I Have a Good Feeling About This: The Essay About How It's Okay to Be a Star Wars Fan Again, And Why

I: What We Did to Pass the Time Before the Movie

We arrived at the Mall Cinemaplex, my daughters and I, three hours in advance of the 7:40 p.m. showing-time, as printed on our pre-purchased tickets.

There was a substantial line already forming outside the theater's entrance when we arrived, but it was for the 5:30 movie, it turns out. We were quite early; it was 4:30 in the afternoon, and we were in a mall, and we were hungry (or at least we were going to be by the time our showtime rolled around), and there were ample restaurants in the Food Court to choose from while we waited.


So...


Panera Bread, it was, we decided--our usual choice when in the mall.


No one was particularly hungry among the three of us at that time of day, but we forced a light meal down anyway--partly for whatever nourishment it could provide, I suppose, but also, admittedly, to simply pass the time.


We were in a mall, though. Passing time wasn't going to be too difficult. As we slowly strolled along the crowded walkways, with glittering storefronts flanking us and canned Christmas muzak piped in overhead--drowned amidst the noise of a Friday afternoon throng of teenagers noisily wandering parentless (faces framed in the dull glow from their cellphones) and shoppers milling amongst each other, one week before Christmas, to the day--my daughters and I chatted casually (or what passes for "casual chatter" these days, between a Dad and his two daughters--now young teens, 16 and 13), and we people-watched, and we darted into one store and then the next, pretending to look around for things we thought we might need, until we assumed we had spent enough time passing the time. And so we slowly made our way back toward the movie theater.


It was now 5:30 p.m. And as we walked up to the theater's entrance, another line was just beginning to form. As it turns out, this was the line we wanted--this line was ours, for the 7:40 p.m. showing of the new Star Wars movie--Episode VII: The Force Awakens--on the film's opening night.


We jumped at the chance, not to mention our good fortune, and established our place in line--maybe 15-20 people ahead of us already (not bad at all!) And we began the wait.

II: Interregnum and Backstory (Part I)

And this is the part of the essay that many will probably either want to skim, or scan, or skip altogether. After all, no one really cares too much to read about someone else's lifelong passion for something as seemingly trivial and insignificant as a series of films--a series of films with a markedly questionable and unequal stature, to be sure, as time has moved on. (But a lifelong passion, all the same.)

For those who are interested or just the slightest bit curious about my personal history and feelings with and toward the Star Wars saga, I can do you a favor and (rather than repeat myself verbatim or even half-ass paraphrase my own writing) refer you to another essay of mine, in which I talk about that in some detail.

[Aside: See the essay, "What Pete Townshend Seemed to Get Wrong About Dying and Growing Old." http://emptyshipoutward-bound.blogspot.com/2010/11/what-pete-townshend-seemed-to-get-wrong.html]

III: What It Means to Want Star Wars to Be Star Wars Again

We ended up, my daughters and I, snagging some choice seats (the oversized, rocking, reclining kind--they certainly don't make "going to the movies" the way they used to). We grabbed a prime spot--halfway up and in the middle--and sat down to await the previews, followed by our feature. The theater was quickly filling up. Given the size of the line that had formed behind us during the hour-and-a-half we had spent holding our place toward the queue's front, it was obvious there wouldn't be an empty seat in the house.

Which is no surprise when talking about a franchise like Star Wars. It's rather used to breaking records, after all--going all the way back to the first film's initial release so long ago in the feathered-hair and bell-bottomed days of 1977.


There was a feeling running through the movie theater before the show began--an energy, a communal sense of good nature and good will, a wishful, expectant hope (not unlike the feeling, so common this time of year, of a young child approaching the Christmas tree on Christmas morning, to see what gifts Santa Claus has brought.) Everyone was smiling--adults with their young children, adults with their grown children, teens with friends, teens and young adults on dates, young adults with their elderly parents, everyone with buckets of popcorn, and with oversized cups of soda (does anyone need that much sugar, and caramel syrup, and carbonation in one sitting?), and with stretched-thin old Star Wars T-shirts--threadbare and showing some wear but oddly retro and "in" these days--as well as new T-shirts, freshly minted, emblazoned with the familiar Star Wars logo, followed by the added improvisation, "My Childhood Awakens."


