Keep Looking for Ways

Joseph Campbell explains an aspect of the Arthurian legends that has always seemed like the most important part, yet the one I had never heard: that the Holy Grail cannot be reached by the same way for any knight. If one knight found the grail, the trail that he took would be grown over, or veer off for any knight that tried to follow suit.

16th Century Tapestry

That's right. The prize and the road are in cahoots to really mess with us. So, it's not your imagination when you try to do something that someone else swears by, and not only does it not work for you, it might actually get you off track and farther away from your goal.

That seems like the makings of a sadistic universe, but the early writers of the those tales had the nature of human needs figured out pretty well. Despite all of their greater hardships, they recognized that our life isn't really ours if we're just following someone else's instructions. We shouldn't disregard a map or signposts left by helpful fellow sojourners. But we still have to adjust for the conditions of our history and temperament. Time-tables and gear are going to be different depending upon the season; rivers can change course, winds change directions, landmarks are worn down or removed. We still have to trust in our ability to reason and make educated guesses. However the path rises up, we soldier on, finding ways to keep going through the maze.

So we don't have to go as far back as Camelot to find this philosophy and encouragement. There's an interview with Alan Alda on Inside the Actor's Studio. I think of him as Hawkeye on M*A*S*H, or the guy in dialogue-heavy Neil Simon and Woody Allen movies. I don't think of him as a great dispenser of wisdom, but his enthusiasm seemed hard-won and protected. He was talking about how he and his wife struggled in the early days of their life together in New York City, trying to get into and stay in Acting, the quest of their choosing.

"It's very tough. You gotta know that because the people you deal with, they're going to be in business for themselves. They're not going to be in your business. You're spending a lot of time here [the studio] learning how to be artists. You're going into a world where art is valued as something bought and sold. You can lend them your talent; don't give them your soul."

As I heard his advice, I noticed that he wasn't offering a map or a formula or a secret to the students. Just a caution, then a challenge, and then encouragement. I can imagine that the Aldas' road to the Theater--  with a capital T, or Hollywood, or wherever showcased their Holy Grail of success-- led to many dark alleys, dead ends, and disappointments. It sounds every bit as daunting as a charge given to a knight to quest after something that could imperil body and spirit.

His challenge is: "You can rent out your ability, but keep looking for ways to do what you started out wanting to do. It's very hard to find those ways. Don't stop."

Okay, when I hear anything remotely close to cheerleading, it sort of flattens me out. That is usually because I am hearing it with the attitude of, "I have to go find success for the sake of success, or for someone else's pride in me, or because I feel like I should be using my gifts as if they were Christmas presents I no longer play with." I feel guilty and burdened and enervated.

But what I liked was the reason behind his enthusiasm; that finding ways-- not one way, or the best way, or the most tested way, but the finding of ways itself-- is us living the life we always wondered about. It's less a call to do things "my way", but more an observation that these ways we find will reflect and tell the tale of us. That part, and not the Holy Grail, is so important that the way will even conspire against you if are just whipping a tired horse toward some legendary impersonal treasure, no matter how noble.

Alda concludes with encouragement and the confidence of the faithful: "I'm telling you, even when you're fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, you can still find ways to do interesting stuff. Don't let yourself slicken up and become a product. Stay this way. Stay a kid. It's what I try to do and that's the part that makes me happy. That's the part that gives meaning to my life professionally… this kind of glorious hunger to try to get better and try to really be an artist. And I hope that you can stick with that and have the courage to do that."

I hope I can. Next time I will show you the work of someone who has found that courage.

To help my own courage stick, I need to remember "Find ways because that's the part."

So Many Monsters

Annie Lennox is one of my favorite singers, not just for her haunting bluesy voice, but also for the complete access she gives us to her inner life. The confessional impulse is presented to us in complex melodies that often seem experimental. It's not clear if she's going to fall into a dirge or raise us to gospel-level rapture within the same song. The lyrics also play hopscotch with detachment followed by direct focus and back again, yet the situations and emotions she alludes to pulse through each line. 

She may be playing for us and with us, but she keeps us close inside her world on her terms, which is highly courageous, even if only for a few minutes. This song wasn't written solely by her, but she makes it her own by her performance. Yet there is a generosity about her style--as if there is room for all to contribute and take away. I can imagine her liking the jar that reads, "Need a penny? Take a penny. Have a penny? Leave a penny." (Or twopence, in her case.)

One of her tunes that comes whistling into my head at unexpected times is from the song "No More I Love You's".

