"I don't care if she does love me -- I don't feel loved!
Eddie (Sean Penn) in "Hurly Burly"
I was leaving the Lexington Food Co-Op on Elmwood this evening, when a pert little young woman I didn't recognize in big sunglasses said, "Oh hi Larry!"
It was Jessica, in long hair and dark sunglasses, with her daughter and son. Jessica has got to be past 40, but she could pass for 26.
She introduced her daughter and son, both tweeners. She was a roommate's girlfriend over 20 years ago, in the first place I moved into. Maybe they were engaged for a while.
"I heard you had surgery!"
I pulled aside the top of my button-down shirt to show her more of my scar -- today I wore a shirt with the top button undone, and with this shirt that exposes a lot of my scar. After the surgery I thought I would be covering up, but I actually want people to see it.
She peered at it. "Wow...! My husband has the same thing!"
We chatted for a couple minutes -- me explaining how in some ways I feel better than I have in a long time, and then my body will say, "oh no you're not!" -- she explaining how they have a home in East Aurora now, but are spending the summer in Canada as it is being remodeled...
As we began to drift in our different directions, she said, "They called me and said 'Larry's having surgery, chant for him!' and I said 'Oh my god! Larry?' and I chanted for you!"
This shocked me, that she would pray for me, perhaps even that morning of my surgery, that she would think of me, after not really seeing each other for what, 15 years...
Even though, as Layla -- who literally lived with me for the first 12 days after I got home, dressed my scars, saw me naked while covered in bruises, washed me the first couple days, and keeps telling me she expects nothing for doing it -- told me yesterday as she recounted how she ran into her friends and mine that day, that we are so lucky to be surrounded by friends, aren't we... I still always feel so alone, so alien and isolated... and then I feel guilty and ashamed for feeling so isolated when I think of all the efforts and the love and caring that cocoon me...
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Saturday, August 25, 2007
How much easier could it have been? I mean she had a dog....!
Walking home from dropping my laundry off this morning, up Bidwell Parkway, didn't buy anything at a disappointing farmers' market off Elmwood, just listening to Scott Walker belt out Jacques Brel's "Jackie" on my iPod, sipping a Starbucks Orange Mocha...
Down the parkway -- actually walking on the grass on the 100-foot-wide median with it's three rows of trees -- approaching is a lovely young woman, maybe late 20s, full and round with smooth moonwhite skin, styled hair framing her glasses on a very intelligent face, walking her German Shepherd.
Always a bit awkward, or course. With anyone -- the two people approaching each other on the sidewalk totally aware of each other thing.
But... she fussed with her hair a little. At least had her hand up around her face, her fingers pushing her hair around in the breeze.
She smiled at me, as we passed. A nice smile. Not a polite or pleasant smile. At least I think.
She might have even said something, but for me it was just Scott Walker in front of an orchestra complaining about being rich and powerful.
And she had a frigging beautiful dog with her! The world's greatest and easiest conversation starter!
I am sure I smiled back, but I don't know if I would have really said anything if I hadn't had the earbuds making me a bubble-boy. Of course, I would like to think so though. So maybe someday I'll go from, I'd like to think so, to, So I just...
Down the parkway -- actually walking on the grass on the 100-foot-wide median with it's three rows of trees -- approaching is a lovely young woman, maybe late 20s, full and round with smooth moonwhite skin, styled hair framing her glasses on a very intelligent face, walking her German Shepherd.
Always a bit awkward, or course. With anyone -- the two people approaching each other on the sidewalk totally aware of each other thing.
But... she fussed with her hair a little. At least had her hand up around her face, her fingers pushing her hair around in the breeze.
She smiled at me, as we passed. A nice smile. Not a polite or pleasant smile. At least I think.
She might have even said something, but for me it was just Scott Walker in front of an orchestra complaining about being rich and powerful.
And she had a frigging beautiful dog with her! The world's greatest and easiest conversation starter!
I am sure I smiled back, but I don't know if I would have really said anything if I hadn't had the earbuds making me a bubble-boy. Of course, I would like to think so though. So maybe someday I'll go from, I'd like to think so, to, So I just...
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Don't be a Dickenson...
