Eulogy

I’ve been asked by Betty, Kim’s mom, to express how deeply grateful she, and we are, that you came here today to share all of our love, and our sorrow.

I’d like to open with an invocation from my tradition which generates love and compassion: “May all beings have happiness May they be free from suffering May they find the joy that has never known suffering May they be freed from attachment and hatred”

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Kim and I used to giggle about people who got ordained out of the back of Rolling Stone magazine. I would always joke that “oh yeah, they’re a minister from that Church of the Brighter Light”. When I got ordained it was totally different. Well for one thing, it now happens over the internet. For another I fancied myself to be this really cool someone, who really should be officiating marriages. Cuz how much fun is that? I’m guessing that had I thought a little more seriously about it, or actually gone to a Divinity School it might have occurred to me that the not fun, flip side, would be potentially officiating at funerals, memorials and wakes. And it certainly never, ever, crossed my mind that the first one of such occasions would be the memorial for one of my oldest, dearest, friends.

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Kimberly - She had so many brilliant, jewel-like qualities.

Her mind was quirky, creative, quixotic. She could handle herself in almost any conversation - from the best way to get a really moist carrot cake, to the fine points of metaphysical philosophy, to teaching a kid some vital life skill like reading, shoe tying, or just the right spots to hang the decorations on the christmas tree. Had she had a meaner spirit, her sardonic wit and sly, charismatic laugh, could have earned her a spot at the Algonquin’s Round-table.

Highly intuitive, Kim could read other people, and their situations, piercing through facades and bringing to light underlying realities. And like so many of us, it was always easier to see for others, than to see oneself.

She was extra-ordinarily empathic. The worlds suffering was her suffering. She was always taking in strays. Of every race, creed, and breed.

Kim was generous to a fault. She used to literally give me the clothes off her back, by the armload. She was basically what we now would call my stylist when I was 18. Although I learned later that perhaps it was more Betty who was technically behind that, whether she was aware of it or not...

She deeply enjoyed the rituals around food, whether it be gourmet at The Earle, exotic like her favourite Indian food or just plain good cookin’ like a Manikas omelet or her Nana’s chicken and dumplings. Making and sharing it, trying new foods and recipes, going to restaurants to socialize with good food and beverages at the center, as well as all the traditional holiday feasts, even when she couldn’t fully participate, warmed her, cheered her, and nourished her soul to simply be around and involved in such activities.

She passionately loved art, and music, and books.

Theatre and movies.

Saints and sinners

Because most of all, Kim loved.

She constantly surprised me when she would offhandedly comment “well but of course I do love him - her - them” whomever. I thought that maybe this capacity she had, to love “sinners” just “not their sins”, was kind of foolish, and possibly, probably, dangerous. In reality? It was daunting. I was a little shamed by her ability to generate genuine love for people I considered useless, a waste of time or too big of a problem. She always ended our phone conversations with “I love you” or “I love you Laurie”. I, having grown up in a family that was never expressive in that way, initially would always awkwardly say “yaloveyatoobye”. It really took me a long time to learn to say, sincerely, with real feeling, “I love you too Kim”.

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Nowadays we’ve all been exposed to some Jungian psychology, often under the guise of new age philosophy, as Jung wrote compellingly of learning to live with one’s own shadow side. The ideas of having compassion for oneself, learning to understand and accept one’s shadow in order to become a fully integrated human is now a common and accepted methodology for becoming humane, forgiving oneself, and moving into balance.
What has not been quite so humanely articulated, written about, and subsequently served to us, the questing friends and families, is how to deal with the shadow in others.

We’ve been bombarded with some very popular theories of how to conduct our relationship to people who seem to want, need or to be under some compulsion to, live primarily from their shadow. We are told, and our own experiences frequently appears to reflect that, trying to help people who seem to be becoming lost there, is pretty much like shouting down a well.

We’ve seen talk shows, read books, and been immersed up to our eyebrows with the advices of mass psychology instructing us in methods of “tough love”, “codependent no more”, “dealing with toxic people” and other, sort of, one size fits all, approaches to these relationships. Realistically, these are likely to be some of the most complex and painful, intimate relationships we will experience in our lifetimes. These are the relationships that have asked us, and potentially will continue to ask, throughout the years, What if...? Why didn’t I..? And, if only...?

It’s no wonder that we’ll eagerly try out all these various techniques. When nothing else seems to work, when we find ourselves baffled, desperate, and really, very terribly, afraid, solutions that assure us that they are almost surefire are very appealing. Not to mention that if we don’t have some recognized theory or technique that we can claim to be utilizing, we ourselves run the risk of being socially and psychologically bullied, belittled, and labeled with some catchy buzzword which infers that as we are clearly not being part of a trendy solution we therefore must be part of the problem.

I don’t have any one solution to offer here. The problems are too complex, the circumstances too individual. But I have come to feel that the usual approaches of becoming insular, preserving our self above others, trying to remain in, or restore ourselves to, a pain free state are potentially not as helpful or as safe as some would claim.

