The 4004th Post

I think today is International Astronomy Day or something, and yesterday I went downtown with three friends to visit the Mirrored Infinity Room at the Broad. You could go in, only two at a time, for only 45 seconds. Gazillions of lights hung over water like stars.You stood on a platform and looked at your reflection in the many mirrors. It was cool, but we agreed that the pictures were actually better than the experience. There just wasn't enough time to really feel the magic. When I walked out, I remarked that it was what I imagined death to be -- some kind of immediate and quick merging with the stars. At least that's what I hope it'll be.

So, this is my 4004th post. How weird is that? I wish I had someone who would go through all of them and pull out the significant ones, if any. I know the key to the organization of my book is somewhere in there, but the task seems formidable. Anyone?

Anyone?

Sophie continues to recover from her oral surgery on Tuesday. She had minimal swelling and no ice was used. I think it was the CBD. It's a powerful anti-inflammatory. I'm feeling a bit drained from the experience, but it's not about me, is it? Speaking of, I got a dress-down from someone on Facebook. I had objected to her use of the word "retarded" in her rant against Elizabeth Warren detractors. While I agreed with her rant, I was bummed that she'd used the word "retarded" and said so. She defended it. I wrote her a private message explaining why it's so awful. She wrote me back and was very angry with me. She said a lot of things that I've been thinking about, some true and others just plain vituperative.

These things drain me, too, but once you're drained you're empty and can find things to fill you back up.

I can't get this poem by W.S. Merwin out of my head today:

I Live Up Here

I live up here

And a little bit to the left

And I go down only

For the accidents and then

Never a moment too soon

Just the same it's a life it's plenty

The stairs the petals she loves me

Every time

Nothing has changed

Oh down there down there

Every time

The glass knights lie by their gloves of blood

In the pans of the scales the helmets

Brim over with water

It's perfectly fair

The pavements are dealt out the dice

Every moment arrive somewhere

You can hear the hearses getting lost in lungs

Their bells stalling

And then silence comes with the plate and I

Give what I can

Feeling It's worth it

For I see

What my votes the mice are accomplishing

And I know I'm free

This is how I live

Up here and simply

Others do otherwise

Maybe

I've read it about ten times today and gotten something new out of it each time. 

Disney Hall, seen from The Broad

I can't stop listening to this old song:

4,004 posts. 

Art, poetry, music. 

This is how I live. Up here and simply. Just give me one thing that I can hold onto. Others do otherwise maybe.

Finding the Places of Hope

The more we lose, the more we come close to the reality of what it is to be human. Which is to accept our weaknesses, to discover that they’re beautiful. So many people are running around doing lots of things, but they’re controlled by anguish.

Jean Vanier 

Henry, Oliver and I went to LACMA last night and visited The Rain Room. It's a very cool installation -- a sqaure room with constant rain fall, except around yourself. You can walk very slowly through rain yet not under rain, if that makes sense.

I always struggle a bit with the pretension inherent in museums. Then I walked through the room along with my sons and other Angelenos. I was charmed.

If you rush or run, you get wet. If you stand still or walk ever so slowly, you're cocooned and able to hear the rain and see it, but it doesn't touch you. There's all kind of metaphor in that, no?

Have I ever told you how much I love Los Angeles?

We also wandered into the Diana Thater exhibit which was some kind of multi-media show about the imagination.

Cool stuff. We were there less than an hour and home 45 minutes later. Gratitude.




I know I've written quite a bit about Jean Vanier and L'Arche here on the old blog. He's my hero. Ian Brown, the terrific Canadian journalist whose book A Boy in the Moon I wrote about years ago when it came out, wrote this terrific profile about Vanier. Read it if you feel hopeless. Read it if your life is filled with riches, both material and spiritual or delirious and spine-tingling sex.

Jean Vanier's comfort and joy: 'What we have to do is find the places of hope'

ACM***

It's barely two o'clock, and I've just collapsed on my bed after helping Sophie to her room, peeling off my sweaty clothes and guzzling cold water. I walked Sophie to LACMA this morning, loathe to sit around the house and wait for the teenagers to arise. As you know, Sophie can walk, but not for great distances, so I pushed her along and periodically stopped, helped her up and out to stretch and walk for a bit. What a good idea! I thought to myself many times as I made my way to the museum. No, this isn't build-up to some catastrophe. Look on it, rather, as the proverbial drop of water on the forehead, tortuously slow but torture all the same. What's going to happen? A caregiver and her daughter -- more and more, as Sophie ages, I morph into Caregiver and less Mother. We took the elevator up to the third floor and walked around big empty galleries lined with Greek sculpture.

I thought the dim lights and empty echoing rooms would somehow calm Sophie as she was moaning and groaning, shifting and fidgeting in her chair. She wanted to get up, she wanted to sit down. She wanted something. I don't know if she wanted anything.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

I might have hissed a few times for her to be quiet. Stop moaning. (Caregiver/Mother knew she wasn't in pain or uncomfortable. Don't ask me why. I just knew.)

Sophalofa Sophamona.Sophamoaner.

I was acutely aware of the random people walking through. Sophie's groans and moans echoed, and people stared. I looked straight ahead. I set my jaw. I pretended not to notice. The imaginary conversation that runs in my head nearly non-stop included Relax! No one notices! It's like when a baby that's not yours cries -- it's really only irritating to the mother! Except for on airplanes! Maybe Sophie is just vocalizing now that her brain isn't so occupied with seizing! That's a good thing! You're dreaming! It's fucking obnoxious, and I don't think I can stand it anymore! My life is ruined! But isn't that statue amazing? Those implacable faces, sightless. Should I take a photo of the headless woman? She's more ruined than I. 

Drip Drip.

I got on an elevator and made my way to the Southeast Asian art rooms. They were totally empty and even more dim than the Greeks. I thought that surely here Sophie would be quiet. I imagined myself as Tibetan, calm and tranquil, also implacable, yet with a smile that hinted at humor. I let my shoulders relax and let Sophie moan. I didn't hiss.

The ideal woman in Tibet had large breasts, was curvy and earthy. I wished I were Tibetan, knew that I'd be a better Tibetan woman than American, pushing my disabled groaning daughter around a fancy museum, stifling my own hisses.

You can't strive for implacability, much less equanimity.

The walk home was excruciatingly hot. Sophie moaned the whole time, kicked off her shoes and kept dragging her bare toes on the sidewalk. I kept having to stop and put them back up on the footrest. I felt sweat dribbling down my back and my face in flames. I even stopped hissing and just did it. Pushed and walked, told Sophie that we'd be home soon and she could walk around her room and I'd leave her alone. At some point I stopped to rest, took a selfie and sent it to one of my fellow extreme parents with the caption Angry Caregiver Mother. She texted back We should start a calendar! I won't include it here but rather let you think of me more like this:

Drip Drip.

Maybe this:

***Angry Caregiver Mother