I know it has been almost a week since I posted, and a full week since I posted a legitimate post ~
My intention in creating this blog was both to let people know the crazy way my mind works -- constantly, relentless -- and to ease myself into the habit of regularly writing.
I have as yet written only a couple references to the reality of my having a heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery, as you might expect from my subheading and my photos. In one way the heart experience in April is a solid and brilliant marker for me, a milestone in the original sense, a point I can use to demarcate my departure from something old and begin something new. There is no turning back. There never is, of course. There is just holding back.
But to talk -- or write -- like this is easy. So easy it is itself part of the deception -- our inherent Fundamental Darkness, as we Buddhists call it -- that will, like water over cracked bedrock, seep into every and any breach, any breach, no matter how small, no matter where it is or what it will affect or where it leads.
Like lonely Emily Dickenson, who wrote her fiery poems between scrubbing the kitchen floor and batting the carpets of her parents' home, who as far as we know never kissed a man, any of the men who inspired her bold words, it is easier to write about living than it is to live.
It is like I have been living a non-life. Some of you who know me may disagree fiercely, may even be offended by that. But, I am a man at 45 who has no wife or children or relationship, who does not even have a car at the moment, or a real career. Who is still living in a place whose climate he basically hates. The summers are wonderful and celebratory, and longer and longer with global warming, but the falls and winters feel devastating, each one sapping something out of me.
Why don't I just be a man -- meaning an adult -- and get up and get what I want, even from myself?
I do not know. It feels like my inaction, my waiting to see what everyone else is doing, my belief that the world belongs to other people, is so inherent it is the way I fundamentally think. Like a Deconstructionist or NLPer might say, it forms my thoughts.
But after 45 years, it is not enough. There may be some people who have gone through life like I have, and continue until the end, even if they hear the wailings of a brighter nobleman shackled in the basement dungeon, but I don't have to be them.
But (he says sardonically), that is easier said than done...
My intention in creating this blog was both to let people know the crazy way my mind works -- constantly, relentless -- and to ease myself into the habit of regularly writing.
I have as yet written only a couple references to the reality of my having a heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery, as you might expect from my subheading and my photos. In one way the heart experience in April is a solid and brilliant marker for me, a milestone in the original sense, a point I can use to demarcate my departure from something old and begin something new. There is no turning back. There never is, of course. There is just holding back.
But to talk -- or write -- like this is easy. So easy it is itself part of the deception -- our inherent Fundamental Darkness, as we Buddhists call it -- that will, like water over cracked bedrock, seep into every and any breach, any breach, no matter how small, no matter where it is or what it will affect or where it leads.
Like lonely Emily Dickenson, who wrote her fiery poems between scrubbing the kitchen floor and batting the carpets of her parents' home, who as far as we know never kissed a man, any of the men who inspired her bold words, it is easier to write about living than it is to live.
It is like I have been living a non-life. Some of you who know me may disagree fiercely, may even be offended by that. But, I am a man at 45 who has no wife or children or relationship, who does not even have a car at the moment, or a real career. Who is still living in a place whose climate he basically hates. The summers are wonderful and celebratory, and longer and longer with global warming, but the falls and winters feel devastating, each one sapping something out of me.
Why don't I just be a man -- meaning an adult -- and get up and get what I want, even from myself?
I do not know. It feels like my inaction, my waiting to see what everyone else is doing, my belief that the world belongs to other people, is so inherent it is the way I fundamentally think. Like a Deconstructionist or NLPer might say, it forms my thoughts.
But after 45 years, it is not enough. There may be some people who have gone through life like I have, and continue until the end, even if they hear the wailings of a brighter nobleman shackled in the basement dungeon, but I don't have to be them.
But (he says sardonically), that is easier said than done...
Friday, August 17, 2007
Quick thoughts on working
My response, albeit modified here, to a Huffington Post blog regarding the new have-nots in America.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-longley/just-work-the-for_b_60789.html
I was taught that any legitimate job was a good one, from a father who 40 years ago was able to buy a house and car and clothe and feed a wife and four children on what were basically low-end service jobs (like taking orders over the phone, handling customer complaint letters, etc).
I have had the same kind of jobs as he did, and spent 10 years of my late 20s and early 30s at a 75-year-old local insurance company working my way up from the mailroom to being groomed as a claims adjuster, until the company got bought out and was closed.
