Reveries of Robbery

It was the second less-than-sweltering day in a row. One could almost feel the invisible gratitude radiating off of the strolling mass of early morning commuters. No sweat stains today. I walked as everyone else in Manhattan walked on a midweek business day: with purpose. And yet, rising just above the determination, like vegetable oil rising to the surface of a pot of water, buoying optimism saturated my morning outlook.
Fifth avenue held its usual bustle of taxis, busses, and limousines, all bordered by sidewalks teeming with the particular flow of so many pedestrians. I imagined how, from the sky, the busy thoroughfare must have resembled a section of artery under a microscope, the people and automobiles like thousands of bloods cells, charging onward with the general current, clumping up at crosswalks and stop lights only to eventually rediscover motion.
I made my way from 53rd to 42nd, stopping en route to buy a few pieces of fresh fruit from a lone vendor. Once I arrived at my usual morning destination- the central branch of the New York Public Library- I mounted the grand stone steps, skirting the larger-than-lifelike lion statue and walking directly to one of the shaded aluminum tables with their rickety peeling-paint folding chairs.
After settling into my seat I couldn't help but overhear the conversation drifting over from my neighboring table: three construction workers were on break, smoking cigarettes, discussing a robbery committed by a man dressed- robe, mask and all- as Darth Vader. A series of laughs erupted from the trio as the expected jokes were made about the criminal employing the force to overcome the guards, cutting through the vault with his light saber, and emerging from the building with Princess Leia waiting in the gettaway vehicle.
I smiled to myself at hearing their jollity while imagining the incredible scene with no small amount of imaginative details: The starred glass over the teller's counter where Vader had thrown an impeding guard; the rhythmic, mechanical sound of his labored, robotic breathing; the weapons belonging to the security personnel floating peacefully above their heads, suspended by the Sith lord's dark capabilities.
And as the sun filtered down through the breeze-shifted leaves of the canopy of birch trees towering above the wiry sidewalk furniture, I enjoyed its soothing warmth and spent another five minutes radiating gratitude to see what I see, hear what I hear, live where I live.

1.000 words of self-assurance

10 July 2010

I feel slightly unraveled today. Having ruined what had the potential to be a highlight evening last night by getting too drunk and having a bad trip at a huge concert, I stepped into today with enumerable misgivings about myself.
It was as if I took every single one of my worst thoughts and opinions about myself and not only affirmed them with my behavior but surpassed them in deplorability. I’m tired of these stupid situations that lead to me feeling ashamed.
It may seem overly romantic or idiotically idyllic but all I really want at this moment is for Jason to come walking into the room, sit down next to me, wrap his arms around me and say, “Noah, I love you. And everything is going to be okay.”
Perhaps it’s my life to this point having so few real obstacles that has led me to a place of needing constant reassurance. Whatever the prompting, the result is the same: I want to be protected, to be made safe, and to be allowed to admit I’m afraid.
The notion of fear tends to in some way indicate weakness and I am uncomfortable with the idea of being weak. This used to manifest itself in my constant bodily comparison to people who were more muscular than me. Then it transitioned into my never saying no when people asked me for help. The lifeguard in me then went a step further and I began to feel the need to fix things for anyone and everyone. It wouldn’t have mattered if it was a friend or a stranger, the moment I caught wind of someone’s problem- be it relational, financial, occupational, academic, spiritual, or otherwise- the synapses in my brain would start firing at top speed, madly concocting some sort of panacea for whomever it was that needed a change.
The pressure of this kind of habit is quiet, sneaky, and ultimately exhausting. Thus, I spent years of my life in a quandary as to why I would always end up hitting a wall out of nowhere, utterly spent.
I’d be going like gangbusters, everything seeming to be right where it belonged, only to exceed some invisible speed limit, evidenced by my starting to spin out of control. And then I would fall down and down, my energy seeping out of some giant figurative tear in the quickly deflating balloon of my happiness and success.
Eventually I would operate as a shell of the person I knew myself to be. Foods I used to love would become little more than incidental forms of necessary nourishment. Books would seem too hefty to lift, open, and read. Music would lose its appeal and ability to comfort. And I would be left to do nothing with myself other than go about my days like a robot: no feeling, no depth, just hardened emptiness.
It is during these times (and there have been several) that I search myself inside and out for a renewed sense of purpose. I beg the sky for a secret ladder to descend to my front door where I can simply mount the rungs and, one after the other, climb them higher and higher toward some eventual preset goal.
The charm of this fantasy is the idea that I’m not responsible to do anything other than pull myself up, one hand at a time. Someone or something other than myself establishes the path and destination. I simply stay on track. I believe this appeals to me because I know my capabilities and strength well enough to invest fully into anything I find worthwhile.
And, when I’m already operating on nearly dead batteries, it’s the quest for the worthwhile that leaves me feeling sick and hopeless. By the time I’ve reached the point where I’m little more than an inert lump of misery it’s all I can do not to give up on everything including myself. Thus the prospect of burrowing into the raw, messy truth of the difficulties of being sentient and alive in hopes of unearthing something tiny and beautiful seems beyond Herculean.
Yet somehow each of these episodes comes to a welcome close. My sunshine trickles back in, little by little, and I start to sense the potential all around me. At first it’s just the occasional thought that there is more to be found in everyone and everything, that there is possibility hiding beneath a thin veneer coating the whole world. This gradually becomes a hopefulness to witness something of that possibility. And finally, after catching glimpses of it in people and places all around, I feel excited, expectant, and thrilled to be alive.
Coming full circle I can see why this series of feelings and thoughts could become cyclical. However, on that same note, I do not at all see anything that would lead me to believe that it must.
There is a choice involved in everything I do. Even breathing, which is automatic, is something I must choose to do fully or only half way. In the same sense I have a choice as to my level of commitment to myself to break away from the possible sadness. I can choose to devote myself fully or only half way.
Life is a thing of marvelous complexity and, as such, I choose to regard it as a combination of minute details all playing together into one huge composition of beauty, pain, happiness, growth, and yes, total potential.
As someone who’s been curious about everything since day one, always asking “why, why, why”, I could not be more satisfied than to think of there being no end of mystery in the day to day, moment to moment. And I choose to embrace that mystery with a devout discipline and total abandon.
If I’m to overcome my misgivings, fears, worries, and disappointments, the one thing I can use as a constant assurance of my capacity for victory is that I have a choice: Fully or half way.

