Life, the Universe, and Everything in It

Last summer, I first went to New Port to visit friends. We decided to walk the entire Newport
cliff walk. If you don’t know them, they border many of the islands famous
mansions on an expanse of sea cliffs that wind their way up and down, some at
sea level, some high above, some paved and reinforced by man, others tumbled
rocks that are passable or not with the rise and fall of the sea.

I meditate daily and on this day, I did a special form of meditation, called
devic meditation, where the focus is on our shared connection with all living
things: animals, plants, earth, rock, water, everything alive that surrounds
us. Native American peoples believed that every living thing was a potential
messenger about our place in the greater cosmos. You could tell what to focus
on or what you might be missing by interpreting the animals or plants that
captured your attention strongly any time you were outside. If you met an
animal during your journey, you paid special attention. These encounters were described
as having an Animal Visitor. I had spent the summer learning about this. And
so, I opened myself to experience my connection with the natural world and
asked for any communication that might be sent for my benefit.

It had been years since our last visit. In the past,
my friends had walked swiftly. I had to work to keep pace with them and it took
most of my attention. While I really wanted to take my time to take things in
more, I felt that I had to keep pace. I breathed the air and paused
occasionally at the overlooks that dotted our path, but mostly I just thought
about the destination and keeping pace.

My trip last fall was different. I was different.
The meditation had opened my senses and years of mediation and taking time had
sharpened this as if all six senses had been in training for this moment. The
walk began beside a beach and went behind a club house bungalow. There were
rows and rows of plants I never remembered seeing before. Beach roses, my
friend told me. Magentas, purples, and whites intertwined with bushy vines and
the dark glossy, almost prickly leaves that all roses seem to have. Intermixed
were these odd reddish-orange berries. I thought they must be two different
plants that grew in the same terrain and climate, but they later appeared to be
aspects of the same plant. I stopped dead in the first five feet to put my nose
to one. Such a beautiful, sweet, smell. Fragrant like a warm, light syrup with
a deep finish. I began to smell one after the other. I put my nose to everyone
that called to me. I began to notice that the scent was different from rose to
rose, bed to bed. Some were more sweet. Some were more faded as if past their
peak for pollination. I’d never remember smelling so many flowers and noticing
such a difference in their smell.

            It didn’t take too long for our first animal
visitor to appear. We rounded the first bend and saw the largest, most unusual
spider I’d ever seen. It was easily 3 1/2 to 4 inches tall. Jet black main body
and underbelly, bright yellow markings. It rested, totally at ease and content
on its web between beach roses, slender legs curled contentedly amongst the
strands, its back facing away from us and toward the ocean. I reveled at her
size and beauty, the unusual nature of her to my eyes. Fear never entered my
mind. I was delighted and shared my joy with her in verbal appreciation. Native
American teachings emphasize our connection with all living things, and our
ability to communicate through sound and expression, if not shared language.
Watch the animal kingdom: different species communicate all the time even
though they do not sound the same. Next time you are outside watch the
squirrels and birds discuss things, or listen to the blue jays announce that a
cat is nearby, or the coming rain. All you need to do is listen and observe. I
still can’t believe how large the spider was. In Native American traditions,
the animals we meet are considered sacred communications to us from Spirit, the
unseen guiding force upon which our lives rest and flow. Spiders represent the
creation of language and writing, or more broadly, communication. Anyone who’s
seen or read "Charlotte’s
Web" can relate to this. If this Spider was telling me there was writing
and communication in my future, than the writing before me must be
considerable!

