In code or apparent…on the surface or seven layers deep to the stream of where 90% of what we are flows both directionally but freely through us.
I heard from an old friend who remembers and honors the day of our meeting years ago. Strange to revisit memories, to extract them wholly from one’s mind…to feel the energy and excitement of a different time and to keep the framework of who and what we were when the events occurred.
Life was in many ways far more difficult in school and even later once I moved to San Fran, much more difficult. I struggled with the balance of “things” {yes, that “stuff”—yes, intentionally obtuse and undefined for the reader} and realizing that I am far more suited for absorbing books, applying concepts, introspecting than I am for experiencing the world directly. A realization I was very much insulated from in college…not much to do in Kentucky…and even coming from living in NY and the pace of life so rushed—my interests remained with cutting school to go to the Met or the Frick…to watching life in Washington Square Park…to walking the park or running or working out at the club in midtown. On the periphery, watching, the perhaps waiting for something to happen.
I had a picture of loneliest man on earth hanging in my bedroom for years. That’s what I called him anyway. My father would laugh every time he looked at that picture because it happened to be a B&W magazine picture of Prince Charles looking solemnly to the distance in a bathrobe. The ultimate betrayal of one’s inner sanctum—where to be alone in one’s comfort and thoughts was captured forever by the lens, by the eye of someone who wholly understood the depth of solitude he lived in. I once tried to explain why I liked the picture—what it meant to me…and I remember my father saying something to the effect of, “To be what you are and never to live it that is a crime.” And we had one of those discussions where a parent realizes a child is not so young anymore—where the pauses are unnatural due to being startled by the abstractness of the conversation.
How does one truly live their life while silently processing the going ons about them? How does one withdraw quietly from the mainstream and retain an affinity for all that is oriented to action? An odd mixture of character traits or maybe just points in time where one values divergent attributes that somehow bring together what is needed in that space.
I wish I knew—wish I could remember what I thought my life would be 16 years ago. I wish had saved the many letters I had written, the papers for school, somehow recorded conversations and filmed nights out dancing. Where is the replay button?
We just haven’t discovered it yet. Like in the movie with the Zoe Implants or Brainstorm…someday, but not today.
Thank you Charters—thanks for bringing me backward for a moment. The measure of your friendship stays with me. L’chaim to “the first day of the rest of your life”…in their own way, may each day that has followed and those that will be—may they represent the celebration, in whatever depth, your life everyday.