It happened this afternoon

Jason and I met with our future landlord today to sign the lease for our own Upper East Side, one-bedroom apartment.

I'm experiencing such a great deal in these ensuing minutes and hours: joy, relief, anticipation, peace.

We met at the new address during Jason's lunch break, both of us swimming in our own juices as a result of the oppressive heat. I had made a point of dressing slightly less casually than I tend to on these hot days in order that a continued impression of youthful professionalism be maintained. That said, corduroys and a cotton poplin do not afford the most forgiving corporal climate when trudging down blistering hot sidewalks during the peak of midday sunshine. My mid- and lower back were a veritable waterslide beneath the pale green stripes of my shirt.
Jason didn't seem to be in any better position as he was wearing patent leather shoes, navy slacks, and his own incubator-cum-button-up.
Although happy to see one another at this unusual point in any given work day, we were by no means at our sociable peaks what with the effects of the weather giving us both the feeling of being squeezed from head to toe by giant, greasy hands.

Luckily, Issa, the landlord, was ready and waiting for our arrival and let us in the moment we rang the buzzer, sparing us any unnecessary dallying out of doors. We entered his serious, cherry-accented office and within the course of less than five minutes we had reviewed the terms of the annual agreement, discussed a few last minute details, and signed our names on the dotted lines.

The apartment was officially ours.

We thanked Issa, shook hands, and headed back out into the heat, immediately making our way to the 96th street station in order that Jason return to work by the end of his lunch break. I, on the other hand, intended upon escorting him back to sixth avenue, where he would go north to the offices of William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, and I would turn south toward the main branch of the New York Public Library.

We exited the train at 51st street and began the trek to sixth through what could only be described as scorching Hell. As planned, once we came to sixth avenue the two of us said our goodbyes, shared a brief parting kiss, and went off in the directions of our personal destinations.

Still sweating to the point of utter disgust, I couldn't help but smile to myself at the accomplishments I realized I had made in the not-quite six months since arriving in this incredible city.