Maybe the younger generation understands and can effectively maneuver through this new kind of economy, but I feel like a dinosaur who played by the rules while the Bush family and the top 1% threw down a meteor, and laughed as the world below them grew dark.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-longley/just-work-the-for_b_60789.html
I was taught that any legitimate job was a good one, from a father who 40 years ago was able to buy a house and car and clothe and feed a wife and four children on what were basically low-end service jobs (like taking orders over the phone, handling customer complaint letters, etc).
I have had the same kind of jobs as he did, and spent 10 years of my late 20s and early 30s at a 75-year-old local insurance company working my way up from the mailroom to being groomed as a claims adjuster, until the company got bought out and was closed.
Maybe the younger generation understands and can effectively maneuver through this new kind of economy, but I feel like a dinosaur who played by the rules while the Bush family and the top 1% threw down a meteor, and laughed as the world below them grew dark.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Words
When I was twelve years old, a man died 15 feet in front of my family.
It was our hometown, the Village of Kenmore’s, 75th anniversary celebration parade. The parade was stopped momentarily, as parade’s often are, and a reserve unit, I think, but of men in their 30s and 40s, was standing at attention with their flags and real or wooden white rifles in front of us, waiting to proceed with their marching.
One of them just smashed face first on the asphalt.
His body jackknifed straight forward, knees not even buckling, his shiny helmet making a resoundless thud with his head still in it.
The other men around him did their best to remain at attention, but I could feel their fear and worry agitating. Some broke rank of course to turn to the man who had fallen; and a few spectators ran into the street to help, including a woman next to us. I don’t remember what happened – I assume an ambulance came and took him away – but then the parade continued.
When the woman who had been next to us returned back onto the curb she told her companion, “We lost him…”
I turned to my dad.
“Did he die?”
“No! No!! He didn’t die!”
My father was visibly shaken that such a fact would be made real with words.
But the man had died, in front of my father’s family.
This morning my father had surgery to drain and help save his bad eye. I called this afternoon to ask how it went, and he sounded good and said it had gone fine.
Then he told me that my sister, who is having a cancer scare, is going to be biopsied next week to check for metastasizing. They are optimistic, just checking.
My sister had asked my father to tell me not to call her. At work she sent an email to all her co-workers telling then not to mention it to her.
Even my sister is so afraid of showing emotion, at a time she deserves to most.
And when my mother told me, for the first time, two months afterwards, that my scheduled four-hour operation stretched out to nine hours because my blood pressure tanked and they had to do angioplasty to continue, and the surgeon’s first words to them in the waiting room afterwards was, “well, he’s stable now."
All I could come out with was, “I’m sorry…”
It was our hometown, the Village of Kenmore’s, 75th anniversary celebration parade. The parade was stopped momentarily, as parade’s often are, and a reserve unit, I think, but of men in their 30s and 40s, was standing at attention with their flags and real or wooden white rifles in front of us, waiting to proceed with their marching.
One of them just smashed face first on the asphalt.
His body jackknifed straight forward, knees not even buckling, his shiny helmet making a resoundless thud with his head still in it.
The other men around him did their best to remain at attention, but I could feel their fear and worry agitating. Some broke rank of course to turn to the man who had fallen; and a few spectators ran into the street to help, including a woman next to us. I don’t remember what happened – I assume an ambulance came and took him away – but then the parade continued.
When the woman who had been next to us returned back onto the curb she told her companion, “We lost him…”
I turned to my dad.
“Did he die?”
“No! No!! He didn’t die!”
My father was visibly shaken that such a fact would be made real with words.
But the man had died, in front of my father’s family.
This morning my father had surgery to drain and help save his bad eye. I called this afternoon to ask how it went, and he sounded good and said it had gone fine.
Then he told me that my sister, who is having a cancer scare, is going to be biopsied next week to check for metastasizing. They are optimistic, just checking.
My sister had asked my father to tell me not to call her. At work she sent an email to all her co-workers telling then not to mention it to her.
Even my sister is so afraid of showing emotion, at a time she deserves to most.
And when my mother told me, for the first time, two months afterwards, that my scheduled four-hour operation stretched out to nine hours because my blood pressure tanked and they had to do angioplasty to continue, and the surgeon’s first words to them in the waiting room afterwards was, “well, he’s stable now."
