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First, a word from a better thinker and writer than me:
Jesus said, "Men think, perhaps, that it is peace which I have come to cast upon the world. They do not know that it is dissension which I have come to cast upon the earth: fire, sword, and war. For there will be five in a house: three will be against two, and two against three, the father against the son, and the son against the father. And they will stand solitary."
Gospel of Thomas, Saying 16
And now, a poem for this Sunday’s post:
Rehoboth Landrace #36
your legs okaymy old man asks, himself a Grandfather.but it is I who worried about Himwhen he told me He had gotten a new toy.we love gasoline here.still, to ride a bicycle with your old manto the gay beach is to rememberwhy some things are worth the risk.
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My dad is turning 69, a number that was funny before the internet.
We spent the week together at the beach. He got a bike last year. His knees were torn up in the 70s and it hurts when he walks. The pedaling is way to move his legs without searing pain.
“The guy who owned the Phillies used to own that place” he says as we pedal slowly past the Silver Lake in Rehoboth. There’s an uneasy alliance with the geese who let us pass, but keep a wary beak when dogs are around.
I don’t know if the guy who owned the Phillies used to own the house on Silver Lake, but I’ve heard it so often it might as well be true. Even if it isn’t, it was true enough: the rich live here, the rest of us are renting it. My father’s tone is one of wonder, borne of a childhood memory when he and the rest of the Uniontown and SWPA blue collars would flood Dewey Beach. Rubbing elbows with the rich was the draw.
He reminds me of Bodhidharma, my father. He is a hulking man, bald headed, angry. But he is still. You can never move my father, he moves when he wants. This has caused him immense pain in life, yet has never atomized his sense of wonder. At the beach, Uniontown’s Bodhidharma keeps a wary eye on the people around his grandchildren, but allows himself to be buried by love.
He knows everyone on the beach. And in town. They ask him about his grandkids, even though they hadn’t visited until this week. On the ride back we talk about the summers we delivered the mail together, walking your route and meeting people, becoming part of their routine. A pleasant routine is the core of all tradition. That’s Hesychasm, something I’d forgotten about in Pittsburgh until I started walking my dogs for a few miles a day. My neighbor used to hate me because my back yard had weeds. Now we wave to each other and gossip about the other young people. “Those dogs are keeping you in shape,” they say in a way that lets me know I’m part of their routine again. I like that feeling; congregating with the divine.
My father hates rich people like the rest of us. His father was a US History teacher who was poor. My father was poor. When you are poor, it is easier to believe the tales of Great Men, because they have what you can’t or accomplished what you couldn’t. When you can have it, the mystique disappears, albeit temporarily.
Still, he can’t help but say it with wonder when he passes. “The guy who owned the Phillies used to own that house.” The Phillies couldn’t even win a pennant but I’m supposed to care that some rich kid bought a house built by lunks who deserved it more than he did.
When did every aspect of living become about making a living?
Listening to my father forced me to consider what it is that I cherish about the Beach as a concept. My version of my father’s hangup of the beach as success signifier; the chance to rub elbows with the rich and show we’re just as good as they are. That’s lost its appeal.
Instead, for me the Beach is about removal of choice and a loss of time. If the weather is nice, we go to the beach. If it is not, we occupy our time with our hands. We eat when we are hungry. If the surf is nice, we play in the ocean. If it is not, we play in the sand. I answer emails when I am ready, and my boss knows I will only be available around my personal time. For a few moments, there are no expectations of me.
And then there are, because there are things to do. And I must do them. But I do not have to choose. I do not have to consider what those choices communicate to anyone else. I am going to see the ocean because the sun is out, everything else is a temporary distraction from that objective.
I took my son for a walk on the boardwalk and he asked to hold my hand. I remembered holding hands with my father on the boardwalk and for a moment I couldn’t tell where one memory ended and the other began. For a moment I could glimpse the divine. Then my son asked me for a lemonade and I got him one because that’s my role in the equation.
I taught my daughter to boogie board. I ran in the ocean like my father when I was young. They will be scared if I am scared. I dove into the water like a teenager, and my old bones were in pain, but she said “boogie boarding makes me feel free” on day 5 and I will never forget that for as long as I live. I hope that my body disintegrates in the process of giving them joy.
I find the beach to be a modern marvel; one of the few places where you can still observe the social contract. There are hundreds of families. We collide near the shore and our children play together. Nobody interferes with each other’s good time. There are unstated rules of etiquette (throwing sand is a no-no, music should only carry a few feet outside your chairs, etc.). At the beach, it is easy to remember that nature is in charge, and people act accordingly. The vacation is as much about the house as it is about temporary respite in one of the few traditions we haven’t fucked up too bad here yet. Surrounded by the worlds built by men, it is easy to forget that our comings and goings are largely dictated by the Mother.
Back home in the imaginary world where I write for other people, there’s a fight on about whether to restaff The New Yorker. The New Yorker has been racist and sexist for 100 years or so, is the main thrust of why they wanna fix something over there. Seems a little silly to realize something like that and think “hey, I know what’ll fix it: restaffing” instead of thinking “I don’t want to write for that place anymore.”
Some people are really holy about the things that signify success. The last time I read the new yorker was probably for some juicy Chotiner interview, the rest of it pretty played out. When something is the signifier of success, people aspire to it, which sets an imaginary marketplace; not creatively draining, but a sort of cattle shoot for success. To get into a place, you have to write like the place, and the assumption is that’s because the place sets the standard for what is good. Compromise and collaboration are excellent practice, but to aspire to compromise at the individual level seems a bit goofy. I guess that’s what I resent, mostly. Not sure how you hold the ideal of what you want when the shape of what is successful is constantly slapping you in the face, even when it’s abhorrent material.
If you don’t restaff the Byline Reassurance Factory, how will any of these young writers who hate the magazine for being racist ever know if their writing is good enough for the new yorker. I’m tired of arguing with people about their own hangups. I’m at an age where I can look around and see most of the urgency comes from personality archetypes I don’t respect.
I fired my psychiatrist on Wednesday. I missed an appointment because I was on vacation and the appointments are 15 minutes long. She asks me if the medication is working, I say yes, and then she complains about her life and usually asks me what I think. They charged me $150 because I couldn’t be there in person to do that and forgot to cancel in time. I paid it and said to discharge me. I have a therapist anyway. I thought it might be funny to tell the receptionist at the shrink’s office that charging me $150 might make me kill myself just to see what they’d say. I didn’t.
I think I should’ve, but manners stopped me. It feels unfair that I’m not allowed to tell this person that their life is a joke. That they took a path in life thinking they would help people, and it led them to a job telling potentially unstable people [blog note: not me, stable guy] that a little mental mistake is going to cost them money. It’s funny how often we have to lie just to preserve someone else’s reality, even when it causes harm. I’m sure this person thinks they’re doing right by taking a job in the mental health field, but I know stock brokers who are more honest with themselves about the impact they make in the American Noosphere.
I hope that person feels terrible enough to change jobs. That’s okay to think. It’s okay to think someone deserves happiness, while also thinking that the way they’re currently achieving it should make them feel like a Whore of Babylon.
The drawback of the dualist mind is that it will see something, or hear something, and it will automatically assign a positive or negative value. A conscience at war with itself as it processes its own failures or disgust with the world around it. It’s uncontrollable. An instinct borne of previous iterations of this life. Stimuli triggering inherent meaning stored deep in your psyche; unavoidable reactions in the split second between observation and translation.
Being alive; I’ve never enjoyed it so much.