(First of all, any pop song that can get away with using the word "language" is a rare accomplishment for that alone). She invites us into her mood with an odd, lilting background of children laughing along with her imitation of a little girl's voice telling her mummy about monsters acting crazy, set against a rising progression. In a contrasting move of formality, she intones high-pitched voices like a Greek chorus to her lamentations: "The lover speaks about the monsters."

I'm in her spell, ready to receive what the chorus presents, the most intimate stanza yet: "I used to have demons in my room at night/ Desire, despair, desire… So many monsters." The repetition of "desire" calls up an image of someone shifting her frightened gaze from one side of the bed to another, until she shuts her eyes with the certainty that she is surrounded by several.

The Nightmare Henry Fuseli 1781

It's the most universal and ageless position of hide and seek with all the forces both natural and supernatural: bolt, duck and cover. Those fears in the night that plague us often do feel as if they are surrounding and closing in until we lose our ability to name them, and then lose our language to defeat them.

So, here I'll follow Annie Lennox in form--I will confess, disarm, and present, but also profess:

Recently I've felt surrounded by so many monsters that are scaring both me and the people I love. The specifics don't matter, because they're the same demons that have been described and wrestled with the world over. They parade past in the shape of unstable relationships, mental illness, drug dependence, old age, uncertain futures, career changes, loss and grief, all to the tune of hope.

What I desire in each situation is for the right sort of world to materialize. What I fear in each situation can cause me to despair, according to the limits of my own mind. While all of these looming problems make me feel as tiny as a child under the covers, hiding from a puppet show of monsters, I'm also relieved that fortunes, judgments, and blessings are not left up to someone so small.

In a moment of seeking comfort, it occurred to me to find it by taking back my voice. To use my innermost "inside voice," as we tell children, out of the silence the monsters leave me in. It's possible that I can disarm them with the honest confession of my inadequacy. I can turn on them suddenly with a formal chorus of voices in my head that say "I love you" to the people I'm frightened for, even if they can't hear me at that moment. I can even say "I love you" to the monsters, because really, what on earth could silence them more profoundly? I can then rest by professing the language before it leaves me entirely. 

I'm Sorry I Won't Know You

This line comes from one of the final scenes in the movie Out of Africa. The scene is of Karen Blixen lowering herself to her knees to beg to the new English governor on behalf of the native Kikuyu who live on her foreclosed farm. 

The governor answers noncommittally, but his wife rises to the occasion and gives her word that she will look into the matter and offers her hand. We don't know if this supremely dramatic scene ever happened, but the screenplay makes use of this moment to speak to the plight of human relationships on several levels.

The one I wish to focus on here is the plight of the friendship that is lost in the instant of its forming. When Baroness Blixen wishes a happy life in Africa to the new governor's wife, Her Excellency replies, "I'm sorry I won't know you."

When we meet others with whom we feel that immediate friendship, these moments usually aren't dramatic, and don't have us kneeling before heads of state, involving the fate of a people, sealing promises with a handshake in the space of a few moments. Often there is just a very small something that tunes us to someone, and we have a moment of uplift before the goodbye.

One time, a few years ago, I did feel the gain and loss of a friendship I hadn't yet experienced. Like in a fairy tale, I happened upon a woman in a nature preserve near my home. We were both drawn to that lovely woodsy space, yet had never met before. I was not yet familiar with the area, and had just begun to explore it. She had lived near there a while and was getting ready to move to California, and was coming toward the end of her visits to favorite spots.

As we chatted, I began to feel as if I were looking in a mirror, although we look nothing alike; and as if I were talking with an echo, although our stories were very different. After the smiling knowledge of coming upon another understanding soul, I felt the concurrent drift of our going separate ways. Both of us recognized the value of that wistful feeling and took it as a sign that saying a farewell a dieu would be dispiriting.

Because we live in an era that doesn't rely on fountain pens, steamer ships and foreign postage rates, we have been able to stay connected easily. She has left our little peaceful island in the woods, and now sees more sunlight. I, myself, will be staying a while longer and will see more rain. Regardless of climate or boundary, she has become my friend, my mentor, and an encouragement to keep saying to myself, through the revealing mirror of my work, "I'm glad I'll come to know you."

