June 18th

'I need to tell you, the US State Department doesn't allow its employees to undergo general anesthesia without specific permission.'
'I understand,' and she drove the needle into my arm.

I was in Johannesburg, South Africa, a few days into a two week visit to the city, all expenses paid by the US government, to find out why I was sick. It was March and I'd already dropped fifty pounds off of a fit twenty five year old body and I was sleeping most of every day, too exhausted to pedal to my teaching post on the edge of the village. My Peace Corps doctors, a pediatrician and a cancer researcher, were overmatched and gave up after a few months of blood tests and hitchhiking forays from my village in the north of Botswana to the capitol of Gaborone in the south. The last visit was the clincher.

'Chris, how is your marriage going?'
'My marriage?' I saw over his left shoulder a framed picture of him with one of his patients, a research monkey at the University of Florida.
'Fine. Do you think my high white cell count, anemia and severe weight loss are psychosomatic?'
Pause. 'I think we need to send you to a specialist in South Africa.'

I woke up in a hallway. Dim lights and dull beige painted walls. I was looking at the ceiling and the last thing I remembered was the nurse giving me a shot. My throat was sore. What time was it? I had joked about them doing the proctoscopy and colonoscopy in the correct order. Now I was worried that they hadn't. One has to be careful about what one jokes about in Africa.

I told this story to my colleagues in the office earlier this week. I had turned fifty back in January and I had been delaying the required colonoscopy for months, mainly because of the last colonoscopy I'd had twenty five years earlier in Africa. I knew it would be better, easier, more prepared, but the memory of waking up disoriented in a hallway a few hours later, with a sore butt and sore throat, lingered.

And the doctor's office suggested June 19th for the procedure, meaning that June 18th was going to be a day of fasting and awful purging with the 'kit' they'd assembled for me. This June 18th was the fortieth anniversary of my afternoon spent making time stop back in 1974 and for some reason I figured that time would slow down again, perhaps for different reasons, and this seemed to fit the day very well.

For the last forty years, this day has been for stopping and thinking of important things. And, except for one occasion, in a German philosophy class when we were discussing Nietzsche and existentialism, I've spoken about it only to a very few people. As an older adult looking back at that ten year old in the bedroom staring at the ceiling, coming to grips with mortality before life had really begun yet, I smile at his earnestness, his need to think and talk about important things, his desire to live as much as he could in such a short time. In six years he would fall in love for the first time. In fourteen he would travel to Botswana. In fifteen he would get married and in twenty three and twenty five years he would have his children.

Somewhere during that time he figured out that life wasn't about the number of years (or the number of breaths, if you are a yogi) that one received. That was a random number, factored by genetics, dumb luck and a few life choices. What was important was being awake for the ride and conscious of the beauty flying by in every moment of joy and pain. What is important is seeing the colors and understanding how the light of the morning is different than the light of the late afternoon. What is important is that one embrace all of it, that one loves.

Last post San Diego

The road meanders with the shoreline, past sailing ships and a museum devoted to their history. I try to remember the difference between a sloop and a schooner; is it the number of masts? The slant of the sails? Sean's father used to remember with us when we were young, his days racing sloops on Lake Michigan with only sail power and the magical skills of docking a sailing ship without a motor.

This is the way I ride. Memories churn into my quadriceps, pumped into my blood, thoughts move from synapse to muscle twitch and the memories tied to a place, or smell or the feel of a cool breeze, or the rot of fish in the morning, seep into my consciousness.

A seagull and I think of reading my mother's copy of Jonathan Seagull for the first time when I was ten, the year Christopher crystalized into the essence of who he is now. 1974, the month of June, on the 18th, the year, month and day I first became aware of my mortality and all its ramifications. I suppose the seagull was a part of that, a questioning of 'going along' with the flow of time and expectations. I closed the door of  our room, my brother absent somewhere, and stared at the ceiling.

Why was it that time seemed sometimes to move fast and sometimes slow?

It wasn't linear after all. I thought about that. Then a fearful thought grabbed me: I was ten and I'd already lived a seventh of my life. What had I accomplished?  A seventh of an ice cream cone was a significant thing; my life was being consumed unconsciously, without intention or purpose. I was being wasteful!

