...Or death?

I was speaking with my dearest friend today and he was feeling some kind of way. He was bereft of invention. He said that his life had grinded to a standstill. He said that something needed to happen. Some "life event" to move him from a place of inertia. Something sublime. Something that would alter the path of his life and project him on his journey. He felt he needed to find his passion. His calling. I asked him, "What if that event never comes?" What if life doesn't deliver this Highlander-style reckoning? What if it's a long-winding downward sloping path that meanders along creating only shades of change? We often count these touchstones in life like notches on a belt or like lines drawn on the door jamb of life. Each higher line shows how we've grown in such areas as confidence or wealth--benchmarks we can refer to easily. I was here when I graduated from college, met my first boyfriend, lost my virginity and buried my father. And I was here when I got my first job. The occasional big ticket items that propel us to astounding achievement were clearly delineated.

But what if life was more like a wheel where events radiated outward from your core, blurring together in the whirling spin of your existence? Now the events seem mundane. Routine. Joyless. We long for that moment of sublime surrender when the universe gives us the slightest push and leads us into Oprahdom or Tyler Perryhood. We sit in our present looking back at the achievements of our past hoping to see those mounts in our future. But what if it's not those meteors that propel us forward or sideways or anyways? What if it's the tiny everyday rudimentary loose-ends that are the planks of the bridges we need to cross; the gulf of space and time? We often miss these tiny things.

Like the brief doomed flare of exploding suns that registers dimly on blind men's eyes, the beginning of the horror passed almost unnoticed; in the shriek of what followed, in fact, was forgotten and perhaps not connected to the horror at all. It was difficult to judge. --William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist, 

We've grown accustomed to Laws of Attractions and Oprah screaming "You and you and you are going to Australiaaaaaaaaaaa!" We live our lives by these grand moments. We sit, quoting my mother, "on the stool of Do Nothing" because we wait for something. When did we turn the bridal of our fate over to television personalities and thought gurus? In my novella, George Apocrypha, the main character contemplates suicide. That self-murder is undone by a trio of angels that explain to him, "There is no life in death. Life is for the living."  And it truly is.

My mother is 86-years-old and in the hateful throes of dementia. But she never felt sorry for herself. She has a disease but she is not the disease. Every morning when I cook her breakfast or when we go out to eat she asks me (yes, repeatedly over and over and over again), "How did you sleep?"  I'd reply that I slept fine (even though I didn't and rarely ever do). I'd then return the question.  She would answer, "Oh I slept fine." Then she would grunt as she lowers herself into her recliner exhaling a sing-songish "Whoooo." After flopping into the chair I'd hand her her plate. "What's wrong?" I ask.

"Old, stiff, worn-out and tired." she says, "But it's good to be alive. Some people didn't make through the night...Bet they wished they had aching bones this morning." Then she would chuckle.

Silly old goose I would think. Must everything be measured against the response  "...or death?" Do I have to constantly thank God for my injurious plight?  I'd better be glad for my dead end job because the alternative is "...or death?"  I'd better be glad I have to work a full-time job, shuttle between two distant states every week and take care of my ill mother full-time because, otherwise, I could be...dead!  Who came up with this notion of "...or death?"  Must day-to-day life be that extreme? Isn't there some valve we can switch on that will pour good tidings on us?  I've visualized wealth and have experienced happiness. But the universe can be parsimonious bitch. It's always been stingy with my blessings. So I would look at my mother in annoyance and shake my head. I'd better be thankful for these morsels because death is lurking right around the corner to sully the situation.

Now if you've ever read my past blogs, you know I can turn complaining into an Olympic sport. Just take a look at this rant. It would be wonderful if all of us were born beautiful. I have a friend who is the same age as me. He has the body of Adonis. He touches a weight and his body seems to swell to six-pack muscularity. It would be wonderful to be born lucky. I have another friend who somehow is miraculously saved from bad things happening at the last minute. During the recession of 2008-09 I was working two part-time jobs just to make ends meet. My friend was laid off with a sweet severance package even before his unemployment kicked in. I was struggling working seven-days-a-week and he didn't work for two years. He went on trips, paid his rent, bought clothes. And, literally, just as his unemployment was about to run out, he found a job.  Similarly, it would be wonderful to be born rich or attain riches. Yes, I have a friend who hit the lottery and now lives in a doorman building in the gentrified Hell's Kitchen (renamed Clinton) on Manhattan's west side. So through all of this I had to be happy "...or death?"

But after being with my mother for a few weeks, I began to realize that maybe she was on to something. Maybe the simple act of inhaling and exhaling is a rapturous event. With each breath we take it means that there is one more breath to live. One more exhale to change our lives. One more second to make a difference. So, instead of living our lives with a wish list of grand events, we should be living it à la minute. Making it up as we go along. Maybe we should take the time to live in the moment. If not enjoying our creaking bones at least acknowledge that the alternative could be worse. Sometimes it's not the august fires that shine the brightest, but the culmination of embers that spark a forest inferno. So I told my fretting friend that he should enjoy life; that instead of looking for the next bellwether moment he should generate his own events. Sometimes just the act of getting up out of bed (despite your body being weary and your mind  faltering) is a much-needed victory. 

After dinnertime, one of my mother's favorite pastimes is to play the piano and to get her dog Ricky to sing along with her. She moans in her old lady voice and he howls like a coyote. Both of them knowing that life doesn't get any better than that very moment.