Everyone was in this together, in other words. We were all fans--old and new--and we were here, on opening night, to try to recapture a bit of the original magic, a bit of our past, perhaps, and a bit of our youth.

It wasn't as if we were making this up, though. It wasn't as if we were blindly going into this without some forethought and without some strategic "worse-case-scenario" playing in our collective minds. We knew the odds. We knew the prequel trilogy, after all. We knew Jar-Jar Binks. And Hayden Christensen. (And his immortal line, "I don't like sand.") And we were all too familiar with compelling dialogue of trade disputes, and of senate gamesmanship, and of the Force's "chosen one." And we had all learned of midi-chlorians (whatever the fuck those were). And we had sat through the insipid vapidity of Jake Lloyd (who at least had the unintended good fortune of making Mark Hamill's performance in the original film stand out, in hindsight, like Shakespeare-in-the-Park.) And we had all endured sad Natalie Portman, sleepwalking through her role in what appeared to be a drug-induced stupor, remembering the not-so-distant days back then of Leon: The Professional, and believing, in the pit of her stomach, that she was inch-by-inch, line-by-line, scene-by-scene, episode-by-episode incrementally committing career suicide...

Yes, we were all fairly aware of the odds, entering the theater this night. But we were also aware of some substantial differences this time around:

1. Three years previously, in 2012, George Lucas sold his rights/ownership of the Star Wars franchise entirely--including any future projects and/or productions--to the Disney Corporation. (A Faustian bargain, to be sure, as was assumed by a legion of old, faithful fans--the franchise was finished, we feared, swallowed by the evil Empire itself, and the future lie only in the past.)
2. With George Lucas now out of the picture (and conveniently out of the way), almost immediately--and with absolutely zero sense of ironic coincidence--Disney announced plans to resurrect the somnambulant film series, under the guidance of hot, young director J.J. Abrams, as well as the famed and beloved screenwriter of the series' Episodes V and VI, Lawerence Kasdan.
3. Rumors, and innuendo, and online theories in fan-chats across the world all worked together to feed the fire of excitement and anticipation. Months before the new film was to be in the theaters, teaser-trailers were cobbled together with available footage--edited with the artistic precision of mini-masterpieces--and released online to an explosion of enthusiasm. And within mere seconds of the trailers' release, the internet was owned by Star Wars. And talk began among fans, both of the serious kind and of the fairer-weather kind, of something good brewing. Serious talk, for the first time in a long time, that this time, finally, maybe, a new Star Wars film was going to be done right. And there was the sense, at long last, that Star Wars was back again--the way it used to be.

And as it turns out, thankfully, we were right. ("We" being the collective "we," here. The royal "we," encompassing all the loyal fans everywhere, I suppose. But more particularly that night "we" meaning myself, and my daughters, and my fellow moviegoers in theater #13 for the 7:40 p.m. showing of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.)


We were right to feel a sense of excitement that night--opening night. A sense of urgency. And a sense of hope. We were right to feel that a proverbial corner had perhaps been turned in the official canon of the Star Wars mythos.


This was going to be good, we had a sense going in. And that sense--that feeling--was communal and palpable. You could feel it in the air. We wanted to enjoy this new film. We wanted it to be as good as we had heard leaked rumors proclaiming it to be. We wanted this new film to make up for lost time, in a way, and to make up for whatever missteps may have occurred throughout the years in the series' oddly misshapen history.


We wanted the new movie to be Star Wars again.


And as soon as the previews were over, and the screen went dark, and the words appeared on the screen: "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." followed by the iconic gold logo, STAR WARS, set to the crashing chords of John Williams' legendary opening fanfare, and the crawling prologue--traditionally wordy, and overwrought, and lovely--receding slowly into a star-filled void, to disappear amidst the unfolding action in space, the sold-out movie theater (#13 at the Mall Cinemaplex) erupted in honest and heartfelt applause and cheers.


It was really pretty cool.

IV: Almost Like Church, Really

And so what happened by the end of it all? Well, roughly two-and-a-half hours later, as the film's last dramatic scene faded to black and the credits began to roll, there was more applause, followed by an almost inexplicable and reverential feeling of calm, and peace, and happiness.