What if I could slow down time and make my life last longer? I knew how it worked in Sr. Rhodilia's math class at St. Mathias; those 45 minutes lasted at least as long as an entire trip to my grandmother's on the west coast. For an hour I made time move slowly and then decided that a life like that might be indefinitely long but not actually worth living. At ten years of age, I decided the best thing to do was to remember how quickly time was passing and, with that awareness, decide to live as fully as possible.

What I knew then as a ten year old was that I was still needing to learn what living fully meant and those milestones came later and much later. Experiments with love and pain, commitment and betrayal, sin and goodness; each step in my life, each friend met along the way, further helped me develop the idea of what it meant to live fully in the few moments that we have.

These thoughts course through my veins and find their expression in the wheels turning. I feel them when I grip the handlebars with my hand and the exquisite pressure in my legs as I lean into the pedals and gain speed.

Harbor Drive South-San Diego

Everyone needs to get lost occasionally. This thought occurs to me as I've lost track of the west coast of the United States and have turned full tilt towards the Mexican border while intending to head north back to my hotel. I know I'm not terribly lost, but just pleasantly so. The clouded morning sky offers a sameness of light in all directions. Street names and numbers are generally unhelpful since each town seems to rejoice in naming their streets with the same names in different grids.

I've bounced from Boston to Lawrence to San Diego and, in a bit, to Miami. Waking up in various rooms offers a sense of disorder, chaos to the surface of my life, but talking to people I love offers a deeper sense of the logos lying just beneath.

Important stuff. My old friend said that was one thing she loved about me, my insistence on wondering about the things that deserve our time and consciousness. I laughed when she remembered me at sixteen talking like I do now at fifty. What are the important things that need to be spoken of now. Two pop to mind.

South of San Diego's convention area and the adjoining Gas Lamp district, is the Naval Yard. I ride down this road for the third time, now fully expecting the long stop light at each entrance to the base. Lines of cars from every direction and my bike and I weaving between the cars left with their butts in the intersection. The temperature says 66 degrees and I roll by, pushing down my arm warmers and breathing the ocean air. The tall gray bodies of naval warships rise from the fence line on my right.

I told another friend yesterday about a story I'd read many years ago, the Conversion of the Jews by Phillip Roth. In the story, a boy at a rabbinical school in New York asks the rabbi about his Catholic friend's belief that Mary had a virgin birth. When the rabbi said it was impossible, the boy ended up on the roof threatening to jump unless the rabbi said it was possible. God, the boy said, can do anything.

 

The buildings fall away and I'm on a bike path threading between bridges and short trees. Small bunches of grass cling to the side of the trail and occasionally a cyclist or runner is heading the other way and I interrupt my reveries with a smile.

When I hear the word 'faith' I first think of theology, dogma and that quickly degenerates into the bizarre sides of my Catholic upbringing. But this morning, rolling into the wind between sand and grass, I think of the other, more important faiths to be thought of: faith in oneself, in someone else, in love and hope, in the future. Even someone with a Spaghetti Monster emblem on the back of his car understands that this faith overshadows the peculiar faith that often separates us into groups of same-believing people.

After my coffee in the morning, I walked back to my hotel wondering why I'd mentioned that story, why had it bubbled into my head as something appropriate to talk about, important enough to take some precious time with someone I hadn't seen in a half of a year. The point clarifies; I wanted to her to understand that I am not defined by the narrowness of the words I say or write. There is something else that overshadows the mean definitions we create of ourselves and, when confronted with a tremendous awfulness, as it was with my friend's cancer, all of those words burn away and one is left with a singular prayer.

Forty five minutes in and it's time to curl around and head back. I leave the path and take a left, wait a few miles and then take another left, that is how to make a loop, I think. This is how one wanders to Mexico.

There is another faith that we seldom consider. Faith in our narratives. We create stories of our lives continuously. The narratives help us make sense of our experience, give meaning and help define who we are, or think we are. I continually make stories to absolve myself of wrongs, redefine my purpose, explain my feelings. Maybe the last is the most crucial as these narratives bridge the divide between our hearts and our heads.

