Twilight Is The Lonliest Time Of Day

The reason I walked across the street to take this rather bland picture of third street across from my street, looking West at twilight, was that I had been riding my bicycle back from the grocery and couldn't help but notice that the trees (maples mostly) looked rather Autumnal for the middle of April.  Most people have heard that when the green of Chlorophyll is given up by a plant, the true tissue color of the plant is revealed.  This probably seems painfully obvious to anyone not living in Antarctica.  It hasn't been terribly obvious to me however, why in the spring maples start out with all that red budding and flowering.  Is it to attract pollinators?  And if it is then why the red and bronze leaves as the trees first leaf out?  In any case, before long my entire environment will be a thick, close, green jungle again that reeks of Honeysuckle and is just the basic Tree City USA, Happy Unhunted Ground that my secular humanism simply demands.  

(Twilight Is The Lonliest Time Of Day is an awesome song I first heard Jerry Lee Lewis sing on his killer album "Last Man Standing."  It sets my hair on end it's so good.  And why not?  It's about my favorite maudlin subject:  kicking the bucket.  Mmmm..... so very good.)

Crab Tree At Forrest Quad

If You Reach The Golden Corral, Then You've Gone Too Far

I found myself sitting one day with an old priest at The Golden Corrall.  I was hung over and we were eating lunch.  It was my buddy Dennis's bright idea for me to go at the last minute.  Irritated that I was spending the afternoon with a priest while hungover, I deliberately let Dennis have it by apologizing to the priest for drinking heavily the night before.

"Why.  You think I like being sober? " said Father A.  He shrugged his shoulders, sizing up drinking perhaps as dwarfed by some of the more notorious human abominations.

Turns out his teacher was the priest I had known in the cigar shop, in Indianapolis.  Father Joe.  My buddy Tony's friend.

"So, Father A., Father Joe died two years ago and far as I could tell his community was not confident of their future without him.  Not that I knew the difference between the Byzantines and Beelzebub at the time, but you know, people talked, and said Joe was special.  I basically left him alone but for the occasional weather report or what have you.  He was your teacher.  Was he your friend?"

"We weren't friends.  No.  He was special, it's true.  Some guys have the touch, and people see them as the person they want before them.  I have never felt I was that guy.  Joe seemed to realize he was.  Didn't always like it.  But everyone knew, and he was one of them."

"Was his Church your first Church?" said Dennis.

"In a way I suppose it was," said Father A.  "I had been with a different Church, had been of a different denomination as a young student.  Why I switched and the path and manner by which I have come to serve all these years in the Eastern Orthodox tradition have challenged me to accept the advice I have all too often given others... but not taken myself."

"That it's in God's hands," said Dennis with that subtle smile that made me despise him sometimes, but probably was the reason he put up with me.

"Yes, Dennis," said Joe, but without a trace of pleasure.  "That it is. And it always was."

"But the fundamental difference between the Judeo-Christian religions is the boundary between man and God.  A Muslim or Jew could just as easily imagine their life in God's hands, but correct me if I'm mistaken, their path isn't quite the one you have seen for yourself, or taken in any case," I said with my usual total lack of insight as to why I even had need to ask.

"I don't know what the fundamental differences between the Abrahamic traditions are Andy.  Perhaps fundamentally... well, it's something for younger men to argue about.  That's why I appreciate you and Dennis letting me buy you lunch.  When I was your age I too was brimming with questions and feeling.  You know, in so many ways life is ones spirit.  That was something Father Joe and I could never really reconcile."

"That life  is a person's spirit," said Dennis, looking at me, "I think I'm on Joe's side with this one."  Funny thing was, when he was smiling at Jesus, I despised him, but when he was grimacing at me, I despised myself.

"Well pardon me if mere aknowledgement of the flesh as reflected in a cold mirror is somewhere, somehow, construed by some child praying on her knees as Satanic, my friend.  My cells merely seem to me to divide where for the saint they metastasize," I said, losing the thread of the conversation completely in my strange sense of being outnumbered by weirdo fundamentalists.  But something was wrong.  Father A. was laughing.

"That's a good one Andy, you make that up," he said.

"He's full of stuff like that, "said Dennis, "completely screwed up."

"I think I actually had a point," I tried to explain.

"Oh, you did," said Father A. "And let me tell you, it kind of reminds me of why I never felt like a friend to Father Joe.  Well, for one thing Dennis, I would never have told him he was screwed up, like Andy is lucky enough to have heard just now from you.  Not that I think you are Andy..."