Now, I'm not trying to sound too "We Are the World," here, or draw some sort of unlikely comparison to a Woodstock vibe, or anything like that.

[Aside: But when I stop to think of it, maybe the comparison to the proverbial "Woodstock vibe" isn't really all that far off the mark.]


No, what I'm getting at more than anything, I think, is that as the long-awaited film drew to its close, there was practically a sigh of relief in the theater. There was a feeling of satisfaction bordering on elation that the film turned out as good as it did, and while half of the room's viewers immediately got up to leave and to beat the crushing flow of everyone exiting at once, the other half of the room didn't move but instead remained in their seats (their comfortable seats that reclined and rocked back and forth) and did one of four things (or any combination thereof):

1. Got on their cellphones to text and/or call someone, anyone, with their immediate knee-jerk review of the film.
2. Turned and visited with friends and loved ones seated next to them, sharing reactions and responses to the film.
3. Turned and visited with complete strangers seated next to them or a seat over or in the  next row behind or in front, sharing reactions and responses to the film.
4. Sat in silence, listening to the well-known strains of John Williams' classic score, watching as the end credits scrolled by, letting it all sink in, meditatively, and finding a way, somehow, to be at one with the moment.

Those who remained behind--roughly half of the viewing audience that night--didn't need to explain why they stayed where they were. It was clear to everyone.


No one wanted to leave. No one wanted the moment to end. No one wanted the experience--the experience of their first viewing of the new Star Wars movie on opening night--to draw to a close. To do so would mean getting up from their comfortable seat, and checking their coats and pockets for all essentials--to make sure such things as wallets, and purses, and cellphones hadn't slipped out and fallen down between the theater's seating. And to do so would mean walking out of the dim lighting of the theater's auditorium and into, again, the garish neon/fluorescent glow of the cinemaplex's lobby, and further out into the mall's crowded walkways and bustling Food Court, and re-entering the world of Christmas, and of shopping, and of credit cards, and of bills, and of work, and of upcoming travel plans, and of who gets the children first for Christmas--Mom or Dad--and of exactly how many Christmases the kids are going to get this year, and of wondering if this is to be the year, by the way, that the kids stop believing in such a thing as Santa Claus altogether, no more tumbling out of bed early on a cold Christmas morning, rubbing sleep from their soft, tender eyes, and shuffling softly to the tree, to see what gifts lie below.


The magic.


Leaving the theater meant leaving the ethereal world of a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, and reemerging, once more, into the all-too-solid world of the here and now.


The real world.


And so we stayed behind, those of us who did. I hung back and visited with my daughters about the movie--fielding questions from them, trying my best to provide some sort of answers, asking them what their impressions were, laughing together, smiling together, loving the moment.


And the thing is, it wasn't just us doing that. It was everyone around us. Countless conversations. Countless smiles. Countless memories in the making. Countless people doing their best to battle loneliness, and emptiness, and sadness, and to find some sort of solace and communion--even if it was only for two-and-a-half hours at a movie, surrounded in the intimacy of a darkened room filled with strangers and loved ones sharing the same experience together.


There was a sense of reverence about the whole evening, as it played out. And when it was all over, the girls and I collected our things, and it was almost like bidding "goodbye" to close friends as we made our way down the row of seats, and down the stairs, and down the aisle, and out of the theater, and back outside, and away from the warmth of recycled air, and into the cold of a December night--our breath in front of us in three little clouds--and the quickened walk to my car, cold from 6 hours of resting in the parking lot.


"That was almost like church, really, wasn't it," I said to my daughters, sitting in the cold car, waiting for the engine's parts to get used to one another again, and for the heater inside the cabin to begin to realize its sole purpose. I had sort of half-laughed when I said it--and I recognized that I had said it not as a question but more as a statement of fact. The half of me that wasn't laughing when I said it, though, probably meant it even more than I was aware at the time.


My daughters only nodded, cold and shuddering, wanting it to be warmer faster, and said, "Yeah," in unison.