-A passable, mostly-lucrative job allowing me the ability to support myself.
-Numerous addresses in colorful parts of a variety of neighborhoods.
-Several writing projects of which I have grown increasingly proud and hopeful.
-New friends and acquaintances with whom I can see myself sharing long, beautiful relationships.
-Jason, a man of ambition, compassion, and humility.
-And a greater, more fortified sense of personal strength and capacity than I have ever known to this point in my life.

Yes, all around I feel I've done well.
And what's more, I feel I am allowed to say that of and to myself. I've worked extremely hard and I know that that will only continue, but at least I can look back on this choice and know, with utter profundity, that I am where I belong, I am who I should be, and both of those things are constant only in their potential to change.

Thank you, New York, you've chewed, clawed, spit, and fought...


...And I'm still hanging on.

A Complex Determination

When a child's parents tell that child to keep his or her hands to him or herself there is a certain complex determination born in the child's soul.
It is the combined desire to control him or herself to the point of obeisance and to secretly plan on waiting for the propitious moment to challenge the respected authority and find out, via practical experience, just why he or she was told to behave. Not to mention what might happen in the event of rebellion.

It might be said that this same complex determination is what matures to become nationalism, corporate loyalty, or dare I suggest religion. One is compelled to find a set of standards, a concise methodology for proper existence. But it is tinged with the notion of rebellion, the desire to dance on the wild side and challenge what one has chosen to embrace.

Present & Grateful

Six days ago I had no idea about the amount of distance I would be covering between then and now.
Since Monday, I have traveled somewhere in the vicinity of five-thousand miles, seen my whole immediate family for the first time in six months, slept a night in my old apartment, and spent time with a number of the friends who I thought I wouldn't be anywhere near until the end of the calendar year.

And all because of a death in the family.

My reactions to death have been elucidated in writing on numerous occasions and have always come to a conclusion that goes something like this: I'm not ruined at the thought of someone passing because I have yet to see the negative in death.

This is not to say that I will forever hold this stoic optimism. I very well could have someone taken from me by the silent black strength of death who I am in no way ready to be without. But the fact is that that has yet to occur. And until it does I shall maintain this somewhat ambivalent outlook.

Why? I already feel things far too deeply to allow something as tar-thick and compromising as the notion of a person's passing inside my clever walls. Like Meg in A Wrinkle In Time, I plan to look through the transparent atomic walls while not allowing anyone's passage through their see-through surfaces.

One might think of this sort of behavior as sociopathic in some form or another. But the truth is that it gets me up in the mornings and allows me to sleep at night. These are the key moments of any day- the start and the end- and I refuse to inhibit myself if it can be avoided.

Coming back around, the beauty to be found in this most recent bout with death is that I was permitted the opportunity to visit the family, friends, and places I have come to think of as my foundations at a time when I knew I needed some sort of direct encouragement, uplifting, affirmation.
In the end I was also able to obtain confirmation: I am supposed to be where I am, doing what I'm doing, trying as hard as I can to be present and grateful.

I guess that's really the best reaction one can have to the notion of death in close proximity: just be present and grateful.

Hateful Reveries

This morning, during the 20 minutes it took Jason to shower and make the coffee, I somehow managed to fall asleep and have a terribly upsetting dream.

I am in a large, wooden, lodge-style house. The crepuscule creeps through the large windows revealing that it is evening. There is some sort of large, extravagant formal party going on (I can tell because everyone is wearing a tuxedo or some sort of slinky black cocktail dress). I stand speaking to Amy Smart (I know, why her?) and I whip out my iPhone to take video of her for some habit-seeming although unknown reason.
Now here is where the first strange conflict occurs to me: Something about the style of dress, decor of the home, and sound of the music weaving its way amongst the partygoers implies that the timeframe is somewhere around the 40's. And yet I have an iPhone and use it with a seemingly automatic ease. I realize this in passing and then move my focus elsewhere.

As I am recording Amy, watching her comely features wrinkle into an impish smile, I hear some kind of low hum coming from outside the house. It's not unfamiliar enough to immediately raise my attention but Amy's face goes from cheerful to confused and then all of the way to frightened.

"What is it?" I ask her, stopping my recording.
"It's an air raid," she responds urgently, looking at the ceiling, her face growing more and more creased with fear.
"Air raid?" I am completely confused? Why would there be an air raid?