All I could come out with was, “I’m sorry…”
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
til I see sunshine...
“And we could drown ourselves in a flood of sunshine
We could walk all nights til I see sunshine…”
The Posies - “Flood of Sunshine"
It’s been years since I’ve listened to this song, but for today while walking down Delaware with my iPod, its music a bluntly self-conscious imitation of softer Led Zeppelin, down to the stolen guitar and drum riffs. Totally brings back memories of a girl I used to work with at the insurance company, a plumper Darryl Hannah with long hair and fair smooth skin that flushed pink easily.
Anyway, it also reminds me of my annual habit, since faded these past eight years or so, of every spring having one sleepless night. One night only. Couldn’t sleep if I tried. Spring has sprung and it is driving me mad like I am my own flower blooming in the night. One night when life is so exciting I could not get to sleep, stayed up until the dawn, and through the dawn and on into the next day.
The day today became tomorrow, I guess.
The sense that something was about to happen, something – or someone – was unfolding for me, somewhere where it was day, or night, as our big wide world rolled on like a warm laughing baby...
We could walk all nights til I see sunshine…”
The Posies - “Flood of Sunshine"
It’s been years since I’ve listened to this song, but for today while walking down Delaware with my iPod, its music a bluntly self-conscious imitation of softer Led Zeppelin, down to the stolen guitar and drum riffs. Totally brings back memories of a girl I used to work with at the insurance company, a plumper Darryl Hannah with long hair and fair smooth skin that flushed pink easily.
Anyway, it also reminds me of my annual habit, since faded these past eight years or so, of every spring having one sleepless night. One night only. Couldn’t sleep if I tried. Spring has sprung and it is driving me mad like I am my own flower blooming in the night. One night when life is so exciting I could not get to sleep, stayed up until the dawn, and through the dawn and on into the next day.
The day today became tomorrow, I guess.
The sense that something was about to happen, something – or someone – was unfolding for me, somewhere where it was day, or night, as our big wide world rolled on like a warm laughing baby...
Saturday, August 11, 2007
An Invitation To The Dance...
For years I have had this image of an undrawn cartoon in my head:
In a hallway of an ordinary home, outside a closed door – the bathroom door – waiting his turn impatiently is the cloaked and hooded Grim Reaper, like out of The Seventh Seal, with a towel draped over his arm, toothbrush and toothpaste tube in his bony hand.
The caption – “John never knew how close he had come to a brush with Death.”
Someday I am going to close my eyes and never open them again.
Walking home from the farmer’s market on Elmwood on this bright perfect August Saturday, I looked up at the tower of Lafayette High School. A red stone gothic squarish lump that could have been used as Dracula's Carfax Abbey, it feels like it was just plopped down here by an ogre on this wide tree-lined avenue with its mostly well-kept and brightly painted Victorian and neo-Victorian houses.
Today the wide green copper trim, flashing and top turret melding with ornately carved red stone popping out against an impossibly blue sky. Intense and unreal, like a digitally enhanced photo or one of those color saturated Doris Day-Rock Hudson movies from the 50s. Like the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, for the cover of a brochure selling Earth to alien tourists.
And I realized someday, tomorrow or five years from now or three decades from now, I will never be able to see it again. I will not even remember it.
I will never see my nieces’ and nephews’ grandchildren get married, never know or imagine how they laughed or cried the night of their proms. I will be at most an old faded image, dressed oddly from decades ago, hair in some unflattering old fashioned style, in a photo somewhere or a video. Will they wonder about me?
Probably not. I have spent no more than a fleeting minute contemplating on a photo of my mother’s grandfather, as he stood proudly with his hands folded at his crotch in front of his corner candy store, or my mother’s grandmother and grandfather on her other side, in a portrait studio in Germany before they left for America, he 30ish but already bald with a portly belly, his fist pulling back his suit to reveal a pocket watch on its chain, proudly standing five feet from his much younger bride, full-faced and quietly pretty, holding a bouquet of flowers, and although she didn’t intend to, looking frightened for all the world to see.
Four months ago I had a heart attack. At 44.