V: Interregnum and Backstory (Part II)

I am admittedly a bit of a hypocrite. I might as well come clean on that right now. I have been spending a lot of time and space extolling the virtues of the latest chapter in the Star Wars saga, filling in all the details (and more) of my perceptions and my experience attending the opening-night showing of Episode VII: The Force Awakens with my two teenage daughters, all the while mocking in a semi-disparaging tone the most recent films up to this time (written and directed by none other than Lucas himself) of the Star Wars universe--a series of films that have been and will be referred to from here on out as either: The Prequel Trilogy; Episodes I-III; or just simply "the prequels," otherwise known to the world as The Phantom Menace (1999), The Attack of the Clones (2002), and The Revenge of the Sith (2005).


Now, I remember going to the opening of Episode I: The Phantom Menace, just like all the rest of the old, traditional fans who had likewise grown up with the original trilogy back in the late-'70s and the early-'80s.


I remember, back in 1999, the palpable thrill in the air months before the release of Episode I. Granted, this was in the days just on the cusp of the internet exploding into our social and cultural consciousness, but for those of us old enough to remember a world without such contrivances as computers and the internet, it will come as no surprise to know that the word was still out on this new Star Wars movie--the first (at that time) in 16 years, since 1983's Return of the Jedi had brought to a close the first set of films, referred to from here on out as either: The Original Trilogy; Episodes IV-VI; or just simply "the classics," otherwise known to the world as A New Hope (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and, again, Return of the Jedi (1983).


This was all a long time ago, of course. And for those of us who were diehard fans from the beginning--those of us "in the know," so to speak--there had always been cryptic talk from George Lucas of his somehow telling a three-generational tale of a classic fall/redemption, broken into nine separate film-chapters. Pretty daunting stuff, really, and more than just a little ballsy of him. Of course, as time went on, his enthusiasm would wane for his original epic blueprint.


First was the issue of technology. While it is true Lucas (and his special effects company, Industrial Light & Magic) created what wasn't there in the 1970s to fill a much-needed void and to tell his early space opera in the best way possible, in the wake of the classic trilogy being told, his energy as a storyteller was spent, and the existing film technology did not make it possible for Lucas, yet, to pursue the other episodes of his grand story, and to put his vision on the large screen.


The second factor, of course, was his wanting, at that time, to pursue other interests, primarily in the role of film-producer. So, at the close of his classic trilogy, Lucas decided to take a much-needed break from the Star Wars universe, and he chose to explore other interests for a while--primarily the Indiana Jones trilogy (1981-1989) with his friend, Steven Spielberg, and other such lucrative works of art, like 1986's grand day out, Howard the Duck.


Inevitably, however, time would move on, and film technology--along the lines of digital graphics and the use of digital film--would eventually catch up with Lucas' imagination. And in turn his creative spirit would kick-start again, and the desire to re-enter the world he had already created and made legend would ignite, once more, his original vision. And so began talk of another set of films, this time (as he had supposedly always planned) to tell the story of the "before times"--the tragic story of Annakin Skywalker, who would grow up from a boy to a man, and who, in time, would evolve into the fearsome, mythic figure of Darth Vader.


And thus the prequels were born. And, as I said earlier, though it was 1999, and though the world was a more innocent world that had not yet heard of something called "social media," or YouTube, or MySpace, or Facebook,  or Twitter, talk was still circulating like mad of Lucas' return to his saga, and the excitement was pitched higher (perhaps in some ways, and in other ways not) than it is today.


And I was there in 1999, just like everyone else, caught up in the frenzy and the fun of Star Wars-mania once again. It was like the summer of 1977, in several ways. Except instead of being a 10 year-old boy (like I was when the original film was released), I was now a young man, a married man in those days--nearing 3 years married at that time, in the summer of '99 when The Phantom Menace was released. My wife and I didn't have children yet. And I was doing some teaching still. And I was 32 years-old--a young man, a young husband, not yet a father, my life so much before me, reliving the joy of my youth with talk of other Star Wars films being resurrected.


It was a fun time in my life, I remember. And words cannot adequately express how excited I was--how excited the world was--to revisit an old story in a whole new form.

VI: Where Exactly Are We, And How Exactly Did We Get Here?