"Yeah, I get it," I sheepishly let him off the hook, "all have sinned in the eyes of God."  

"Well, no... I mean, yes that is a true, rich statement that I think is worth investigating.  A type of wisdom if you will... but what I meant is that you and Dennis can both bear witness to the struggle that loving others amounts to.  So while neither of you reminds me of the other, a common language of respect and love seems to allow your friendship the space and freedom for you both to sense that your friend really wants to know you.  I had a wonderful teacher, but I never had that with Joe, or anyone in the administrative side of Church, for that matter."

"Well, did you say goodbye to Joe before he died," asked Dennis.

Father A. looked up, out into the empty directionless light of a February afternoon and shook his head.  The he looked at us, each, and then settled his gaze on his hands, saying, "No."

At some point near the end of Father A.'s schooling, he had knocked on Joe's door one afternoon.  Joe had been gone dealing with some family affair.  Father A. was scheduled in Syracuse to work after Seminary at a bustling, ailing Orthodox church.  He was scared to death.  He felt excitement at his future, and knew he would more or less do his job.  But as a man, he wondered, would he ever live up to the dreams of inquiry that all the years of schooling had never managed to settle into some kind of working knowledge.  Father A. sensed that Joe was in some ways the last of his true father figures. Was there anyone else I could ever ask such difficult questions? he genuinely wondered.  No.  He knew.  Father Joe was the only man he would ever ask this question.

"Father, I still wonder a little about why you think I am right for the Orthodox Church.  Sometimes I guess...." said Father A.

"You guess what, " said Father Joe, "that you don't know what to do?"

"Yes, exactly.  I don't know what to do, Father.  I only know what I am supposed to do," 

"Your lucky, if you can say that," said Father Joe.

"Have you ever second guessed everything," said Father A. "Have you ever just wondered what the truth really was?" The words came out like every disgusting thought he'd ever had in his life.  Every perversion. Every nightmare.  The love child of sleepless nights of miserable fun and the cold broken look of his sacrificing mother as he was leaving home.  

"A man must be called, " said Father Joe, "before he can answer."  And that was the last time Father A. ever called upon Father Joe for matters not pertaining to the Church.

I haven't seen Father A. in seven years.  He stayed in Bloomington until enough people were attracted by him and the rest of us in the little house on Smith road that service was conducted in for the big guys out east to get the money together to build a larger church.  Last I heard he was in another small town, laughing at the false modesty of the energetically spiritual.  Trying, probably, not to flinch at shadows that seem less playful the older you get.  Father Joe has of course been in heaven all along.  That's why I tell this story, and if you haven't been able to tell, this isn't the first time.  Everybody takes something different from it.  Are you a believer?  Are you an Atheist?  Perhaps you are a man or woman of God?  Or you are following your calling, but haven't heard it in awhile.  Who, here amongst us, in as it were, His midst, could really be certain of anything? 

The Corner Chinese Restaurant

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The restaurant is to the right, so you have to hit the arrow twice.  Full disclosure:  the food is abominable.  It is rather common for people from Asia to order something (that's in the menu in Chinese) and then receive what looks and tastes to them like boiled salad (with no choice in dressing).  I read Jennifer 8 Lee's wonderful book, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles a few years ago, and let me tell you, the Chinese restaurant story in America (really the entire world today) is a pretty interesting one.  None of this, however, has disuaded me from eating their crappy food.  My friend David refuses to eat there.  David use to live in San Francisco.  I've never had that unfortunate edification.  I love the white sauce at Dragon Express.  I love that it's close by.  And since what I get there is only vegetables and vegetable oil with garlic and corn starch, I don't feel like it must feel after eating the dinner size portion of General Tso's Chicken.  Not that there is anything wrong with GTC.  Probably...

Bring In Da Quiet

In my last post I got so off the subject that I changed it to Robert.  If you meet me in person you will see this happen.  Fifty six channels and every one's on.

My original intention in my last entry was to write about a comment I made to a girlfriend years ago.  I took her out to a fancy restaurant after a period of days where we circled each others flirtation to an annoying extent.  I was doing a internship at the restaurant and was absolutely certain the place would knock her socks off. It is by far the best one in town.  The only one in its class.  Bar none.  I spent well over a hundred dollars on the meal.  I had maybe three thousand dollars if you combined both my bank accounts.  My expenses exceeded a grand a month.  One hundred fifty dollars was almost two weeks groceries.  