A Sense of Place

"Up in this air you breathed easily, drawing in a vital assurance and lightness of heart. In the highlands you woke up in the morning and thought: Here I am, where I ought to be.”  -- Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa

Nairobi-Nanyuki circa 1950s "Women Only" Photo Iian Mulligan

I haven't ever yet had that feeling. I have lived decades in places: the Midwest, the Southwest, and now the Northwest. I have been to the beaches on East and West coasts-- flat, hot Mexican beaches and foggy, rocky beaches. I've been to high and cool mountain pine tops, and red martian ocean beds of the painted desert. I've been atop the wheeling Space Needle and ancient serpentine castle towers. I've been on grasslands so wide I could see the lights of other cities, and down in caverns with dripping stalactites. I have been to London and its surrounding cities in the countryside. I've been to Oaxaca City with its Old World architecture and nightly music in the plaza.

I've been in four star modern restaurants with exclusive wine lists. I've been in a kitchen hut that had a dirt floor, open pit fire for a range, and grindstones for corn. I've been on a stage in front of a crowd and in the wilderness, miles from anywhere named. I've had a restless foot, but also have lived long enough to have recovered from injuries or illness in the confines of my room or house for weeks, and learned how to be content with both an unsettled and a severely settled existence.

There are so many places I haven't been. I'm not a worldly traveler by any stretch. I loved most of those places for being just what they were, and enjoyed all that they offered openly or was enchanted by their quiet allure. But I have yet to feel, "yes, this is where I ought to be."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roPQ_M3yJTA&spfreload=10

Perhaps I haven't yet stepped onto the right place. Or perhaps there isn't a place I ought to be. If I really am honest, I think I feel like my most recognizable self when I am in between destinations. I don't know how long that sense of self would last if that were a constant way of life.

But there is one time that stands out to me as one of the lightest and most liberating. Under wide open Oklahoma skies, my mother's red truck needed a rest, and so we parked under a lone shade tree by the road and had our picnic lunch. We were in between Ohio, where I was known, and Arizona, where I was not. I was sixteen and my heart was rooted, but my spirit was aloft.

For now, I know that the people I love have kept me grounded. I know too, that doing what I believe to be important, no matter where that takes me, makes me feel connected to my life. If I do come upon a place that feels like home, I'll come back to it if I can, and stay. I'll also come here and tell about it. I look forward to doing both.

Shining Light, Casting Shade

Snow had begun to fall thickly in the evening, covering the city streets, and taxis were looking scarce. The cab companies were answering only with recorded messages. I was considering making my way toward the nearest train station about a mile away, but it was already dark and the sidewalks were crunchy and slippery. Crossing one street was proving to be a challenge, even with my suitcase on wheels. 

I had a very early flight to catch for a funeral across the country and had been in a whirlwind of phone calls, packing, and arranging details. With a bad weather forecast, getting close to the airport the night before was my best chance of making the flight.

At that moment, a small but new red and green taxi came down the lane and I waved at him. He stopped and let out a family who bundled off into the cold, while I bundled into the back seat, perspiring under my long wool coat and scarf. The car was clean and pleasant, the driver, friendly and outgoing.

I told him I was concerned about us making it all the way to the hotel with the conditions the roads were in. He assured me that we would be fine, that he had snow tires and that he would drive slowly. 

We had about a forty-five minute drive and he was in a mood to talk. This seemed to help him to stay alert and to concentrate on his driving. Being able to listen and not say a lot helped me, as I needed to delay grieving and just get to my family. I suppose the driver and I were doing our best to soothe ourselves and each other.

We got a cell phone call from his wife. He didn't answer it, because he had to keep both hands on the wheel. 

I said, "She must be so worried about you being out in this." My family was also texting me regularly to make sure that I was all right, too. But I had the luxury of answering them back. Not connecting with her prompted him to talk about her.

He said, "We have two children, four and two. She also works as a nurse. She works very hard. She is my hero." My smile, if he saw it, kept him going.

Photo still of angel on trapeze from the 1987 film Wings of Desire, 

an example of chiaroscuro n. the treatment of light and shade in drawing, painting and photography

He talked about getting married young, and his friends at college making fun of him for that, saying, "'Dude, no, why are you doing that?' Now, these are the same guys who still go out to these clubs to meet women, and here I am married and have two children. But who are they going to find at those clubs?" As the young and idealistic often are, he was quite pleased with how he had arranged his adult life so far, and I felt happy for him. By contrast, in the days to come, I would be facing a lot of thinking and talking about life and family in the past tense.

The exit ramp from the freeway was slippery, and soon we came upon a wide red car that was sliding off the road backward into the snow. The car in front of us stopped and then two guys got out. Another guy got out from the car behind us. Through the snowfall further ahead, I could see another car that had slid off the road and been abandoned, and the sad heap was getting shrouded in a thick powder.