I saw my cardio doctor this week, she told me to come in, when I called explaining the symptoms of a skirmish with viruses or hay fever, asking if I needed to make any special considerations while dealing with it. I went in and she said I was fine and prescribed only Nasonex, and the aching and congestion are already gone. As she saw me she shook her head softly and mewed that I was so young to have had a heart attack.
My surgeon too, had assured me before my operation that he had done bypasses on people as young as their 30s. The average survival time for people after a quadruple bypasse is 15 years. So I will be 59 then, he said. Not too young to have had a full life, he implied.
But have I had a full life? And if I haven’t, can I pack it in the next few waking years?
I am intrigued and inspired by C.S. Lewis. And Tony Randall, who once on David Letterman swept onto the stage in a Batman outfit and cape. “You’re not Batman!” Dave chided. To which Tony replied lustily: “I just had my first child at 72 – I’m Batman!!” And the audience cheered.
So right now the host and hostess have looked at their watches and announced that curfew is coming in 30 minutes, and I am deciding whether to dare stay and dance after curfew, to steal what I can steal of pleasure in these next few hours and see what the night brings, or to truddle on home like a good boy under the suspicious eyes of those who make the rules...
In a hallway of an ordinary home, outside a closed door – the bathroom door – waiting his turn impatiently is the cloaked and hooded Grim Reaper, like out of The Seventh Seal, with a towel draped over his arm, toothbrush and toothpaste tube in his bony hand.
The caption – “John never knew how close he had come to a brush with Death.”
Someday I am going to close my eyes and never open them again.
Walking home from the farmer’s market on Elmwood on this bright perfect August Saturday, I looked up at the tower of Lafayette High School. A red stone gothic squarish lump that could have been used as Dracula's Carfax Abbey, it feels like it was just plopped down here by an ogre on this wide tree-lined avenue with its mostly well-kept and brightly painted Victorian and neo-Victorian houses.
Today the wide green copper trim, flashing and top turret melding with ornately carved red stone popping out against an impossibly blue sky. Intense and unreal, like a digitally enhanced photo or one of those color saturated Doris Day-Rock Hudson movies from the 50s. Like the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, for the cover of a brochure selling Earth to alien tourists.
And I realized someday, tomorrow or five years from now or three decades from now, I will never be able to see it again. I will not even remember it.
I will never see my nieces’ and nephews’ grandchildren get married, never know or imagine how they laughed or cried the night of their proms. I will be at most an old faded image, dressed oddly from decades ago, hair in some unflattering old fashioned style, in a photo somewhere or a video. Will they wonder about me?
Probably not. I have spent no more than a fleeting minute contemplating on a photo of my mother’s grandfather, as he stood proudly with his hands folded at his crotch in front of his corner candy store, or my mother’s grandmother and grandfather on her other side, in a portrait studio in Germany before they left for America, he 30ish but already bald with a portly belly, his fist pulling back his suit to reveal a pocket watch on its chain, proudly standing five feet from his much younger bride, full-faced and quietly pretty, holding a bouquet of flowers, and although she didn’t intend to, looking frightened for all the world to see.
Four months ago I had a heart attack. At 44.
I saw my cardio doctor this week, she told me to come in, when I called explaining the symptoms of a skirmish with viruses or hay fever, asking if I needed to make any special considerations while dealing with it. I went in and she said I was fine and prescribed only Nasonex, and the aching and congestion are already gone. As she saw me she shook her head softly and mewed that I was so young to have had a heart attack.
My surgeon too, had assured me before my operation that he had done bypasses on people as young as their 30s. The average survival time for people after a quadruple bypasse is 15 years. So I will be 59 then, he said. Not too young to have had a full life, he implied.
But have I had a full life? And if I haven’t, can I pack it in the next few waking years?
I am intrigued and inspired by C.S. Lewis. And Tony Randall, who once on David Letterman swept onto the stage in a Batman outfit and cape. “You’re not Batman!” Dave chided. To which Tony replied lustily: “I just had my first child at 72 – I’m Batman!!” And the audience cheered.
So right now the host and hostess have looked at their watches and announced that curfew is coming in 30 minutes, and I am deciding whether to dare stay and dance after curfew, to steal what I can steal of pleasure in these next few hours and see what the night brings, or to truddle on home like a good boy under the suspicious eyes of those who make the rules...
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