The object of my desire was nauseated the entire meal.  For dessert I opened the door for us to leave.  She started smiling at that point.  I think that was right around the time the velcro started to fail on my wallet.  My previous girlfriend, Emily, had made me the wallet.  Funky mojo was in the air, but my date didn't care now that the smell a sauteed garlic could be dispersed by the fresh spring breeze.  It occurred to me that her nausea at the meal might make a wonderful thing for her to contrast my leering face to.  So as a kind of prelude to the hanky panky I thought it would be inspired to discuss the specifics of her prior indigestion.

"Chef offered to allow us the vegetarian tasting menu.  I mean, he offered, but I declined it 'cus I thought the entire point of his restaurant was to twist Classic cooking into knots.  You started turning green right after the salad.  I don't think you're a vegetarian, so what gives?"  

"I don't know Andy.  The place seemed cool in theory, but I've never eaten food like that, and now I know it isn't because it's expensive.  I just hated that place.  I like you... but not that food."

"Well.... if you put it that way.  Now that you don't look like your going to present me with a catalogue of you stomach's contents, maybe we can drop the pretensions and get down to business."

I drove her to my place and something that I had never considered happened.  She said, "I'd rather go to mine."  

"You want me to take you home?" I said to her, not realizing that I sounded like I was equating our expensive meal with the purchase of her libido.

"No. I want you to sleep at my house," she said, with eyes that said, Jesus man, you ever talked  to a woman before.

"Sorry," I told her, "It's been awhile and I spent a little more time than necessary, I guess, cleaning my house. But I like it clean, so I'll enjoy it none the less.  And, uh, thanks for inviting me over."

"It's like I said, " she told me, before she kissed me, "I don't like the food.  I like you."

The rest of that evening is sometimes not even my business... however, an amusing thing happened a few weeks later when I was sitting in this tree, with her, that hangs out over the water of Griffy lake, here in town.   "You have a funny look on your face," she said. 

"What else is new," I said, attempting to brush her observation away.  "I mean, I am a silly looking dude.  Imagine if you lost all your hair.  I mean there's two kinds of people who look like me, and the other kind are being treated for Cancer."

"That's an incredibly inappropriate thing to say," she said, while chuckling.  "Your one of the healthiest people I know.  And my aunt died of Cancer last year."

"Give me a break, I know your aunt died of Cancer. You are the opposite of the sort of person who asks others to confine their speech to the sort of talk appropriate to a person... to what, a lady?  If I knew any ladies I guess I'd learn the protocol."

"You know Andy, they say 'there is truth in jest'.  Do you know what that means?"

Practicing my only recently acquired and newborn like clumsy new talent of admitting ignorance I told her, "No."  

"Well, sometimes when you joke about something, I guess it means that you are symbolically emphasizing it.  Whether consciously or unconsciously.... there is truth in those "kidding" around things you say.  I know you like to open things up, people up, to the probity of your mind, and curiosity, but you are exposing more than the abstractions of prejudice or uncritical faculties, when you joke around.  So much of you is beautiful I just kind of wonder if you realize what your exposing, on the outside chance that you have some private parts after all." 

I sat there feeling the unseasonable cool off the lake.  Griffy had been Bloomington's original water source prior to the construction of Lake Monroe, for flood control in southern Indiana.  Her incredible insight made me want to go to the Library, caused an oddly sudden need to urinate, and in general introduced me to the intensely private part that smart people can make your whole damn being feel like.  "You know, did you ever think about how people who are dumber than shit ever have a conversation that, you know, accomplishes anything."

"No, I never thought that in my life, Andy," she said.  "Why?"

"I just mean that you can't claim that intelligence selects for good marriage.  In my experience divorce rates and dissatisfaction seem, if anything, higher with smart people than dummies."

"And...." she said.

"Hey!" I said, "you have a funny look on your face. What's going on?"

Before knocking me off the tree, and practically in the water, I think she said a combination of "mother" and the F word.  Strange, really.

So standing in the mud and kissing her I finally acquiesced, "You know that funny look on my face."

"I can't tell if your joking, even when I can articulate in a pretty outstanding approximation of an armchair psychologist what your joking means.  So mercy! What the hell are you talking about, and make it quick, I'd rather make out than talk to your stupid face."