I am lost. I have a gps on my bike and now that I actually look at it, it tells me I'm headed south instead of north. I pull over and start futzing. There's no rush, no imperative of time. A horn beeps. Ok, there are imperatives, just not mine. I roll forward and let the truck park where I was stopped.

The wind is behind me, when I make the turn onto Harbor Way, I can feel it passing me; there's a sudden coolness as the sweat is lifted by the breeze. I'm in a familiar place now. Aware now that I am writing a narrative and feeling much more in control of the story.

for my friend

the hummingbird　
rests,　
iridescence,　
grace
and wounded wing

in sunlight　
filtered
by branches
and the jade leaves
of spring

heals
her like a prayer
heard
from the mouths　
of friends.

 

cleaning up

A close encounter from this past week.

'Sir, sir. Come here.' My friends had come to a stop briefly in front of a cosmetics shop on a corner in South Beach's Lincoln Mall. A small latina grabs my hand. I smile, Kam makes a little hoot, and I'm guided into a chair just inside the entrance.

She is beautiful, dark with jet black hair and what happens next is somewhere between that old dishwashing soap commercial with Madge ('It's ok, it's Palmolive'), a home visit from the Jehovah Witnesses and a lap dance. In retrospect, I realize this is an awesome metaphor for South Beach.

'Here.' She scoops out a tiny spoonful of what looks like salmon roe and puts it on my wrist. Then she gently rubs back and forth. Kam and his son look on, his son slightly dumbfounded that this is happening; Kam, my friend who loves Krishnamurti, Proust and cigars, just takes in the amazing funkiness of the universe. Rubbing complete, she  spritzes my arm and dries it with a towel. My arms are two different colors.

'See?'
I'm not sure whether she's critiquing my general cleanliness or there's some other point to be made. One arm is brown and one arm is almost white. The difference is noticeable.

'This exfoliator paste is very effective.' I'm now sure that she isn't critiquing my bathing and feel much better. 'It only takes a small amount. See?' I think, yes, that's true if one just wants to have a whiter forearm. Then she takes another container and puts a small dab of gel and the erotic rubbing commences again. Kam and his son have now seated themselves in chairs just across from me, both increasingly open to having this experience themselves. I wonder why she pulled me out of the stream of people in front of the shop. Does my greying hair make me a mark?

'Ok, now watch. Is this something that you normally use for moisturizing? I nod. She rubs some on both arms. The browner one is obviously greasy while my new white one absorbs the oil and feels nice. She channels her inner used car salesman.

'This exfoliator costs 179.00 and is a very good deal. It's a three month supply. That works out to only two dollars a day. You spend that on coffee, no?'

I nod. 'But I'm going to buy that coffee even if I exfoliate.' Kam snorts, but I don't think she understands what I mean.

'Now, if you take this cream and this facial massage product,' she slides the three together on the counter and I notice how well they are packaged, how beautiful she is and how her black dress clings enough to keep us all focused, 'I can include these also for that price.'

She picks up a bit too quickly on my unwillingness to commit. The equivalent is handing the books back to the Jehovah Witnesses after you've held them.

'But I can do a little better tonight.' She moves closer, making her statement seem ambiguous; are we still talking about the exfoliation crème? 'For all three, you can have them for 99 dollars.' She bats her eyes and holds me in her gaze. They must have a rigorous training program.

'Honestly, I can't see parting with 100 dollars for facial cremes tonight. I would really have to think about it and come back. What is your name? May, I really think you did a wonderful job selling and explaining your products.' She attempts one more breakdown of costs, competing products and overall benefits, standing well inside my privacy zone. When she finished, I had the distinct impression that I would actually be making money by purchasing her products and would also have a more vibrant sex life as well.

I stand up. 'Thank you so much, May. I will come back to you if I decide I need your products.' She smiles and we return to the milieu of the outdoor mall. Now we're looking for the son of David Gilmour, who may or may not be playing jazz guitar at the Van Dyke.

dialogues

I have several friends who are using dating services to locate possible partners; I'm still trying to figure out how using a computer to find love works.

........

 

Three men are sitting under the partial cover of an umbrella. Palm trees line the beach in front of them and crowds of beautiful, vagrant, transvestite, European, Midwestern, Jewish, Muslim, white, black, brown, augmented and natural people walk! by. The men are sipping drinks and two of them are intently scanning the passing of humanity.

