Nobody told me there’d be days like these — strange days indeed. – John Lennon
And were your feelings so terrible and dark they could not be turned into fuel? – Franz Wright
Absence is the form God’s presence takes in this world. – Simone Weil
Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. – Psalms 4:4
Once, when the corner store sold us a bad pork chop we took the whole affair, rancid-chop-in-steaming-pan, marched back to the store and dropped it on the counter. It wasn’t a huge effort. We only lived two houses down. The proprietor was more than a bit surprised, but quickly gave us our money back. We called that justice. We scooped the money, bought some Royal Red and went home to read National Lampoon (which was just getting big then), listen to Dr. Hook, Blue Oyster Cult and a new Savoy Brown album we’d pooled our pennies for, called, Hellbound Train.
It was summer, Calgary Stampede, we drifted down 17th Avenue, jumped a fence to watch people. Then fell in line. The lot of us like livestock, rutting and running, lathered and lassoed, herded through shoots to make useless purchases. Fall came and the winds chilled down from the foothills, our heads cleared and we pointed the Rambler Ambassador to the west coast, taking with us those records, magazines and frying pan.
Riding the ferry to the island we could’ve been sailing the Aegean to Greece — even the rains seemed strange and holy. I read Siddhartha, Jonathan Livingston Seagull and A Separate Reality by Castaneda. I drew pictures, I began to write. I learned the chord progressions of every song on Neil Young’s Harvest. We mapped the edges of psychedelia. We were young, the terrain for excess was vast (as was the capacity for stupidity).
I wrote in secret, on discardable scraps of paper. Sporadic mornings, lying on my sleeping bag under pines above waves, I arranged words believing they could lead to conscious clearings of insight, fill some deep longing. Some want I couldn’t stop wanting. Was it blessed excess? Was it some cemented version of self? Was it God?
The land between stillness and wars in my head became my daily bread. I needed something like a monastic Rule, but settled for esoteric books, the music of The Doors, the movement of tides and the occasional high that glimpsed (I thought) something approaching St. Paul’s paradise. And yet, by such slipshod coordinates I found my way home.
Home? Or should I say here, there, beyond, between, as home now seems a fluid thing. For what I found in those molting years, through the dressing and undressing of selves, was the unfinding of myself. That is to say, the discovery that sureness of self is an illusion, its pursuit — delusion.
Here, decades hence, I still mistake islands for mainland, a lake for the sea, self for soul. But I can laugh, happily and purgatively, at this contingent-me — this roiling, rolling river with its collection of eddies. Happy to settle down to restlessness — a sureness, ready to be unsure, where longing is the heart’s lever, and void the divining rod for Love’s hidden presence. This life, it seems, is a means, not an end.
Good God, man. National Lampoon, Dr Hook, Harvest, records and a Rambler. Don’t Fear the Reaper. Secret writing on scraps of paper. In my blurry Super8 teen-movie version it was a Pontiac and Moody Blue. My friend Anne and I, in our mid-teens, rode a Greyhound from Lake Simcoe to English Bay and back, our parents trusting something in the universe to keep us safe and fed in the summer of ’71. On the way home, during a four-hour stop in Edmonton, I bought Simon & Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits LP and received a Klondike Dollar in change. That long and winding time ago was truly an infinite, blessed Unfinding. Thank you, Stephen.
Oh my, smiling over here! Thanks for adding your story Laurie!
“This life, it seems, is a means. . .” for “contingent me” on a ferry toward a “mainland”, even while mistaking “islands for mainland and lake for the sea”.
What apt imagery! Obviously, pandemic pondering continues to yield perceptive perspectives! Thanks, Steve.
And thank you for reading Ike, and for your encouraging comment!
Always good when I stop and take time to read your thoughts and seasons of life. Finding peace and joy in my slice of pie right now.
Blessings
Letty
Thank you for stopping by and spreading a bit of joy Letty!
“…and void the diving rod for Love’s hidden presence.” I’m mining that at several levels. Thanks for the warmth and assurance in that restless space.
Thank you for mining Raymond. (Just saw this, I meant ‘divining’ but wrote ‘diving’, ((I’ve corrected it now)) which you obviously understood, but I guess ‘diving’ works too.)
“For what I found in those molting years, through the dressing and undressing of selves, was the unfinding of myself. That is to say, the discovery that sureness of self is an illusion, its pursuit — delusion.”
So beautifully expressed.
Thank you so much for that Ananda!
“The contingent self”: the promise of the pop psych era was that we might find our “true selves.” But over time … what a rich collection of stories one accummulates. thanks again for sharing some of yours!
Thanks Sam. And here’s to your own collection of stories.
this takes me back to those wonderfully free times of hitch-hiking, and I actually did sail the Aegean Sea, and kicked the soccer ball hard, right into the back of the net … music, parties , posters of Lennon and Che . Steve , those really were the halcyon days of our lives !!!
Oh my, perfectly lovely! Thank you for adding your ‘halcyon’ memories Phil.
Good Lord, Stephen. So much here to sit with. “where longing is the heart’s lever” and “Some want I couldn’t stop wanting” are lyrics ripe for theft.
Thanks Dave! I’m recalling a quote from T.S. Elliot, something like, immature poets imitate, mature poets steal. So there you go. 🙂
Loved this Steve, thanks
Thanks Joanne!