I spent my Columbus Day evening with my recently grown-up daughter, mostly at Barnes & Noble Book Store over coffee (the regular kind) and later, some books on jewelry, art and bead making, another of the pastimes for which I have no present time.
"Honey, after reading Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, I want to send a letter to the President asking him to reconsidered naming today 'Fall Day' or 'Autumn Day,'" I mused.
Ok, so my aim wasn't quite as lofty, knowing that the price of postage would be wasted.
"My Spanish teacher hated him," said my daughter. "She scowled whenever she mentioned his name." She meant Columbus, not Zinn.
We let the matter pass. Afternoon was quickly fading to evening, and this might be the last I would get to spend with my daughter for some time to come, as I was preparing to descend the globe (according to the usual way globes are oriented), returning south to Florida. I need not remind the many fathers out there of the difficulty with which we score a date with our 18-year old daughters. It is a time-sharing arrangement with boyfriends and bistros, weekend concerts and their job du jour. Why waste precious time sharing her with a 500 year old interloper?
Earlier this month, after performing an introspective inventory of my belongings, I decided to sell off much of my book collection for extra money. No romance novels. No westerns. Most of my collection was heavy. Not just in pounds, but in mental weight.
Take my volumes of Jung, for instance. I had penetrated the great psychologist's mind, and it was meticulously explained, until it hit the Collective Unconscious like a spot-free sky roof on a Mount Kilauea observatory at night. Jung was just too heavy, I reasoned, for the night lifers in South Beach. I had read, absorbed, and would relinquish hold over the Psychology Professor whose very language was immortalized in the word "archetype." By reading every Greek and Latin footnote in Jung I managed to also learn a working knowledge of Latin and Greek, no mean feat.
And likewise with many of the history books that fascinated me in younger years. I had either read them, or I never would. I haven't even mentioned my volumes of translations of the 2,000-plus year old Dead Sea Scrolls. Their very name begs, "Get rid of them."
The time was now to decide what would be important in my new life. As other authors astutely observed, life at any age is worth reinventing. I would reinvent myself. In fact, I have already started, with results. Getting out from under the leaden weight of the ancient archives and into the sun is my direction. Socializing with the living is the method, writing its purpose. There is much yet to be written, and that cannot be done by collecting the detritus of the past like a hermit crab. Digest it and send it downstream is my new motto. Putting into words the deeds and personalities that exist in the today is its own reward. Fathoming the dimly lit reaches of the past takes a special breed, and I am a mongrel in this respect.
That is why I can enjoy contemporary events without becoming paralyzed by them, for to me, they are transient affairs of civilization which must come, and recede into thier own seasons. Remember the apocalyptic "777" drop in the DOW of only a week ago, and its subsequent world-wide ripple? Yet, what would the numerology scholar have to say about yesterday's 936 point rise? Nine-six-three, all divisible by three, hmmm...
There are exactly two laws about the stock market: Stocks rise, and stocks fall. I actually wrote this to someone on Sunday, the idiot savant that I am. This rising and falling might make some seasick at next week's gallery opening, but there would still be a gallery opening, and I will eat the crackers and chèvre, on the house.
"Honey, look, they are having a book signing at 7:00." Snap--back to the present.
We burden ourselves unnecessarily with ephemera, the flotsam and jetsam of the artificially induced tides, such as who will be our next president, or will our 401(k) tank next week, and what about those Cubs? I admire the Chicagoans, a tempered bunch who live in the light of the important things in life. I tip-toe gingerly around the morose New Englander when the Red Sox are on deck for the World Series; this is their 401(k). After celebrating by the millions in Cheers on October 30, 2004 Bostonians assumed a mantle of severity, which they covetously drape around their shoulders with shifty, wary eyes, like King Aetes and his Golden Fleece, which Jason (the Philadelphia Phillies?) purloined from the tree in the middle of the night after getting the Hydra drunk on Sam Adams ale.
For all of that, there is a difference between life, that confused, seven-headed hydra, and living, which was Jason, who glorified each new moment with adventure, audacity and in defiance of Zeus. And, you know, the old Thunderous One reveled in the game. Chin up, and all of that.
Freelance journalist Gregory G. Lewis was a regular contributor to the West County News of Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts. As a correspondent to several Franklin County towns Mr. Lewis was better known by his Arts & Entertainment contributions, especially On the Marquee, a review of the region's outstanding art, music and drama.
"My assignments took me to dinners and breakfasts with the Governor; and to the 2006 Massachusetts Democratic Convention where I met candidate Deval Patrick, US Senator John Kerry, and even Kitty Dukakis," said Mr. Lewis.
Since the West County News closed its doors in August, Mr. Lewis has pursued the night life and high life of South Florida, in the
Proustian tradition. He now carouses tropical climes and exotic personalities, capitalizing on years of experience thrusting himself in the public eye.
His many published and exclusive stories can be found on his website, The Newsketeer!
Thanks Sue. Time is relative, isn't it? With some relatives, it's even longer!
I'm sometimes reminded of the Harry Chapin song, "Cat's in the Cradle." However sad we become, commit to memory our time together, and onward and upward.
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