If you're paying attention at all at this point, you've got to be saying to yourself something along the lines of: "How disingenuous of you, to make fun of the prequels after-the-fact, when truth be told you were thrilled beyond measure at the time of their release, much like the enthusiasm you spent the first half of this whole fucking essay describing, when you detailed your memories of opening night for the new Episode VII. What an arrogant, petulant, short-memoried, bandwagoning piece-of-shit you are."

[Aside: And that would be very insightful of you. Though...am I really petulant, do you think?]


Granted, it is disingenuous of me now, in 2015--another 16 years since the reappearance of the Star Wars films with Episode I: The Phantom Menace--to so crassly and coldly today turn my back on those three films (a series of movies which I, and countless other old-school fans, eagerly embraced upon their release).

So, what's up with that? What happened during those 16 years between Episode I and this day? What went wrong, so to speak? Where exactly are we, and how exactly did we get here?

It's very simple, really: Time moves on. I grew older. My tastes as a cineaste have evolved over the years--grown more complicated, and more refined, perhaps, and certainly more selective. I love movies. I love the art of film. I am, at heart, a movie buff from way back. Interestingly enough--and with no surprise at all--I can point to Lucas' original set of films as an integral part of my life as a movie-enthusiast and as a student of film. The classic Star Wars trilogy was and is a seminal part of my life.

[Aside: To this day, I can still remember going to the theater as a 10 year-old boy back in May, 1977, to see the original Star Wars. It is one of those moments in my life I will never forget. It's that important to me.]

But time moves on. I am not the same person I was when I was a 10 year-old boy, standing in line in 1977 to see Star Wars, (no matter how much, in many ways, I probably wish I could be.) I am not the same person I was when I was a 32 year-old young man, standing in line in 1999 to see The Phantom Menace, (no matter how much, in many ways, I probably wish I could be.)

I have changed. My life has gone in directions I could never have predicted--as everyone's does, I know. And, like everyone, over time my tastes have changed. Some things from my youth I still cherish and hold close to me. Some things I still love, and always will. And some things I do not.


I (and other lifelong Star Wars fans like me) loved The Phantom Menace when it first made its appearance on the big screen 16 years ago. We loved it because of our memories of loving the original trilogy. We loved the new movie back then because the three previous Star Wars movies--the classic trilogy--had moved us so much, and shaped us, and lifted us from our lives when we were lonely 10 year-old boys.

Star Wars fans loved The Phantom Menace because we felt, more than anything, that we had to. It was canon now, after all. This was official stuff. And though, as the films progressed and we perhaps noticed (deep inside) the stiffness and the clunkiness and the pains produced by the incomprehensible plot twists and inane characters, at times, we refused to give full voice to our frustration and unease. We said things, instead, like: "Well, this is a different sort of story that Lucas is trying to tell this time around. This one is more serious, more tragic, and so therefore more formal in its telling."

And we were okay with that. And we believed that.

[Aside: And in fact, to this day, I can still see making that argument. It makes sense in many ways. The prequels are, in fact, telling a much more serious story than the original trilogy told. The prequels are a tragedy. They are the dark and gloomy story of the fall, while the classic trilogy tells the more uplifting story of redemption. In that way, then, a very honest analogy can be made to Lucas' prequels as serving the role of the Old Testament in the Judao-Christian faith (at least of the first two books--Genesis and Exodus). The story told in the Star Wars prequels is a classic story of high-mindedness, with an overly serious-tone, and an almost didactic, "preachy" sort of style--it details, after all, the tragedy of a man, and a republic, and a galaxy all falling under the sway of evil. Just in summarizing it in that way, it certainly doesn't sound like a very "fun" story to tell, albeit a necessary and essential story to tell. But the classic trilogy, on the other hand, could almost be said to serve the role of the Gospels (the first four books of the New Testament, detailing the life and teachings of Christ)--again, according to the Judao-Christian tradition. As such, the original films tell much more of a spirited, and fast-moving, and action-packed tale, full of recognizable characters, and light and darkness, and heroes and villains, and suffering and salvation. And all of it--ultimately, finally--with a somewhat traditional, happy ending, of sorts.]

Star Wars fans were apologists for the prequel films--for years--when the prequels were all we had to look to as the continuing arc of Lucas' epic story. We were willing to overlook their many weaknesses--weaknesses which were harder to hide and grew ever more annoyingly apparent as the years wore on.