As we continued to walk, I decided that I didn’t
want to try to keep the pace on this walk I respected that my friends would
walk at their pace; I didn’t expect or encourage them to wait for me. I was no
longer in a rush to finish or get somewhere. The walk *was* the point of our
day. I wanted to take it at a pace I would enjoy, one where I could enjoy the
flowers and my friends along the way if they chose to walk with me, the parking
meter be damned. I would pay the fine. So I stopped as my inclination drew me.
If a flower called to me, I smelled it. If I felt drawn to look in a direction,
I did. The first time I did this, I saw Spider. The next time it was a
magnificent sea bird. At first I thought it was a heron, but upon closer
reflection I decided it was my first cormorant. I had just been commenting to a
friend before the trip that I’d never seen one in person. What a gift. Among
Native America tribes, Cormorants are known for their ability to dive deep into
the ocean depths, hold their breath, and return unscathed with nourishment for
themselves and their families. Or in other words, they can enter a hostile
environment and return with what they need not just to survive, but flourish. As
one sat on a rock, I saw another appear from the depths. I noticed their dark
charcoal colored bodies ended in bright orange beaks of some length and
wondered why. As we walked we saw more and more of them, gathered in small
groups or larger families, diving and rising, diving and rising. I thought this
very auspicious as I have much in me that speaks of cormorant energy. I am
drawn to plunge myself into intensity to return with treasure. At first we
simply marveled at them, stating our joy to the ocean wind currents high above as
the sea crashed gently beneath us over well worn rocks as the cormorants dove.
Suddenly, our visit together felt like a reconnection, something I’d been
craving but trying not to force. The moment hung and swung on the currents of
the salty air. It lasted, the gift of experience shared together. We both knew
what it was to dive deep and come back alive.   

As I walked my walk at my pace on this day I was
treated to the smell of salt in its many forms. The stagnant smell of water
slowly circulated, the intensifying smell of fresh salt air on a clean breeze.
I heard the many sounds of the sea. Sometimes I moved into a trail walking step
used by trackers and nature enthusiasts, called the fox walk. You can *see*
with your feet. I closed my eyes and deeply listened. I heard the song of the
sea separate into its many voices. Sometimes lapping, sometimes crashing,
sometimes rising, then ebbing, filling and emptying, the verging inside of us
manifested outside. I tasted it with strong pulls of air through my nostrils: the
heavy salt of the brackish inlets; the light salt of a quick running breeze; the
sweet taste of the beach rose fragrance. I felt the pressure of the air around
me like a gentle muscle. Even as I tired, I marveled at the beauty around me, a
feast for the senses. I had never walked like this before.

            What was before black or white, stop or go, was now
a vital palette for the senses. I choose this in my life now. I choose to
move into it with openness and distinction. There is not just one smell of salt
or sea. There is not just one taste or one vista or one walk. There is not just
one sound. There are many. There are so many that they defy description. And as
my journey unfolds I can have a thousand more days like this, each just as
simple as their beginning. I step outside and listen, see, hear, open with my
entire body to what might be waiting. I didn’t need to go to Rhode Island for this, but this does not limit the
experience. I can go anywhere. My back yard, the street in front of my friend’s
house, or a place I’ve never been before. This is life in every moment. And I
relish it… I can recall the moment that I decided that I would neither dawdle
nor rush, the moment I decided to progress at my pace. That moment rippled. It
felt like my resolve. I will not live my life at another’s pace. Sometimes I
may choose to blend, as we all do, to the pace of the moment. But when I do it
will be my pace because I’ve chosen it.