We are come to this life to learn, and these terribly painful moments are some of our most defining, learning, moments. These teaching moments have the potential to become like fruits of the vine, with precious juices that blend together, and processed thoughtfully, carefully, with love and compassion for self and others can become a rather heady wine of a profound, personal, understanding of life, living, and death. Mark that it must processed carefully though, as any wine that is not lovingly handled can turn and become vinegar. Just as our love can turn bitter without that large dose of compassion for self and others.

I have learned maybe two basic things so far from my work with the dying, the living, and those balanced there, trembling, with only one breath separating the one from the other:

One is simply that no one can, or should, micromanage anyone else’s life or death. People need to make their own choices about their living and dying even if those choices bewilder us. All we can do is offer our very best and truest information to them and let them proceed to work it out from there.

Another is that - people do the best they can at the time, or they would have done better, period.

This is true of others, this is true of ourselves. Everyone here did the best they could in each moment. If there is something in your heart of hearts that whispers to you “I could have made a bigger effort, I could have tried harder, if only, if only.... well I’m not going to give you the easy task and tell you to just let it go, instead I will ask you to take on the harder but much more rewarding job of holding and remembering that feeling, in order to learn from it, so that another time you’ll be able to let it be the spark that ignites greater effort, inspires you to greater compassion, and subsequently creates one billion better moments, for yourself and for others.

Gen-somnia

I have a classic picture of the old man. He is clearly sitting on a couch, cast a little sideways. One arm is up laying along the back of the couch. His chin is on his chest, and he is totally out. Of late this is me most evenings in Nigel’s big comfy chair as well. Then, about one twelfth of the time, when I finally can get up and go to bed, I have insomnia. So did he.

I’ve always had very strange sleep. Up to about age eleven I never wanted to. I remember when I was about six or seven, my mom burst into my room at three in the morning to ask me if I couldn’t, perhaps, polish and rearrange the furniture at a more reasonable hour. I then basically slept straight through eleven and twelve. I discovered serious partying at thirteen and never wanted to sleep again ‘till I was about twenty-six. All during the latter I became almost narcoleptic. I would fall asleep, uncontrollably, inappropriately, and often inconveniently, at the drop of a hat. I basically only took naps for thirteen years. Naps being anywhere from three seconds to 4 hours. I also invariably begin to dream instantaneously. This constant waking and dreaming has always made for much confusion between the worlds.

I now have fairly decent sleep hygiene. I really do. I take little to no caffeine. I get up pretty much at the same time every day. I nap (intentionally) pretty sparingly. I don’t take the evening dose of one of my meds because it can disturb sleep. I (mostly) use the bed only for sleeping. One reason being that the feeling of that full body stretch when one first goes horizontal is just, so, delicious. But this year I have struggled more and more with sporadic insomnia. I suspect it’s genetic.

We seem to be saddled with more than our fair share of lousy genetics in my family. It has become almost a game to see with whom which traits will pop up next. Like instead of Bing-O it’s Crap-O. Don’t get me wrong, we have a few really good genes like serious brains, some particular beneficial sensitivities, my hair, umm, hmm, - that’s really all I can think of off hand.

I think I’m about up to A. On this side of aging I feel the P & O looming. I’m sure that they’ll pop soon. Which of course leads up to the question, what then is the prize? I’m damn sure it’s not money, could it really be wisdom or is that just old folky, trying to feel compensated, claptrap?

AM earworms

Rhinestone Cowboy - Who is that? I think that would be Glen Campbell.

Don't laugh too hard. I actually bought Witchita Lineman a year or so back just for the title song and The Dream Of The Everyday Housewife. If you need to blame someone blame my brother. You should have seen him in his Glen Campbell side bangs in fifth grade.

Guh

Man. This heat. I haven’t been able to think, sleep or eat right for... well.... I really don’t know how long because it’s totally sucked my butt and my brain for days now.
I remember doing the show on Saturday. It was hot but not horrific. After that it’s all just a blur of some Indian food, then opening and shutting windows, adjusting fans, becoming increasingly angry and irritable. People on the phone wanting this, that and all this attention.
There’s bits of sitting in the basement frustrated and bored but at least semi-cool. Begging Oliver to go out somewhere, anywhere, air-conditioned. Of course there’s his stubborn refusal to go anywhere avoidable in public. I tell you what, sometimes being the muse to the moody, freakish, broke, genius is a serious chore. All I wanted was a pepsi and he wouldn’t give it to me. So I went insane instead, having only just now gotten enough cool air into the house and Chunky Monkey ice-cream down my gullet to not be a serious, head ripping off, threat to the next person who walks by me.

Meanwhile I am leaving town on Thursday and have very little that needs to be done, done. Nothing of import can be done when you’re sitting in a chair passing out from heat prostration and you don’t want to lay down because everything is wet or becomes wet within nanoseconds.

I’ll be tooling over to upstate NY to look at a lot of falling water (hopefully). Checking out the old birth place, and then doing the tunnel under the falls at Niagara. All the family except a second cousin are now dead, so clearly I won’t be seeing them. But we’ll see the places and eat wonderful, wonderful roast beast on Kimmelwick. I’ll be picking up some quality horseradish and Wise potato chips as well. Maybe I’ll try to pick up some Carvel something (not gigantic) too. Cookie Puss!!!!!