 

Mario: I just want to find a woman that I can love and have a family with.

Gene: That’s great! Are you seeing anyone now?

M: I was seeing a woman for the last six years, but we ended it in July. We were fighting all of the time and when she suggested that we break up, I let it happen.

Christopher: I’m sorry to hear that, Mario.

M: I still love her but we spent so much time after the first year caught up in school that we couldn’t go back to how it was.

G: So are you dating?

M: I want to but I want to commit and I can’t commit when I don’t know the person.

G: Commit to the dating?

M: Yeah, I just need to find someone so that I can have a family. I’m 42 you know.

G: Dude, you don’t commit to someone when you’re just dating. How do you know if they’re what you’re looking for? You need to have specific things you’re looking for and, you know, watch out for red flags.

C: What red flags do you look for, Gene?

Gene’s been looking at his cell phone and texting so Chris repeats himself.

G: What? Oh, well, there’s some things that are just absolute deal killers with the whole dating thing. Probably five or so.

M: Ok, what’s the first one?

G: Dude, the chick’s got to have friends.

Mario scratches his head and looks puzzled.

G: If she doesn't have close, long term friends, she doesn’t know how to maintain relationships.

M: I gave up all of my friends for her.

G: Male and female?

M: Yes, I wanted to commit to her. Besides, I’m a one woman guy.

G: And look where you are now. The friend network comes with the relationship and it tells you a lot about the person you’re dating. If she has no friends and doesn’t want you to have any, I’d give you a 99.9 percent chance of not making it.

Everyone sips their drinks, a frozen marguerita with salt, a mango mojito and a pomegranate mojito. While Gene and Mario talk, their eyes continue scanning the crowds.

C: Ok, what is another red flag? I figure you should have about five of them for your book on electronic dating. Five would work better for the promotional workshops you’d be doing.

G: Ha! Here’s another important red flag: watch out when they mention jealousy in their description. If someone want to avoid jealous lovers it’s almost a guarantee that they are jealous as hell themselves. That, my friends, is a deal killer. Jealousy kills all of the other things in a relationship.

M: But why shouldn’t I be jealous of her friends?

G: Dude, you can’t possess her! And you want her to have healthy relationships with other people, men and women. Think about it; you want your relationship to be healthy and positive not focused on imaginary bullshit.

Gene’s eyes latch onto a Peruvian woman with breast peaking out from the sides of a backless sheer white shirt. Mario follows suit and Christopher embarrassedly looks at the ground, the sky anywhere but the Peruvian.

G: You need to have a list of qualities that you want in the other person and then prioritize them.

C: Like a shopping list?

G: I suppose, you need a list and then cross out the women that don’t fit.

C: I’m not buying it. How do I know what qualities I’m looking for in a lover?

G: Well, I suppose you’d want someone that could listen to you, right? Someone that was awesome in the sack? Smart, beautiful…

C: I think it’s too mathematical, Gene. Too purposeful. And I’m sure there are some qualities that we need that we don’t know about in advance.

 

They all think about this for a bit. Gene taps away on his phone.

 

C: Isn't there something called 'love at first sight'?

M: Sure.

G: Yes, I haven't experienced it but it happens. But it must be just a purely physical attraction.

C: Really? Why do you think so?

G: Because it's only what you see that attracts you. You haven't heard her say a word; you don't know what she's thinking or interested in or how she is in bed. Nothing, just how she looks.

M: Yeah, Gene's right. Purely physical attraction.

C: Ok, are you both in love with that Peruvian woman that just walked by? The one with the large, unnatural breasts and perfect skin, long hair and beautiful eyes?

G: Um, she's hot but I wouldn't say I was in love.

C: Why not? Are there any physical attributes missing that you are looking for?

M: No.

C: Would you like her to have some gray hairs, wrinkles or a wart on her foot or something like that?

G: No, no she was a perfect 10.

C: But you're not in love with her. So there must be something else, something that isn't physical, perhaps something that can't be seen.

G: Yes, but that doesn't make any sense.