I was talking to a friend the other day and she told me the following story: she was walking down a street in the city one day thinking about many things and nothing, focused on getting to the train station. One moment she was walking briskly with her destination in mind, the next she found herself sprawled on the ground, her feet below street level. No one had bumped her and she hadn’t been hit by a car. As she crossed the street, she’d stepped into an enormous pothole. Her first reactions were those of embarrassment and surprise. How could I fail to see a pothole that larger in the middle of the street? As she boosted herself back up to street level, she noticed the former armory on the street’s opposite side, it’s door flung wide open. It was filled with the city’s elite gathered for a fund raiser. Hospital banners drifted above the well dressed attendees. She scurried up and out, thinking of her train, resolved to act nonchalant. But something about the experience slowed her. As she moved away, she glanced over her shoulder. Someone began to cross at the same point in the street. As they did, a member of the fund raiser’s throng called out–"Watch out for the pot hole!" Only the music still played as all the faces in crowd held expression of shock, concern, or amusement in the aftermath of her fall and escape. But instead of shame with new intense scrutiny, her admitted first reaction, she became more aware. The smell of the moist earth at the base of the pothole. The play of light over distant spangles and jewels. The periodic sounds of laughter escaping the party. The compassionate expression on the face of a stranger who offered to help her. The pain of her twisted ankle helped to maintain this awareness to the train station and beyond, where she made her train, but never forget the simple beauty of the autumn day when she stepped into a pothole and saw the world differently for a while.
     We all have moments like this don’t we? I know I do. Times in my life where I think: this is where I am going, my thoughts one thousand paces ahead of the world that’s actually happening all around me in the present moment. And then I step my version of the pothole. A lover leaves. Budget shortfalls result in a lay off. A friend dies. I back into a parked car. The list goes on. And in the moments that follow I become hyper aware of my bodies and the world around me. The pain of falling. The lurch of loss. Humiliation or anger blooming into nausea and branching into pins and needles in my hands. My adrenaline kicks in and my mind kicks into overdrive as I create a narrative of criticism: how could I not have seen that coming? why does this always happen to me?  of course I’m going to miss my train. But somewhere in these moments of loss, I also find something. It’s often simple to describe but hard to define. It’s as if I’ve been moving through a grey landscape and am shocked to find the sun and the colors of the impressionist painters. I walk around numb only to experience the gift of pain when it leads to the compassion of strangers and I no longer feel alone.

     Today, I passed a total stranger in the rain. I made eye contact. She said, "Merry Christmas," and I said it back. I couldn’t help but grin. I gleamed for two blocks after the simplest of human greetings. I see you. You are here. You see me. I am here. The next hour was a delight of simple experiences. The pleasure of slowing down, feeling my feet flow under me in a stroll of perpetual motion. The comfortable coolness of misty rain, hundreds of kisses that moistened my face, my skin, my hair, yet left me warm and glad of the wet. The sounds of a squeaky bicycle wheel punctuating my meal and reminding me that I share this space with others. The desire to commiserate with strangers as they stand, holiday packages and bags in hand, while perhaps another stranger changes the tire on their car. Not even the unscheduled shuttering of the doors of the neighborhood video rental store or a forgotten store item could dim my sense of aliveness. I think we’ve all felt it. The opportunity to wake up through pleasure or pain, both gifts from the body that we call home.

     We all feel fear or anger or embarrassment. These emotions come and go naturally, humanly. The story that I use to explain it to myself is what I create. The story that runs like a soundtrack for my life is one that I compose and I can choose to change it. I can interrupt the orchestra and switch to a different score. I can shake my fist at the driver who runs the changing light and then I can thank them for bringing the world around me into focus. Pain can be pleasure and pleasure pain. The truth is it’s a choice. It’s not a choice to feel or not feel, crushing down the emotions that my body’s natural way to give me information. I’ve never had an immaculate experience while numb, although I’ve appreciated coming back into my senses when the numbness wears off. That fact is that I’m human. This means that each time I have an experience I have it twice: intellectually and emotionally. Twin almond shaped structures in the middle of me brain hold the keys to my emotional kingdom. Flashing like beacons in a night sky they are typically the first way we experience everything we do. The intellectual center sends its calm and steady narration, but it can take me moment, months, or years to hear it.  I have twin memories for every experience, an intellectual one and an emotional one. Who can say why the emotional ones win out so easily? Perhaps its simply because its easier to hear the person shouting in the middle of the room until they stop. Perhaps that’s why the idea of counting to 10 that we learned in childhood is actually so effective. We might think this twin response mechanism is ineffective, but as I think about it I can’t say that one has ever seemed to me exclusively right. My intellect seems so prone to be co-opted by protectionism. I would never choose to be in love with advice like that. And in its own right the emotions can be clever deceivers. My history twisted to look like a Tim Burton creature character, one of the less likable ones, turning friends, loved ones, even total strangers into monsters. Instead my fraternal twin advisers are like the system of Checks and Balances: imperfect but better together, looking over each other’s shoulders, than they would be alone in control of their respective domains.

     As my friend tells me her story, her eyes are full of wonder, not shame. She breathes evenly. Her eyes shine. I see and she tells me that it is a memory that makes her feel alive. It’s a kind of signpost on her way to something she can only feel, a place that makes her live in every moment. It’s a reminder to me that I can read these signposts, too, the gift of her story in my experience.