"I was only trying to return, briefly, to the dangerous ground you took us on when I had that funny look on my face."

"What about it?" she let go of my chin, and folded her arms and cocked her hip as best a person can whilst six inches deep in mud.  The sun had been hinting for some time that it had designs on the side of our town where the biggest movie theatre is, and glinting through her rediculously shiny brown hair made me feel guilty for being young and American.  "Don't look at me like that. Not while your babbling anyhow.  I promised myself I would never tell you not to patronize me."

"I can't help looking at you this way, while the sun strokes your body like that.  Why wouldn't you tell me not to patronize you?" I asked.

"Because you patronize everyone, so it's kind of a lost cause," she said while smiling. "You look like I'm hurting your feelings."

"No way," I lied, "just a little frustrated its so hard to tell you want you want to know."

"Oh yeah, right.  I'm clearly putting up roadblocks here and there to your self expression Andy.  These trees are never going to be the same again so thoroughly infused are they by the sound of your voice.  I love you, and...."

"You do?" I asked.

"Yes. I even love hearing you God damn voice.  Though if you ever tell anyone that I will kill you," she said.

"How in the world could anyone ever note this conversation?  We might as well be having tea on the deck of the Titanic.  I mean, I'm the only idiot in my family who loves Indiana, so here I am with you, enjoying this retired resevoir..."

"Would you please shut up and tell me what you think I want to know.  You tricked me.  Now I'm willing to see it that way.  Your such a girlyman there's no point in being a feminist around you anyhow," she said.

"Man that is really liberating.  Would you be willing to go on record having said that about me, provided we get out of this mud and all."

"Definitely not.  As far as my girlfriends are concerned, and they are, you are just a boy with benefits."

"So this is what constitutes your professed Love,"  I said, knowing she would realize I was manipulating (poorly) her words.

"You know I'm saying that is my friends opinion, dipshit."

"I just thought I'd try.  You're annoyingly smart."

"What did the pot call the kettle?"

"The look on my face when we were sitting that tree?  Remember your deeply insightful moment earlier that about made me piss my pants?"

"Yeah...?"

"Well, the look on my face was due to the reason I wanted to come here."

"It was my idea to come to Griffy, Andy."

"Yes.  But it was my idea to come to this tree. Whenever I come here it reminds me of Walden Pond, because Thoreau mentioned in Walden the footpath around the pond and how it is made visible by snow."

"I basically hate Henry David Thoreau." she said, with menace.

"Well, it wasn't good for me when in Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer  called him a staid pussy virgin or whatever.  Maybe only pussies like Thoreau," I said.

"I wouldn't go that far, but I'd put it in my pipe for sure," she said.

"Thanks for the support.  And in any case, my Daddy don't make pencils and I am an awful student, and I'd rather take girls to my shack and shag them then lay about worried that someone might enjoying themselves in town.  I miss that volume of Walden my parents have though.  It was this small leatherbound Easton press thing.  I can see the scuff marks on it's cover from my book bag."

"So you just wanted me to know you wanted to bring me to this tree.  Thanks..." 

"No, I just wanted you to know I was an idiot.  But I'm learning. I sat here six years ago with Heather.  God, I really liked Heather.  Anyhow, Heather sat on this tree, and it was around the same time of year, but colder that day.  I think she called me to hang out like ten times that week.  I've lost track of the things we did together.  There were many.  And it's funny.... she had this boyfriend, Franklin, I think.  I met him, seemed like a nice attractive guy.  They were going to go to the Peace Corps or what have you.  It sounded like a nice romantic scene. So I wanted to be respectful.  So I sat on this tree with Heather.  I think I leaned on her.  She probably would have wanted more physical affection from a brother.  I was almost cruelly ignorant of her desires.  Everyone we knew told me later, too late really, that I should have kissed her.  They told me this with every anecdote I gave about my time with her.  I should have kissed her by the postal box.  I should have kissed her while we walked on second street just after we crossed that street by the cleaners when she asked me about old women and I told her the thing I knew about them was that they were women.  Which means they are great. And sexy.  She made a kind of delicious sound, a kind of dewy lip smacking sound like she'd just popped a perfect raspberry in her mouth, and I took her hand, and... thought of her boyfriend.  Talking later to a friend of hers her friend said to me, "Andy, if you had known where her boyfriend was, that night, on that street, you might have been surprised to learn he only existed in your head.  Heather, that night with you, wasn't even aware of Franklin's existence.  Don't you know how things like this work?"  I didn't.  No.  So the look on my face was about Heather. And Thoreau.  The snow won't in all likelihood be back till December, and the footpath is all but invisible.  I last heard Heather was in some part of China.  She never knew me, she just knew everything she needed to know.  I'm sorry, I didn't want to tell you this.  I am just gobsmacked over you.  I really dig you.  And with this, I guess I trust you as well."