Time has not been particularly kind to Lucas' prequels, in other words, nor to the entrusted vision of his overall story.

The films' weaknesses have made themselves outrageously obvious (to me anyway) just over the course of the past month, as I dusted them off in my DVD collection and put them in to watch--a planned Star Wars marathon, to refresh my memory and to more fully prepare for the upcoming Episode VII. In all honesty, I can't remember the last time I had felt like watching the prequels. It never occurs to me these days. The urge to do so never crosses my mind. There are so many other films on my list to watch. Movies I want to see. Things I want to learn from them. And life is short, and time is precious, and... Well, you know.

Sitting down to watch Episode I: The Phantom Menace this time, I knew going into it at least two things were going to happen:

1. I was not going to like the character of Jar-Jar Binks. (But to be fair, I have never liked the character of Jar-Jar Binks. There may be, somewhere--and I'm practically certain there has to be--a fan club appreciating this asinine character, but I can't imagine why.)
2. I was going to have an averse reaction--possibly bordering on an allergic reaction these days--to the "acting" of little Jake Lloyd. And, no, it's not unfair to criticize him. There have been, throughout the long history of cinema, a number of great child-actors. (Dare I bring up again, ironically, Natalie Portman in 1994's brilliant Leon: The Professional? She was a natural in it, bordering on genius, really. I rest my case.) I'm going to put this as simply as possible: Jake Lloyd fucking sucks, and he practically single-handedly (since he is, after all, carrying what could be called the "lead character") brings the film to its knees. 

But in all fairness, there are scenes and sequences in all of the prequel films that are entertaining and solid in a refreshing and naturally "good" sort of way:

• The pod-race scene, and the climactic lightsaber duel(s) in Episode I. Fun and very well done (with some great, operatic music from Williams during the lightsaber duel--but unfortunately a case of too little and too late).
• The scenes in Episode II set on Tatooine, detailing Annakin's return home, and his search for his mother, and his sad discovery of her having been sold into bondage to the Sand People, and  his decision--really a key moment in the entire saga, actually--to slay her captors in an act of selfish anger, and fear, and retribution. This scene stands apart for me, primarily because it is so integral in the dissolution of Annakin's strong, moral Jedi-mindedness. We're watching him lose his soul, here, which is obviously what the whole prequel trilogy is about.
• And, really, Episode III is not terrible to me. It has more redeeming moments than the first two films. It is guilty of being clunky and mechanical and overweighted, yes. But at least it is not unbearable. And if I don't ever feel like watching the whole thing again, at least I know this much: The last act of Episode III--probably the last 30-40 minutes of film time--is really pretty strong, comparatively. The rise of the Emperor and of the Galactic Empire, in perfect synchrony with the fall of Annakin Skywalker to the Dark Side of the Force, is genuine Star Wars territory. And I like it. I find it pretty compelling, actually. The scenes of the final duel between Obi-Wan and Annakin are heartbreaking and (for the most part) pretty well done. Similarly, the film's closing scenes are impressive, but only so because it can't help but pluck the strings in our memory of the approaching Episode IV, and of the introduction of characters (though only babies) that we have been patiently waiting for all along.

Overall, I do not like the prequels now. I couldn't always say that before, but I can now. And I can say it now because they're not good movies.

[Aside: And when I say they're "not good movies," I don't mean merely that they're "not good Star Wars movies." I mean they are not good movies in the sense that they are quite simply terrible movies. Embarrassingly written. Unbearably acted. Unforgivably directed. Unendingly edited. They are bad movies. After my latest encounter with them, I can fairly say it may be my last full encounter with them. If I watch them again, it will be in segments, in parts only. They do not stand the test of time. They do not hold up. And they are almost entirely unwatchable.]


And, okay, this may make me disingenuous. It may make me hypocritical. But I don't think so. Not really. What it does make me, I feel--after a long time of living in denial--is honest.


As a Star Wars fan, I can say it now. And that's all right. (The first step, after all, of addressing any problem is first admitting there is a problem.)

VII: Home

Here's the deal: They're just movies. And yet they're not just movies.


