A Life of Wonder

It wasn’t that you are unable to imagine the moon, larger than I have ever known it to be, red, full and rising outside my window; it is rather that I am unable to bring to you. I tried. I took a photo with my iPhone, the one you see here. I even went outside to be closer to the moon. No matter where I went, it appeared in my screen as a tiny red dot.

It is important for me to bring the moon to you. And I know you wanted to see it but you couldn’t see beyond the clouds that covered the sky, the clouds on which the lights of the city reflect.

When a moon like this appears, I think of all those I want to share it with, and I think of you.

I don’t think you’d sit there and stare at it for more than a minute or two. I think you would let it fill you with life, with a joy that comes only from nature. And watching that would awaken me, watching how close you travel to the moon and how no photo can ever capture the expression of it filling you with radiance.

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Beauty isn’t a posed photo, red roses, the blond haired blue eyed prom queen. It’s the color of light that day you walk out of a restaurant, the color of light that makes the entire street sing.

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I believe in that saying about art that you should only buy it when it moves you. This piece moved me. I bought it in Harvard Square from a local artist. He displayed his work near the subway station. I saw I this painting and simply starred at it for a good minute. Then I walked away. Three minutes later I turned and literally ran back. I bought it instantly, cancelled my afternoon plans and went home to hang it on my wall. I didn’t love it because I understood it. I loved it because of the way it made me feel before I understood it.

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Prayer is the language, originally uploaded by Lel4nd.

I went to the front of the coffee shop to post this blog entry. Not this one, see, but the one I lost. It was a beautiful story, which I may write again one day. Right as I was about to post it, I shut my computer down abruptly. I saw this girl I hadn’t seen for nine years. And the first words out of my mouth, right after, “I remember you!” were “I just lost my story.” To which she said, “you’re pretty peaceful for a guy who just lost his story.”

And then she informed me that her boyfriend was coming soon. In the last nine years, she said, she had worked with clinically studies and teaching autistic kids how to dance. I told her I run a company, write a little and love to introduce good people to each other. Then the boyfriend came and we parted ways. Nine years of catching up in about :60 seconds. In that time I was about to see that nothing, really, had changed. I wonder if she saw the same?

This story I lost was a damn good story. And I wrote it to share it with you. Maybe in a month or two, I’ll try rewrite it. But you can’t write the same story twice, can you? If I were to write it, I’d simply write a different story perhaps inspired by the first yet different from it. The story would have a life of its own: not the younger brother growing up in his older brother’s shadow, but rather the young brother becoming his own man.

How do deal when you lost something you created? When is the last time you’ve summarized your life for someone you haven’t seen in 9 years? Did it work out well for you? I lost this story, this story I wanted to share with you.

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Did you ever look up to someone and think, “I want to be like that person when I grow up?” I never did. Clearly, there were the usually heroes and celebrities which inspired me, but there was not one person, or one professional who I aspired to be.

The closest of them was Edmond Dantes, a fictional character in the Count of Monte Cristo, who avenges those who wronged his family and protects those who treated them well. What moved me most about Edmond was his ability to completely reinvent himself as the Count of Monte Cristo, and throughout his life live beautifully and fully in the characters he created.

Today someone gave me the advice to think about who I wanted to become. That got me thinking about Edmond Dantes, and it’s why I am sharing this with you. Do you think about who you want to become 5 years from now, or 10? Are you the person you imagined you would be 5 years ago?

This makes me remember that John Milton poem, “When I consider how my light is spent,”

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I found this video by way of my friend Alex.

A teacher in Mexico sings to her young students to distract them from the gunfire outside of their window.

See more here.

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I bought a box of lover letters, most of them unread, at a roadside flea market. They’re from the late 1960s. A man, married with kids, is writing to a woman whose affections he’s trying to win. Clearly, they’ve spent time together, but she will not marry him. In some of the letters, there are pictures and greeting cards. In others, just his block text. In my favorite so far, there are about 150 total, he realizes he’s writing a love letter to her and becomes embarrassed.

I am thinking of sending a few of these love letters to friends as a gift but for now am savoring each one. I’ve already Googled to find if either of the people in these letters are living. I haven’t found them to be.

Since the letters are only him writing to her, I’m having to reconstruct her from his image of who she is and what she said.

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I thought about this idea, this idea that if I wrote one poem a day for the rest of my life I could cover a room with them, I could string these poems of mine on clothes lines and throw them in the air letting them fall like leaves in autumn, if I wrote one poem a day, just one, there would be space for me to discovery something fresh, something I did not know and could never find in a book, in an experience.

the violin, i cannot claim to understand how to play, and I do not know the instrument as well as you must. I do know it makes me feel, I do know that when I hear it I see scenes and not images.

i know these people that are no longer living, some are alive and not a part of my life, and some are not alive. Their words still in the music I hear in speech, their words very much a part of mine. In no order I introduce you to these words. They are “generosity” or more specifically “generosity of flesh, of spirit,” they are, this phrase “if it’s the good lords will and the creeks don’t rise,” they are, they are words I cannot share with you because I hold them too close to me.

I thought if I wrote a poem a day for you, that you and i, together, could place them high like piles of leaves you see, and jump into them slide our arms like angels of the fall, sliding our arms like light through a stained glass window, I thought I’d write a poem a day for us, and so it goes.

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Trees near Chambord Castle, originally uploaded by włodi.

Things I will do for $5
Stand behind a subway car in the rain
Wait for a light to turn red then green then red
Ask a river why it turned to ice
Introduce myself to a stranger with the opening line, “I am Theo, you must be Sarah.”

Things I will do for $500
Rake the leaves from the yard in your country home
Plant a pond near the park bench where you once sat and read by old trees
Avoid chocolate for a week unless there is no alternative
Watch the black and white movies you love of your grandparents at Disneyland

Things I will do for $5,000
Parallel park a truck in winter near the embassy
Dress as a kitten, goat or white rose for an hour
Photograph green roofs, eat green M&Ms and chase green
Sit alone without a pen or computer for a day

Things I will do for $500,000
Walk 3,100 miles and learn Korean, Arabic or Hindi well enough to sing a song
Make a fire and live in nature like Thoreau for 100 days
Write letters to you every day that open the worlds you’ve closed
Fix the slow fire that causes you to question you self worth and replace it with silence

Things I will do for $5,000,000
Introduce myself to a strange with the opening line, “I am Theo, you must be Sarah.”
Rake the yellow leaves from your country home
Sit alone learning what makes the world open, or talk with you
Introduce things that give meaning to you, a new one each week, for the rest of your life

-ZB

Inspired by: http://www.npr.org/2011/02/13/133685461/craigslist-poster-will-do-anything-for-a-price

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sunset ghetto, originally uploaded by simaje.

“If a man wants God to hear his prayer quickly, then before he prays for anything else, even his own soul, when he stands and stretches out his hands towards God, he must pray with all his heart for his enemies. Through this action, God will hear everything that he asks.”
-Father Abba Zeno
Source: http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2009/approaching-prayer/transcript.shtml

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