31. Anything Can Happen At Any Time
The Year of Paying Attention
My friend Dean writes book after book after book — a series of mysteries, one about a buffalo raised like a house pet, the true story of Jewish children hidden from the Nazis and their own identities, his latest about a famous pro quarterback and his dad the mob hit man–– whatever intrigues him. He also paints watercolors, and they’re very good. He drew a fork on a paper tablecloth at lunch one day, and now it’s framed in my kitchen. He’s been divorced twice, out in front of the pack on that count, but he’s currently in love and has remained so for a few years, so we’ve all got our fingers crossed.
When I walked into the Upper West Side bakery he uses as his office, Dean was talking with somebody who looked familiar. It was a public television journalist named Paul, who proceeded to tell me how Charlie Mingus had kissed the top of his teenage head in the Village Vanguard. Paul had earned this reward by translating into French on the spot some provocative things Mingus had to say to a French tourist, regarding the tourist’s fetching companion. I told Paul that while Mingus had never kissed me, I did produce a live broadcast of his band in Boston in the 70’s, and had chatted, star-struck, with his drummer, Danny Richmond. I was too afraid to say a word to Mingus.
Paul said he’d also met John Coltrane. A friend of Paul’s, an electronic components salesman by the name of Leonard Bernstein, who called himself “the semi-conductor,” traveled widely for business and faithfully attended club gigs anywhere Coltrane was playing. The semi-conductor called Paul from a Manhattan club, and invited him down to meet the legend. Just like that.
Paul and Dean and I talked about our beloved adult daughters, who torment us. Paul recommended, Dean vigorously nodding, that one never, ever talk about oneself, but remain diligently focused on daughter activities, inclinations, concerns and perspective. I knew this was deeply wise counsel. Paul then went off to interview somebody successful for a story he was working on.
Dean and I hadn’t seen one another in weeks, so we caught up, reassuring each other that we’re great, really great, both healthy in our sixties, with loving partners, daughters who live close by, and no money troubles. We discussed how best to prepare for whatever hideous new turn our advancing age has in store. In a podcast discussion between a happiness expert and a brain function scientist, the happiness guru underscored that long-established friendships are critical. Must suck for old guys without old friends.
***
This morning, my sister Marianne gave me a blow-by-blow description of her thyroid biopsy. She’s a wreck, she told me, and can’t come to New York for her first visit with her brother in 35 years. She sounded manic, and she knew it. She said she didn’t care if I joined in the sibling fun when our older sister descended upon her, cat and madness in tow, for a Massachusetts visit. She told me about her older son struggling in California, and asked about Lizzie. I said after three weeks of the cold shoulder, Lizzie had sent an email chastising me for being mean, rageful and lacking all compassion. I told my sister I was mainly relieved to hear anything at all from my daughter.
All of this drama! Author Byron Katie has written extensively about the business of one’s life, and this is how she breaks it down: there’s my business, God’s business, and somebody else’s business. Even a sacrilegious semi-believer like me can identify God’s business (wind and weather, mysteries of life, et. al.), but I quickly get confused separating my own business from somebody’s else’s.
With my sisters, where is the line that separates “loving, supportive brother” from “controlling agenda-laden rescuer?” With friends, where do I veer off from compassionate confidante and blunder into over-involved buttinsky?
My favorite American Buddhist teacher Joseph Goldstein repeats a phrase in numerous talks — “Anything can happen at any time.” My sister has a lump. Then a biopsy. Her visit is postponed. My daughter and I are great. Then we’re estranged. Sarah and I are fine. Then we’re at odds. Across the courtyard on the terrace opposite mine, a neighbor is trying to scare a pigeon away. The pigeon is blasé. These fucking pigeons just keep coming, undaunted, unafraid, shitting all over the place. I can’t control the pigeons, the biopsy, the hurt and angry daughter. Is my family cracking up and dying? Am I a terrible father? And will placing a colorful rubber snake out on the terrace drive these fucking pigeons away?
***
Yesterday afternoon Sarah and I took the subway to a bar restaurant where the sexy owner/going-to-Italy-with-husband-&-kids author holds a monthly fund-raiser for good causes, and where Sarah and four other writers were scheduled to read recent essays. We chatted with one writer, charming, who grew up in the Florida town where Sarah’s mother goes for the winter. It’s where the writer met her husband, and where they retreated for nine months after their second baby was born — until the author looked up and thought, “Uh oh. This won’t do,” and re-relocated her family right back to Brooklyn.
Pretending she’s her mother-in-law still in Florida, the author said she regularly calls Marco Rubio’s Senatorial office from Brooklyn, often in tears, using her Florida cell phone to express outrage, concern, and fear. I asked her if she’s able to regain her composure quickly once the call in completed. No, not at all, she said. She appears grounded, friendly and intelligent, teaches writing at Columbia, and has earned various distinctions. She didn’t seem in the least like a lunatic impersonating a Florida constituent.
She stood and read her essay, about a woman whose adult son hanged himself, after a couple of failed attempts, from a belt affixed to a wall. She described a memorial service with other parents of dead children. Her language was understated, direct, spare, the effect chilling. She sat back down at our table, and Sarah leaned over to whisper something. It’s true, that anything can happen at any time. I heard from my sister, who told me she doesn’t have cancer.
***
I plucked an envelope from my mailbox today, my former wife’s return address in the corner. Inside was a prayer card for my cousin Michael, sent to my former wife by Michael’s sisters, with a request to forward it along to me. They knew her address from her condolence note. They didn’t have my address.
I looked at the postage-stamp size picture of Michael above the dates of his birth and death, and read the accompanying elegiac poem. Six months ago he wandered away in his mental illness, after a routine doctor’s appointment, and not far from the medical building he slipped out of, he sat down in a freezing cold woods, fell asleep, and froze to death.
Half a century ago around this time of year, Michael and I, with murderous sunburns, were asking our parents for money to play skee-ball at the seaside arcades a fifteen minute walk away in flip-flops from our little family beach cottages, past the Star of the Sea Catholic church we were orderered to attend every summer Sunday. We’d wander past the Sicilian pizza stall, stop to watch the “dobby horses,” the carousel that recalled the derby races our Irish grandfather attended before emigrating, and Tuesday nights all the cousins would cross the bridge into Hampton, New Hampshire for the fireworks. A few days ago I mentioned to a friend that that I had July 4 tickets to a play, and would miss this year’s New York City fireworks. He looked at me like I’m crazy. Who would intentionally miss fireworks?
Next week: The NYC Code of Celebrity-Adjacent Behavior