Life is composed of rhytmns, the beats we learn that make up the music that is our lives. Somtimes it is somber, others truimphant, often it is the music of elevators we are waiting to leave. We submerge ourselves in our respective pieces. This week, I was Radiohead. Last week, I was Mozart mixed with Kathleen Edwards. Today, I am Erin McKeown. The notes and lyrics describe my feelings, my life. The pleasures and pains of my hopes and dreams as they flourish or evaporate. I take for granted that tomorrow will be another day, another piece, another song. Today, I learned, that the music of a dear friend and classmate has become a requiem. Chrystian Wurmser, Class of 1992, a computer geek for a national stockbrokeridge who wanted to retire to become a high school math teacher has died of pneumonia, a secondary condition of lukemia that no one knew he had. I wish I could tell you how old he was. I think he was 35. I thought of him recently when I saw a 1994 Erasure concert being broadcast on cable. That was his favorite band in college. I have a cassette that he made from a cd that he had, "Pop! 20 Hits!" I thought of calling, but didn’t, knowing there would be time. What do we wait for when we don’t call? I wait for a time when my life will be better, when I will have good news to reveal, especially with old friends I haven’t spoken to in a while. Like attending some kind of high school reunion, I have this resolve to appear that I have made something of myself. It isn’t as vain as you might think. Its a desire to be a positive force in people’s lives, forgetting that it is better to show up as we are than to not show up at all.
     I find it inevitable to take inventory of my memories when someone I know dies. I think of the last time I saw them. I saw Chrys last in 2002 at his apartment in San Francisco. I was working on a documentary film and had driven cross-country in my car. After filming ended, he put me up in his living room. We ate sushi in the catro and I had the finest unagi and mochi that I’ve ever had. He smilled and laughed. He had a broad grin and an infectious laugh. In school, he and our friend Christine, whom we called Butsie for reasons I still don’t know, used to drag an old worn-out type writer into the bar in the club where we hung out. They would type line after line laughing uproariously and periodically reading their works aloud. I remember the night we met at our friend KT’s party in her dorm room. The entry shot was a kamakazee. Upon arrival, I annouced that I didn’t do shots, so he promptly got himself another one and we sipped them instead. He taught me how to play college drinking games like Mexican (dice), Asshole (cards), and beer pong. And if he didn’t teach me, he was there sharing it with us. Together, we tested the limits of young adulthood in the company of warm friends, feeling safe and loved each night. I remember our first date. We met at a local Chinese restaurant. Looking back we would laugh every time to remember that we both appeared dressed exactly alike, same color everything from shirt to shoes, even belts. He was my first love. He never returned it but I still remember discovering the butterflies, the impossible unbelievability of knowing the exact moment of falling in love. We were friends when he came out to me after graduation. I remember feeling so happy that he would tell me and I wished him the very best. I understand he had a partner. I didn’t get to meet him during my visit, and now he’s grieving. I remember the day he called after my own partner had died. It had been years since we’d talked, after a series of failed email exchanges and missed appointments at our school reunions. We talked like old friends do, the times between exchanges evaporating. He immediately offerred me his assistance and wanted nothing in return.
     I have been thinking of my friends lately, near and far. The one I haven’t spoken to because I’m embarassed about the last time we spoke. Friends I haven’t seen in a while. Recent attempts to visit cancelled due to car problems and illness.  I had to miss a going away party for friends who are leaving for Alaska. I called instead. There is no inherent danger in moving to Alaska. I will see them again, I tell myself. But what if I don’t, I reply. And at the very least, I would like to see their faces again in person before they go. But it is no different with other friends. The years come and go. They marry, have children, get jobs, loose jobs, have health problems, change living spaces, and we stretch out like a great cloth that is connected beyond the horrizon and out of sight. I know we are connected, but we do not see each other or speak for long periods sometimes. Why do we not make more time for each other? Life is more complicated. We have less time, less energy. This is not wrong. We are not to blame. How can we overthrow everything we are building for a few hours with an old friend? How can we not? Somehow I look to find the balance that is mine in all of this. I think back to Chrys’ smile, the kind that encouraged joy and misbehavior at the same time. I think about how I had to stand on my tippy toes to hug him, the way he spread his arms so wide in preparation, it was if he intended to hug the world. Or the way I used to admire the alabaster hue of his skin and the curve of his torso shaped by years of sailing. How he made me laugh in spite of myself. I think about all the things I would have said to him during the phone call I didn’t make, about how good my life is going, now, the proof that his help meant something.
     I would like to think that if he’d asked me that I would have done anything to help him. But he didn’t ask and life is not about exact reciprocity. A score card will not get me through with more love or fulfillment. I may help someone and see an ease in their shoulders. I may be lucky and catch a smile. I may see nothing in exchange and I will give anyway, I promise myself.  I think about his generosity and beauty in how he gave and hope that I have that same genosity inside me. I remember his gift and I’m inspired to be more helpful. But his greatest gift was himself. I can hear Erasure cueing up in the background with "Chains of Love." Its a 90s pop-electronica requiem for our dear friend Chrys. May he be lifted up in love and light and find his peace.