 

On the boardwalk, another woman walks by in stiletto heals and a sheer blue silk dress. Gene and Mario don't seem to notice. She casts a side long glance, frowns and continues walking.

 

C: So love at first sight exists, but it isn't completely based on how someone looks, or what they're interested in, what their voice sounds like, or how they behave in bed. But we agree you must see the other person, correct?

M: Yes, the sight part is important.

C: Wouldn't you agree that the experience is a kind of recognition, like when you first see someone you know again? Or even a kind of remembering, like deja vu?

G: Yes, that fits with what I've heard about it.

C: What is doing the recognizing?

G: The brain.

C: Really? Is the brain actually remembering something that it has seen before?

G: No, that doesn't make sense.

C: So it's something else then. Look at your hand; what is seeing it?

M: My eyes. (laughing)

C: So your eyes and your hand are different, right? If you see something, you and that something are two different things. Here it's your eyes and your hand. And not only that, it's 'your' hand.

G: Ok, that makes sense.

C: Are you thinking right now. Do you notice yourself thinking about love?

M: Yes.

C: If the thinking is happening in 'your' brain, what is doing the noticing?

G: Something like the soul or spirit maybe.

C: So this 'soul' exists independently of the brain, perceives things that aren't physical and is somehow involved in love.

G: Yes, that's right.

C: So love at first sight and perhaps love itself is a recognition by a soul or spirit, perhaps even a recognition of someone else's soul or spirit. How does your dating service account for that?

G: Chris, you are such a romantic.
C: I suppose so.

 

 



flats

'It smells like urine.'

Changing a tube, in the rain, just past our turn onto NE 2nd Street in downtown Miami. We are on our way to Brickell and loop through Coconut Grove when a small piece of glass (the remnants of someone's windshield from an accident years ago? or a shard from a bum's smashed bottle of Mad Dog 20/20?), lubricated by the warm rain, sliced through the Vittoria Pave's layers of rubber and cords.

'Yep, smells like quite a few people took a piss here.'

The wind shifted and the combination of getting wet again under the overhang and the image of previous tenants relieving themselves where I was sprawled, thumbs probing for the glass lodged in my tire, got me working a bit faster.

Before the flat, we had warmed up by crossing the Venetian Way between South Beach and the downtown. Riding in the moist air, temps around seventy five, sky gray, the wind behind our backs leaving us riding in a vacuum, I thought this must be what a sensory deprivation tank feels like. Warm, pleasant, womb-like. Our stop to fix the flat brought me back to the world.

Flat fixed, my friend and I roll south and promptly take a 'wrong' turn. 'Go straight' at the turn to Key Biscayne, we were told and we jumped on the bike path under the metro line. This, it turns out, does not go straight, but rather zigs and zags its way along Highway 1 until it peters completely out at Coconut Grove. Later, as I relayed our route to my local friend, he rolls his eyes. Instead of rolling past million dollar homes and the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, we were exploring one of the concentrated ghettos ringing Miami's downtown. 'Coconut Grove is the oldest modern continuously-inhabited neighborhood of Miami' says Wikipedia and we grip the handlebars a tad tighter as we look for Grand Avenue and the grand tree-lined streets of Bayshore Drive.

The dilapidated storefronts remind Gene and I of the time we spend working in the 'core' of Milwaukee's ghetto at King's Cyclery on 23rd and Fond du Lac. I'd found the job on the bulletin board across from the counselling center. 'Wanted: bicycle mechanic. Must be 16. Will train. Contact Jim King.' A week later I announced at supper that I'd gotten a job. Terrific, my dad said, always proud of his son's dedication to finding employment. Where is it? Both mom and dad went a shade pale when I told them, but to their credit, neither tried to dissuade me.

One of the other fellows that saw that ad on the board was Steven and he came to mind as Gene and I rounded onto Grand Avenue heading north.
'Remember the lead pipe he painted orange and carried with him on the bike?'
I don't think he ever had to use it, but Steven didn't last long at the shop. I would spend the next nine years working there.

There is a crossroads of sorts, the road splits into a fork and there are tourists wandering the sidewalks now. This represents safety, I suppose, no more thoughts of orange lead pipes. Ridiculous mansions sprout on the left of the road and the pavement is suddenly smooth. We glide back to the north.