everyone around her. She comes out on stage and she walks up to the edge of the stage and stares the audience down. Then she goes and sits down at the piano, takes her gum out of her mouth, sticks it on top of the piano and pounds on the keys... And then she goes through this total transformation, and she is loving what she is doing. She connects with the audience, they connect with her. Everyone is completely blown away. This is his example of the transformative power of the stage, where everything else disappears and for a little while you can forget who you are.
Here is where I disagree- maybe it's just a matter of semantics. I'm not sure- but my take on this is that, first of all, this is like life. In fact, this is life. So many things that we are faced with- and we say, "Nope, I can't do this one. Too much. Too big. No can do." But it's one of those situations we can't walk away from- whether it's because it's our calling and our vocation, whether it is an obligation that we must fulfill. Doesn't matter. We're there and we have to walk through because we're in it for the long haul. And when we step into it- like stepping on the stage- we remember who we are and why we are here and there is no question that, Yes- I can do this! In fact many times we don't even think about it because there is no choice to be made. We feel the fear, we acknowledge it (or not) and we step up to the plate, and all the other stuff just falls away because we have just met our true calling. Not necessarily in terms of our life's work, nothing so grandiose, but for that moment, for that situation our job is to be present and to handle whatever is in our face. Could be a job interview, could be a sick child, could be a performance... it's whatever our fear is in the moment. Every moment, every choice. That is our life.
This movie is about self-exploration. It's about calling up and honoring the ghosts of the past. Our life doesn't become a story until we tell it. When we are in it, it just seems chaotic and confused. It's in the telling that it becomes a story.
What makes a story worth telling? If it has value to us, then it is a story worth telling. Maybe we just need to find the right person to tell it to. I told my therapist today that I was there to untangle the threads of the past. That's what I feel like this movie is doing and maybe that is why I was so moved by it. That and the fact that the cinematography and the sound- not just his music but the accompanying sound- is absolutely brilliant.
I was so taken by it within the first 30 seconds or so that I grabbed a notebook and began taking notes. It was so meaty and I knew that I would quickly forget much of what struck me.
Some of the things I wrote down (and some slightly adapted for the purpose of this blog):
Wonderfully myopic film by/about Nick Cave. I am haunted by his music. His father [said to him after a concert] "You are like an angel."
Thoughtful, beautifully eloquent
Biggest fear "Losing my memory... because memory is what we are."
"Those moments when the gears of the heart really change."
He was talking about daredevil stunts they used to do as kids and I thought, My childhood was thwarted by fear.
Before you go on stage you don't know how you're going to do it. It seems impossible. Then something happens when you get on the stage. Everything else falls away.
Here is where I have to interject and put in my two cents worth. He is talking about the transformation that happens for the performer and by virtue of that to the audience, and he tells a story about Nina Simone- a concert where he opened up for her and she was raging before the concert- angry and demanding, the impression of someone snarling like an animal and scaring everyone around her. She comes out on stage and she walks up to the edge of the stage and stares the audience down. Then she goes and sits down at the piano, takes her gum out of her mouth, sticks it on top of the piano and pounds on the keys... And then she goes through this total transformation, and she is loving what she is doing. She connects with the audience, they connect with her. Everyone is completely blown away. This is his example of the transformative power of the stage, where everything else disappears and for a little while you can forget who you are.
Here is where I disagree- maybe it's just a matter of semantics. I'm not sure- but my take on this is that, first of all, this is like life. In fact, this is life. So many things that we are faced with- and we say, "Nope, I can't do this one. Too much. Too big. No can do." But it's one of those situations we can't walk away from- whether it's because it's our calling and our vocation, whether it is an obligation that we must fulfill. Doesn't matter. We're there and we have to walk through because we're in it for the long haul. And when we step into it- like stepping on the stage- we remember who we are and why we are here and there is no question that, Yes- I can do this! In fact many times we don't even think about it because there is no choice to be made. We feel the fear, we acknowledge it (or not) and we step up to the plate, and all the other stuff just falls away because we have just met our true calling. Not necessarily in terms of our life's work, nothing so grandiose, but for that moment, for that situation our job is to be present and to handle whatever is in our face. Could be a job interview, could be a sick child, could be a performance... it's whatever our fear is in the moment. Every moment, every choice. That is our life.
What makes a story worth telling? If it has value to us, then it is a story worth telling. Maybe we just need to find the right person to tell it to. I told my therapist today that I was there to untangle the threads of the past. That's what I feel like this movie is doing and maybe that is why I was so moved by it. That and the fact that the cinematography and the sound- not just his music but the accompanying sound- is absolutely brilliant.