I didn't stay gobsmacked forever. One day she went off with this guy who loved silence retreats.  Viva La Difference.

The "Reverend"

I just got home from work, and almost before I knew what was happening I was down on my knees with my feet falling asleep, looking into the face of my housemate/landlord Robert, wondering what it is that allows for that feeling I get when we speak to one another.  It's funny, because I had food on the stove and I just turned the stove off when Robert started asking a question about a poem I gave him.  He said, "Every time I read your poem I see something new and beautiful." 

"That's a nasty thing to say to a friend, Reverend," I said to him.  Robert's a minister, who for all practical purposes in the current state of our popular culture, doesn't believe in God.  Which sounds as much to me as it does to you like a comic book character sketch.  People say to me all the time, that know Robert as a teacher, "My God what is it like living with someone like him?"  I either tell them, "A constant blessing," if they seem a bit dim, or "He's my friend so it's not like you imagine.  It's more about the way you are forced into the perspective of a person you love, than it is about sponging up wisdom from the wizened old Yoda like dude you live with.  Yeah he looks cool when he's holding his cane in front of him with both hands.  Yes he makes me smile involuntarily, like one of your own children, or a grandchild might.  But the harder you work at wisdom, rather like the physics of matter or something, the harder wisdom becomes.  So Robert and I settled on friendship a long time ago, and rarely ever imagine the other person as a useful source of data, or wisdom."  It reminds me of a priest I knew in Indianapolis who passed away six years ago.  He used to hide from his flock in a cigar store.  I was hiding from my life in there too.  The priest was very good friends with the manager of the store.  The main reason being that the manager of the store took his crappy life like a man.  He would never have bugged a priest about his total lack of happiness.  This made the priest appreciative.  This made the manager appreciative.  Positive feedback loop.  I am not unhappy, so it's not a perfect metaphor, but it's kind of a similar situation with me and Robert. He's not an Atheist, and is I suppose, embarrassed by what calling himself a Christian suggests.  He has been fired as a minister from Churches (probably for being a jerk about Jesus, eh?) too numerous to count, and was fired from Penn State for reasons I can't frankly imagine but probably have to do with being a bit more blunt about spiritual matters than religion usually prefers.  Of course, for all I know Robert may have done something really terrible to someone.  But I am willing to put my neck out in the supposition that my experience with him suggests to me a guy who err's way, way to the benefit of righteousness despite his DNA as a homo sapien.  In fact it is sport to imagine what poor old evolution does with a guy like Robert.  Were a burglar to hold a knife to Robert's throat, Robert would just laugh, and say, "I've been waiting for a girl like you.  I can't see terribly well, sorry."  

I'm going on and on about him because he is dying right before my eyes, and when it doesn't seem sad (sorry common sense: most of the time it doesn't seem sad when your around a dying person.  The human spirit is way to smart for that.)  it's a really serene process.  I figure very few people have the constellation of qualities and luck to die like my buddy Robert.  I don't know "how" to say it so I'll just say it this way, "It is cool to watch Robert die."  Yeah, cool like a Hallmark after school special.  Yeah, cool like a best sellar, Tuesday's with Morrie or whatever.  Yeah, cool like his whole life flashes before his eyes.  Old people are different.  I'll be different too, when the strength of my passion, desire, curiosity and agency all burn down to dimly glowing coal.  That's Robert.  He doesn't dodge the truth.  He hurts, and wishes he had more energy, and is depressed that he's watching TV while I might be writing a song or what have you.  I try to tell him that I admire his understanding of and analysis of TV sports.  I'm afraid my life has not been good training to make a better case for Robert's pastime.  But it doesn't matter.  He knows I admire his accomplishments.  And the nature of accomplishments is inherently past tense.  He could eat cotton candy all day and he'd still be the Reverend.  About once a week he says, "Andy, will you live with me until I die."  I used to waffle.  But what, after these last paragraphs, do you guess I say now?