Damn Essay

AM earworm (You’ve Got To) Hide Your Love Away - Lennon & McCartney

It wasn’t really my intention to get up this early. Given, the cats were doing the usual 6:14 am, exploratory, breakfast bid for attention. I can usually growl, turn over, cover my head and get another hour though. But the brain engine started revving. The volume on the earworm went up. And I had to pee.
Upon returning to bed people were long and loudly laughing outside my window and I thought to myself “who laughs like that at 6:15 in the morning? They must be trippin’ or something.” Then I wanted to get up, to spy on the laughers, to see if they were tweaked. I hope not cuz they were pushing a baby carriage begging the question “where in the world are you taking your baby at 6:16 in the morning anyway?” Maybe to church.

Now I’m up. The cats are fed and Little ghee has performed the obligatory breakfast dance. My own stomach starts growling warningly and the roommate clogged the sink so dishes wait in a pile for his return from work to fix his screwup.

And that brings us to the subject that is on my mind of late. Lying. Why do people so casually do it? I, myself, cannot escape culpability on this. I admit I am a fan of the sin of omission if it’s going to prevent a big problem. BUT (and it’s a biggish but) that is usually a deliberate, planned maneuver to avoid hurting someone's feelings or putting them on the defensive. After spending many years purging myself of the lying factor (apparently there’s a gene for it in my family or something), I became what some friends and coworkers called “ the queen of no tact”. It is a fact that rabid, ruthless, truth telling is most unwelcome in our society. It is however interesting to note that several of the people who shamed me most often and most enthusiastically about my brutal truthing were in the final analysis found to be avid and compulsive liars themselves. I adopted a “shut my mouth” policy. Not overtly lying, but very frequently not telling my whole truths either.

I used to attribute much of it to astrology. There is an actual link in my view. A lot of water in your chart just seems to make truth a fluid substance. Try living with a lot of un-evolved Pisces if you don’t believe that. Try a quintuple Pisces if you want a most blatant example.

Now we add the idea that it is frequently attributable to “authoritarian” parents. If draconian punishments were administered the children lie instead of taking personal responsibility. This is something I’m going to be watching for in my lying studies in future. I think there is potentially a good deal of validity to this theorem.
For an example, I offer my observation of 2 brothers I know who lie in the same ways (casually, frequently and often easily detected and/or disproved) about the same kinds of things ( usually attempting to make themselves look better, cooler, smarter than they are and avoiding taking personal responsibility for their fuckups whether minute or large). Since I know their parents and have had the opportunity to hear many stories about their childhoods I feel that there certainly could be a correlation. The father is a bit of a raging ass.

Another factor I believe I detect a link with, is substance abuse. The most apparently upright citizen will easily lie if this issue is present. That one becomes a chicken and egg conundrum though. Did the self esteem problem that needs to be bolstered by lying occur before or after the substance issue?

And here’s one I really hate. I have been outright instructed to and expected to lie, by various bosses. This idea that lying is being built into business models really, really, bugs me. Force me to lie and eventually I’ll find a way to quit.

If I catch someone in one or two minor lies I can possibly, probably, mostly, overlook it . The circumstances, how comfortable or glib they seem to feel about it is a real tell. I try to accept people for the face that they want me to see. But I watch and frankly I’m judgmental. If the public face varies too much from the real face I stop trusting altogether.

Those are generally white and grey lies. My true horror is the black lie. Buddhism says this is pretending to have spiritual accomplishments you don’t. This can screw up peoples karma for millennia. Probably just not a good idea. I have seen many painful examples of this. My friend who committed suicide after the Rajneesh scandal destroyed what he believed in. Another who now hates Buddhism after following a false guru destroyed his family. Those are just a couple examples, I’ve seen a lot more. Obsessed as I am with cults and false prophets this is a big issue for me. The idea of one person throwing a huge monkey wrench into another’s spiritual growth for fun, profit and power is very alien and abhorrent.

I also think that lying for fun, profit and power about things like WMD’s or Jews, the Rom, and homosexuals being a problem or whether your industry is destroying the environment and your workers lives and health, which results in the death of anywhere from one to millions of human beings is pretty much the black lie as well. If I believed in Satan I would think it was downright Satanic. As it is I have to try to accept that those are just extreme examples of complete ignorance of the nature of reality and that the people committing such atrocities actually, truly, believe that this will somehow bring them happiness. It’s a hard pill to swallow but it is one of the only ways to try to retain compassion for them in their stupid, ignorant, destructive, negative, foolish, shortsighted, wickedness.

Which brings me to my question. By accepting all the little lies are we totally laying the foundation for the really big ones?

Happy anniversary

Crazy jenga

Bros before - - well you know

OMG I adore this pic. Young master Oliver Blades and his bro Greenman hangin' out while their Dad did sound at one of major A2 festivals of the day.