Then the first bomb drops.
Somewhere within the surrounding mile radius of countryside an explosion tears up earth, shreds lazy tree branches, and sends vicious tremors through the ground, shaking the house at its foundation. All of the guests have become aware of the outside threat and have begun the quick decent into mass hysteria. Ladies shrill voices calling for their husbands pierce the drumming noises of collective panic. Somewhere a child begins to cry, a desperate, terrified sound.

By the time I collect myself enough to begin moving I am already caught in the rampaging motion of dozens of guests trying to make their way to the basement for shelter. Hustled along by a sea of glitzy jewelry and black velvet, I strain to catch a glimpse of the landscape outside. Eventually, after struggling my way to one of the frames along the hallway, I pull aside the drapes. Outside there are patches of flame riddling the surrounding forestation and from the trees come a multitude of green-clad soldiers (reminiscent of the hollywood notion of Nazis).

I continue being pushed along by the crowd of scared guests (realizing that I have lost Amy amidst the throng) and eventually end up on the main floor (apparently the whole beginning of the dream happened with me on the second floor). At the base of the stairs there is an eerie quiet and all of the once-crazed guests stand in a still, silent daze in the main room. At the center of the space, in front of the giant stone fireplace, stands a regal looking officer wearing a brimmed hat and the same green-colored uniform as the outside soldiers, only his lapel is patched full of bright ribbons and medals. I cannot make out what he is saying but I know that he is delivering the "you are all my prisoners and you are all going to be shipped out to a containment facility immediately" speech.

In my bewilderment I turn around hoping to find somebody to ask precisely what is going on. I come face to face with a frumpy, smug looking female officer with a large scab running diagonally across the arch of her nose. It's terribly distracting and for a moment I am too taken aback to form a complete sentence. However I quickly regain my composure and try to ask her why I am being rounded up to be taken.

"Our directive is to gather and relocate the local Jewish community," she said with a cruel half smile.
"But I'm not Jewish," I tell her, only slightly frustrated (I don't want to seem difficult).
"That's not the reason we're taking you," she says with a knowing sneer. Had she continued to speak I knew her message would be something like, "you disgusting faggot."

There was an insidious, dripping hatred oozing out of her so palpably acidic that I rushed away from her as quickly as I could. I felt so angry, so scared, and so injured. It was as if I had just been set upon by a swarm of insects whose venom filled me with a sense of dirtiness, of foul, disgusting imperfection. I felt as I was disfigured.

In the morning the whole party is made to empty onto the lawns where a number of large trucks with gated beds, like the kind used to transport cattle, are parked along the edge of the grass. In front of these trucks are three or four white pavilion tents with picnic tables beneath each one.

We are all forced to file into the gated rear portion of the trucks, jammed in, closer and closer until it is quite obvious that there will not be room enough for anyone to sit down. I manage to position myself against the side of the cage so I can see what is happening around me. At the tables under the white pavilion tents sit all of the servants who had been serving the cocktails and the hors d'oeuvres at the gala the night before. They now sip coffee from china mugs and snack on biscuits on silver serving trays. They behave as if absolutely nothing is out of the ordinary. I want to cry out to them, to beg them for help, but I know they will simply ignore me and continue on with their mornings as if my pleas are no more than a few pesky summer flies.

I am beside myself with terror, wonder, and utter despair.

And then I woke up.

Veering in a new direction

Following yet another rejection from a prospective employer, and again on the grounds that I am "too big a personality to work in literary representation", I've decided to take a new approach to the beast that is my occupational future.

I'm tired of questing for something mysterious and foreign. I've begun to realize that perhaps this whole notion of orbiting aimlessly around the idea of writing is the one thing holding me back from diving into something at which I could really excel; that could invigorate and thrill me in a more immediate way; that could permit me access to the glamour and excitement I've always been too ashamed to own outright.

It's not to say that I don't want to write. Clearly I do. It's just that the notion of writing being this sort of work-in-progress device for flying is beginning to feel slightly unrealistic. I'd rather climb onto a plane and have someone teach me the controls while I craft my own original form of flight on the side, a sort of hobby to fill up the lazy evenings and weekends.

And this is my plan.
I'm in the midst of a period of assessment, a moratorium of pursuits and aspirations. All I want to do is to be successful, bombastic, glitzy, and still taken seriously by those who really know me.

In the timeless words of somebody I don't remember, "fuck 'em if they can't take a joke."