My driver had his responsibility to his passenger, I suppose, and we stayed inside. As the men pushed and the tires spun, I started to worry that the line of cars slowing to a stop behind us would cause sudden braking and accidents, and we'd all end up on the nightly news from the view of a traffic helicopter above us, shining its floodlight down.

Somehow, the stuck car eased back onto the road, but not before one guy lost his footing as the car lurched forward and he fell hard onto his knees. Fortunately, he didn't seem hurt as he was helped up, and they all jogged quickly back to their cars, breathing out white puffs. Our impromptu parade of people--crazy enough to be out in that weather-- ambled forward.

Once we reached the first intersection, the same wide red car ahead of us began the same futile spin, but this time toward a city bus, coming in the opposite direction, which began to slide toward him. My driver and I made frightened "ah, ah, oh, oh, no!" noises, but the spinning car hit the median and came to a halt safely in the left-hand turn bay. The bus recovered itself and continued, as if it were a great white shark that had suddenly changed its course of attack, veering off.

My driver sat in the middle lane, away from all of that, and moved forward very slowly. I'm not sure if either one of us was breathing at that point. Thankfully, my hotel was only a block away and he escorted me to the lobby entrance, holding my bag. I urged him to call back his wife immediately, to go straight home to his family, and tipped him well. 

He had delivered me to my destination unharmed, made a little extra to take home to his family, and was proud of his job and cab. He had been the knight to my pilgrim, he would be coming in the door as the providing hero to the family he clearly adored. He might also tell them about his adventure, and the brave guys who had helped out the driver of the spinning red car.

Disembarked now into the safe and brightly lit lobby, with its empty armchairs and soft music playing, the sliding doors shut behind me, as if I had entered a remote emergency room during the ungodly hours. I approached the desk to the uniformed clerk behind it. She was watching the taxi drive away and said, "Ugh. I would never ride in one of those things." 

I said, "You mean late at night in a snow storm?" trying to keep it light.

"No," she said. "Just, any of those guys. Ugh." She clenched up the shoulders of her blazer in a fake shudder.

And then I felt everything inside me weaken. I was frustrated that I wanted to say something, but had no energy to say it. I was exhausted, on high alert from all that had happened, and I didn't now have it me to take on race or socio-economic relations. Her prejudice irritated me.

But I didn't see someone bad behind the desk. Just someone who was blocking the light that had arrived in a tiny red and green car and stayed with me through a short but dark passage. Her scrunched face turned back to me was like being jarred by an unexpected pothole.

I couldn't know her reasons for reacting in this way, but I also couldn't wait to get away from her chilly shade.

Do We Deserve Color?

A friend of mine was feeling low, evaluating both the painful and rewarding parts of her life, and asking if she deserved them. She finally voiced her underlying question, "What's so special about me?" 

Is she uniquely flawed, and deserving of punishment, no matter how hard she strives to do good? Or has she been granted rewards such as love, friendship, and a fulfilling career while others who strive harder are lacking, simply because she is more fortunate?

When these sorts of questions come to light after a period of reflection, they usually are touching on the question of our intrinsic worth.

Because I value the gift and luxury of color, it occurred to me that most people rarely pose these sorts of questions to this aspect of our life experience that we accept unquestioningly. We may analyze the effect that color has on our emotions-- from depressing to exultant-- but we don't require color to answer for itself. However we often demand answers from ourselves and others, privately and publicly.

Imagine posing the following: Do you see this color? Does this color deserve to be used on these walls? What has this color done for us? What if there's a better color? What if this color turns out to be a bad color? What if it was pretending to be another color all along? Can we trust this color? And by now aren't we even a little suspicious because we've said the word "color" so many times?

What does the word "color" actually mean? Where did it come from? What are its origins?How was this color made? How was it discovered or invented? Was that process completely pure and unadulterated? Was this color shown to us in a completely straightforward manner? Does it have ulterior colors?

Will it always please us no matter how we use it? Will we use too much of it or too little and then blame it for being too much or too little? Too light, too dark, too intense, too variable? Sometimes cool, sometimes warm, depending on what light is shone on it?

The list of questions could be unending. What are some others? I'd love to hear from you. Please leave a comment, question or reflection.

One answer, out of many, to the question of who deserves what is that we all have intrinsic worth, yet deserve nothing. We are not special. As the poet Charles Bukowski declared, we are "born like this into this". Like a color emerging, we are unique. How we function and how we affect others only becomes clearer as we come into view alongside others in an interplay. After that, we are indeed subject to others' and our perceptions and judgments.

As for me, I want to vitalize the emergence of others and myself at every point we find ourselves along the spectrum.