Do you like poetry with an edge, skirting the edges of main stream society? The kind that bleeds around the edges at open mikes and tumbles from the mouth for effect like stones on a frozen street? I’ve been known to sling the words around every once and awhile myself, and so I cordially invite you to visit the Rogue Scholars Collective (http://www.roguescholars.com/), where you can currently find a piece of my poetry firmly ensconced among the offerings there. I can’t garuntee to satisfy your craving personally, but I suspect you will find something there that can. So if you’d like to check out a cool grass roots creative collective online or if you’d like to check out my new poem "Icarus," you can do both on the Rogue Scholars Collective site. Enter the site and navigate to December Features where you will find my poem published along with a number of others, morsels in the wilderness of this creative winter we sometimes call mainstream american life. If something adds grist to your grind, let the Rogue Scholars know or drop me a line. And if you have a favorite poem or online creative community you’d like to share, post it to this site. I hope to expand the site in the new year to include poetry. And a new collumn is in the works for early ‘06. So Stay Tuned…

Over Thanksgiving weekend, we were at home watching television when we heard the sound of an approaching vehicle followed by a loud Pop! My father and I burst out the front door to see two police vehicles in the act of pulling over a light truck. The driver had struck our neighbor’s parked car and fled down the street. The driver had been drinking and was arrested. Our neighbor was halfway to the street when her daughter ran outside and called "Mommy!" with a voice that reduced her age to single digits. Fortunately no one was in the car or hurt in the accident. We could then focus our attention on helping our neighbor deal with the situation. After an hour or so we all settled back into our lives and routines. Afterwards I couldn’t stop thinking about an email from a friend of mine who’s been corresponding with a soldier in Iraq. The soldier’s truck had recently struck an IED and exploded, but somehow both soldiers onboard escaped unharmed. In fact, they took this accompanying photo shortly afterwards, the truck still burning in the background.

