NOTE: this blog is no longer active as of 12/07. New one: http://blog.kirchhof.com
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
Sat, 02 Jun 2007
Reflections
On June 2nd, 1967, the Beatles released "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely
Hearts Club Band" in the US, a groundbreaking piece of work on a
variety of levels, and often noted as the best record album of all
time. Coincidentally, I turned nine years of age on that day. It was
a turning point in a soon-to-be upended life in many ways, and the
music on that LP has influenced much of my subsequent songline.
So it was forty years ago today that Sgt Pepper taught
the band to play. (Or, well, sixty, if the lyrics are to be properly
accounted. Heh.) Seems to me that since this might be my last "perfect
square" birthday, and since seven is one of the mystical numbers
anyway, I may as well do some retrospection and riff a little on What
I Understand To Be True. Just so it's out there. Maybe someone can use it,
and who knows if we'll get another chance, aye?
49 years. My 72 birthday. That's 100 in dog-base years.
A formative year in my life followed that ninth birthday. By the
time I celebrated my 10th in '68, Grandpa, my same-age cousin and my
Mom had all died, and my family was paralyzed with shell shock and
grief. MLK was gone, and Bobby Kennedy would be dead before the week
ended. The Summer of Love had come and gone, music had changed
radically on the radio, students were marching in the streets, and the
powerful were exposed daily to be the frauds that they had always
been. Woodstock hadn't even been thought about, LBJ had bailed,
Chicago was about to happen, Nixon was about to be elected, a new
woman would be coming into my dad's life, and I was busy forming my
core political philosophies and trying to figure out what to do with a
life now apparently lost. I was a rudderless and confused and sad
child on my birthday in '68.
My tenth year was, I think, the year that I made the decision to
go it alone and follow what interested me. It was when I
decided to do things my way. It certainly didn't seem that
there was anything that one could truly depend upon in the world, and
it certainly didn't look like the world was going to reward playing by
the rules. It sure as hell hadn't with my family, anyway. I had
seen enough death by my tenth birthday—something like seventeen
relatives between '66 and '69—that I didn't personally expect to
make another decade, much less the "when I'm sixty four" that the
Beatles were singing about. My clearest memory of those years remains
the constant string of funerals.
I realize now that death has always been a companion, right here
beside me, counseling my decisions, a trusted adviser. I have no fear
of death; it's been ingrained in my psyche for forty years that the
reaper can visit anytime at all, with no warning whatsoever, and that
this is a natural part of living. C'est la vie. I genuinely did
not expect to make it to twenty in those days. Then it was thirty. And
so on.
As such, I've made it a centerpiece of my life to learn as much,
see as much, and experience as much as I could. Big Bites, Always. And
I've done pretty well at that goal. I've been at the top of more than
a few disciplines; I've made many a boneheaded error; I've amassed and
lost what would be considered to be fortunes anywhere else in this
world. I've occasionally gained the respect of my peers, and I've
helped a few people along their way. Many, many more have helped me. I
still have unpaid debts, and I still have unpaying debtors. I've loved
fully, lost painfully, and come back determined to do it all over
again. I've saved a life; I've had a person die in my arms. I've lost
loved ones and seen new loved ones born and grow up to become
parents. I've flown magnificently high and far, and I have crashed
publicly and gloriously. And I am none the more harmed by any of it.
I've always been damaged, of course. I think that perhaps most of
us are. But self-honesty is important, and we are only as sick as our
secrets. So I learned long ago to acknowledge everything, warts and
all; it promotes mental health. That having been said, though, it is
still striking to me that I can't remember much of anything from '69
to '72... the evil stepmother years. It's without a doubt going
to be a rich territory to mine one interesting day.
As for the future, who knows? I have the genetics and family
history to make it to 100. But that is unlikely, considering my habits
and my appetites. We'll just have to see.
I am glad to have raised a fine son to the age of thirteen. He can
make it on his own now if he has to, and we'll incrementally make the
transition from a parental relationship into a deep and trusting
friendship from here on out. He'll have a life much more uncertain
than mine ever was, and he'll likely see death from a perspective that
is orders of magnitude larger than my experiences.
He'll witness an entire ecosystem in great transition. He is
aware of some of this already. He is aware that the weather will be
changing. He is aware that we are in the middle of the greatest mass
extinction in the 4.5 billion year history of our planet. He is aware
that we are in an unsustainable economic system. He is aware that
there is not now nor will there be enough food, and that he will
likely sometimes go hungry. He is, quite simply, aware that we are
in transition, and that his life right now is as safe and as easy as
it probably will ever be.
And you know what? He is optimistic, and full of fire, and
ready. As I am. Because we are all better and stronger than we realize
right now.
I've tried to expose my child to the techniques of
self-sufficiency. How to garden. How to kill food with a rifle. How to
clean a fish or a rabbit, and how to spot tularemia in the latter. How
to grind and stuff and smoke sausage. How to make bread and bake
it. How to make simple cheeses, and therewith preserve milk. How to
control a fire. How to cook.
And, above all, I have tried to teach him how to be kind and how
not to worry too much about what people think. He has been instructed
that if people choose to get upset or hurt by his being true to who he
is, well, it's unfortunate and regrettable, but it's also
their problem. And that includes me.
He is well informed; for example, he knows that he likely has a
genetic predisposition for ethanol addiction that goes back as far as
our patrilineal genealogy can be traced – a bit of information that
could've been useful to me at his age. My son is being raised to be
independent, and (it is my hope) to be uncompromisingly honest in his
self assessment. The first and great commandment has to be
"Know And Be Thyself."