At first the photo perplexed me. Were these roadside bombs so commonplace that our soldiers viewed them as just another photo op?  Then it hit me that this was proof and communication of the clearest kind. These soldiers had heard the loud Pop! of the explosion and then run for their lives. These soldiers were grinning, happy to be alive, and this photo was the sincerest form of truth that they had survived another day. These two incidents, the car accident on my family’s street and the truck bombing in Iraq weren’t that different. Immediately afterwards, the first thing everyone wanted to do was reassure the people who loved them that they were alright and receive that same reassurance in return. A call and an embrace, like with our neighbors. The exchange of love within families.  I thought about how amazing it was that someone could be in an attack and email a picture of survival as soon as the same day to reassure their loved ones. And then I thought about the many gay men and women serving in the miltary who can’t communicate with their loved ones for fear of losing their jobs, or possibly their lives given the current state of affairs.
     Why is that, I wondered? These gay men and women are involved in daily fire fights and car bombings. They have the same experiences as other soliders. They have the same reactions as other soldiers. They have the same families and people back home who love and care for them as other soldiers.  But if that person is their boyfriend or girlfriend or committed partner, they cannot communicate their affection or receive it in return. In fact, due to the scrutiny of mail and communication, feelings are supressed for fear of suspicion. They communicate less frequently than other soldiers. And one of the most treasured outlets for the support of a soldier, the letter or phone call from home, is basically denied. Like the french resistance during WWII, they can either rely on communicating in code under constant fear of discovery, or they can remain silent.
     Our neighbor’s daughter, currently older than some soldiers serving in Iraq, wanted immediate reassurance from her mother that she was safe. Our men and women in uniform are trained and conditioned but beneath all of this they are still human, and human beings look for reassurance when they are frightened. The longer they have to wait, the greater the stress. And the greater the stress, the greater the burden we are asking them to bear.
     It is amazing to me that we continue to debate whether to allow completely qualified, able-bodied men and women to serve in the military based on their potential to date someone. We have married couples in the military. We have dating couples in the military. And despite the inherent stress this adds to the relationship, these married and unmarried couples serve overwhelming with dedication even distinction in every branch. It seems very odd to me that the gender of the couple should make a difference and yet I realize that this is not something that is likely to change based on a rational arguement. Attitudes have to change before rationale can.
    So while other service members are reassuring their families,  we ask these soldiers to face fear, grief, injury, and death in a cone of silence. I suppose that asking them to bear this greater burden while we work through our own ignorance is no different than the scores of black amercians who served their country by taking the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs, whatever the cost in earlier American conflicts. Its clear this burden increases during this holiday time as thoughts turn to family and spending time with the people we love. It is always more difficult for service personnel to be deployed at this time of year, away from family, away from home.  At this time of year I know its a comfort for our soldiers to know that they can write a letter or receive a card from those they cherish; a time of year when we tend to say, more than any other, just how much we care. And our gay men and women in uniform will observe the holidays in the same way they observe every other day of the year. They will be standing their posts in silence, thinking of the things they long to say and hear from those they love.
    And so I think its particularly appropriate that we remember to express ourselves at this time of year. We live in a country that values personal expression and freedom and yet many of the people who serve it do not enjoy those freedoms. We can express the simple gratitude for our freedom to say, "I love you," with action. The best way to honor those serving in silence is to do what they cannot: speak out.  I believe that if we speak where others are forced to be silent that we can make a difference. We can tell the people we love that we love them. We can stand as an example for our country’s freedom of expression. Stand as an example to the rights that we have. Stand as an example for the right we will all rightfully share, one day. We can stand up before our neighbors and the world to lead with our voices for others to follow. We can change the world by being the change we want to see around us.

There’s something that excites me about beginnings…
This will be my first blog and I find myself as tempted as ever by the blank
page, so tantalizingly white as it sits before me. All this space to fill and
the responsibility to say something worth reading. My goal in creating
this blog is to create a space to play and peruse, guide and be guided
by the thoughts and experiences that come my way as I continue on this
adventure we call life.  Thus the title,
"Life, the Universe, and Everything in It," because that’s what
fascinates me and that’s what I intend to share with you, gentle
reader, if you should decide to stay on and read awhile.

So if you enjoy being riled, mystified, tickled, and daunted, sore from laughter, or fundamentally shaken–in short if your tastes are as ecclectic as mine, we should get along just fine. Poetry,
politics, and art. Music, films, and issues of social justice. Cartoons
and travelogues. Spirituality and food. Exhibitions and strange
exchanges mixed with moments of great beauty or mundane bliss. Continuing studies in compassion. The people I meet for a moment, or
know for half my life. These are the things that inspire me. And I hope
that if you feel moved, you’ll take a moment to share your thoughts.
And I hope that you will remember that this is a learning process for
me. I’ll appreciate your mentions of tips, tricks, and tidbits that
will encourage and nourish what I strive to offer, just as I’ll
appreciate your understanding for any mistakes or omissions and bring them to my attention so I can correct them. Now imagine that I am doffing my hat, and setting off jauntily into the not too
distant horizon for unknown places. And after a moment, I turn to look
back to you and motion as if to say, Come on!,  we’ll take this ride together.