You see, my understanding tells me that we choose to come
here, and, to some extent, that we preordain the time and the place
and the experiences we wish to have. This place, this world that seems
so corporeal – it is a sandbox, a playground, a learning device,
a place to experience, to realize (i.e., make real) what
we already know. Here is a news flash: we are not physical beings having a
spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a physical
experience.
As such, I must have chosen to come here at my time and to have my
experiences. That kicks the possibility of bitterness and self-pity
right out the door. I've had the life that I've had so far simply
because I was strong enough to handle it. All of it. I am
responsible for it—every victory, every mistake, every
luck, every injury, every embarrassment—and I must have known
what I would be working on before I ever came here.
I also believe that this fine person who chose to be my son, along
with with many of his contemporaries, are those who have chosen to
come here to try to save and heal this place. And I will assist him in
his path, whatever that path might be, until it is time to for me to
go back from whence I came. Because he is more than my son. He is my
best friend in this world, and it gives me great joy to be around
him. My unconditional friend. And I, his.
Next year at this time there'll be 50 years gone from the day of my
birth. I think that forty nine is a much more interesting number. I
feel deep changes coming; foundational changes. I feel an awakening of
purpose, everywhere. Perhaps we are about to know what we really came
here for. Or perhaps this forty-nine year old body will be dust a year
from today. No matter.
Because it has all been wonderfully human and full of heart, and
full of love, and it is still an amazing journey. There have
been so many moments, and the important ones have often been a type of
human connection. An unexpected kindness from a genuinely scary old
bartender in a deserted bar in Manhattan on a Saturday afternoon. The
aroma of coffeesugarmilk and peanut butter cookies at grandma and
grampa's. A battle for the soul of a corporation, and the subsequent
respect of a worthy adversary. Eyes so beautiful that I didn't even
remember the face, but remembered the essence two years later when our
friendship began. The horror of seeing a loved one, psychotic in a
mental institution, screaming the Lord's Prayer at demons
unknowable. A minus eighty degree wind chill on a February morning in
downtown Chicago. The earth-goddess that was my seventh grade English
teacher. An arm lying in the middle of a highway in Massachusetts
after a gruesome motorcycle wreck. A woodchuck in Cincinnati's city
park. Talking with a beautiful and exotic call girl (her word was
"whore") in a Vancouver hotel bar one night, for hours, two
professionals unwinding after a hard week. Being in the war room of a
losing Presidential campaign. The smile, so profoundly unlike any
other, of a satisfied lover. My older brother, once my size, at 65
lbs, dying of AIDS, always kind, insisting that I go and telling me
that he'd wait until Sunday so that his death would fit into my
schedule: he kept his word. The scents of Fisherman's Wharf. The
slime-covered little pink and gray chinese-conehead steaming
lizard-thing that was my son, ten seconds after he was born. The
special handshake, wordless, between two men that says "Well done. My
deep respect." That immeasurable Christmas night with a beloved and
breathtakingly beautiful woman, by the fire, hours, when time
stopped and utter satisfaction happened. Seeing the body of a
friend, mangled, five minutes after his death in ICU, the hint of a
smile on his face -- and knowing that he left it there as a
gift. Mixing a band so well that we became
one; we could do nothing but shake our heads in wonder. Looking
at a middle finger, perfect ten seconds ago, now bone-exposed and
useless. Watermelon and root beer floats under the Sycamores in
Grand's back yard. Snow drifts twelve feet high in Buffalo. The
creepiness of touching my dead mother's room-temperature skin. Morning
Glory Pool. The moment, studying Einstein, when I
got it, and I knew his mind and realized that I wasn't
necessarily alone. A justified bar fight in Milwaukee, and the proud
injuries therefrom. A hot tub in a snowstorm in Durango. The wicked
joy of saying exactly the right double-entendre at exactly the right
time. Studying, understanding, and then discarding the Great
Philosophers. Hearing my work on the radio that very first
time. Deciding to visit my great-great grandfather's grave for no
reason one afternoon, and being spooked, reading from his gravestone
that it was 100 years to the day after his death. A one-pocket shot
for the ages in St. Louis. The clean streets of downtown Ottawa. Sonny
Boy dying in my arms after being hit by a car. Skinny-dipping in
Barton Springs with Marla at 4:00am, both of us underage, being
outlaws together on so many delicious levels. Eating braunschweiger
and sweetbreads alone with Dad, 'cause we were the only ones who liked
'em. Mom's lap, as deep as the universe itself.
I could not and would not go back and trade a single smile or avoid
a single tear. I have been utterly blessed. Perhaps I can find a way
to give some of those blessings back. Maybe it's now the time for
that.
A wonderful observation has recently come into my life, as always,
right on time. I do not know who wrote it; I've seen it variously
attributed to a 12th century monk, a family Rabbi, and "granddad."
Take a moment and let it sink in:
When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was
difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I
found I couldn't change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I
couldn't change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my
family. Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is
myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself,
I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have
made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation
and I could indeed have changed the world.
That, my friends, is what this day, at this place, means to
me. But nothing here is past tense; it is all happening right
now. Every experience of our life culminates in who we are at this
moment. Today, I am a living, breathing dynamic being, and it is
incorrect to say that I am forty nine years old.
More properly, I am forty nine years
long. I will stay here, trying to figure out The Puzzle,
enjoying every caress, enjoying every bruise until I go somewhere
else. Whether that be tomorrow or fifty years from now is both
uninteresting and immaterial. Life is to be lived, until such
time as it isn't.
I suppose that if I had any wisdom to give, it would be this: "Go
Find Out For Yourself."
On this day, I would like to wish you a happy here-and-now from a
person who is happy that you're also here-and-now. Peace, my
partners-in-living.
Posted at 06:57 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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