Anyone who is a fan (and possibly even some non-fans out there who have very well-developed attributes in the area of empathy) can understand what I mean by this.


It's okay to be a fan of anything and of anyone. It's okay to love something beyond reason--like a movie, perhaps, or a piece of music, or a piece of writing, or a piece of art, or a beautiful gesture, a beautiful face, a beautiful act.


It's okay to love anything beyond reason, really. I know such a sentiment would never pass as an actual denotative definition of the word "love," but here it goes anyway: Maybe real love has nothing at all to do with reason. Maybe that's what it is at its root. Maybe that's all it is. Maybe to love something or someone requires you to set aside your head and rely on your emotions a little more than you normally would, a little more than you're normally comfortable doing, perhaps--that all-natural "gut instinct" that everyone talks about so much.


Maybe love has nothing to do with reason at all, and so loving something unreasonably is simply the natural order of things. The way it's meant to be. Perfectly inescapable and totally unavoidable.


The way you love another person. Or should. An act beyond explanation. Beyond a need for explaining.


The love of something and of someone goes so much further beyond simply keeping track of who did what, and of who said what, and of who was right, and of who was wrong. Love has a relaxed grip on memory--it doesn't forget the past, but it lets it go, and it doesn't regret or second-guess the letting go. Love allows mistakes, and it forgives, and it allows you to look beyond the mistakes of yesterday, and to enjoy the pleasures of today, and to look ahead, with eagerness, to the future.


I know... Too mystical, perhaps? Edging too close to that treacly "We Are the World" territory, that mythological "Woodstock vibe" I hinted at earlier? Am I still talking about a movie, after all?


Well...maybe.


But maybe there's something bigger than all that. I don't know. Something bigger lying behind the path my life has taken since I was a lonely 10 year-old boy watching a great movie in a darkened theater-auditorium with a roomful of strangers, all of us gathered together to share something we didn't even know how to put into words.


Maybe there's something bigger lying behind my divorce from my wife eleven years ago, my daughters only 5 and 2 years old at the time, respectively--another seminal moment in my life, to be sure, taking me down paths, again--some good, some not so good, I suppose--which I never could have foreseen as a younger man.


People I've loved. People who have loved me. Mistakes I've made. And mistakes they've made against me. Memories now, etched like a picture, burned like an image on a roll of film, played on an endless loop on a bare wall, like shadows of the truth.


My daughters, teenagers now, sitting with me in our comfortable seats in the darkened room of theater #13 at the Mall Cinemaplex, sharing a movie together, a moment together, a memory of opening night at the latest chapter in the ongoing Star Wars saga. A realization that, among other things, some things do live up to their hype. Some things are as good as you had hoped they would be. Second chances do exist. Second acts can happen (despite Fitzgerald's iconic and profound warning). Some dreams never die, and shouldn't. And forgiving, and forgetting, and moving on in the world is not only the way of sanity, it's the way of hope. And the comfortable, reassuring knowledge that when we come to a place and to a person that we recognize as an extension of ourselves, with all calmness of heart (like the by-now familiar and already-beloved line from a new film showing to millions of eager viewers, young and old) we can say, with all certainty: "We're home."


Am I still talking about a movie? Maybe.


And then again, maybe I never was.

November (soft ghost)



"November always seemed to me the Norway of the year... The redoubtable God! I notice where Death has been introduced, he frequently calls, making it desirable to forestall his advances... Sharper than dying is the death for the dying's sake."

-- Emily Dickinson, in a letter to Elizabeth Holland, 1864  

___________________________



Fingers go first

on cold mornings

like these--

the year almost over,

marked only by

clouds of my breath

and the steam from a first

cup of coffee,

billowing and then invisible

right in front of me.

Standing on my wooden deck,

surveying the backyard for signs of life,
I hold the cup close to my face

to feel its warmth

and to breathe in the fecund humidity
of some verdant, impenetrable green--

the genesis in Colombian forests or

hills of Bolivian backcountry

somewhere,
the sound of macaws
     and marmosets
          and masked squirrel monkeys

replaced only by the lonesome trill of a blue jay

foraging in front of a hiccupping grey-squirrel

leaping amid detritus of the fall,

brushy tail twitching at the
grey clouds and grey sky--

staring at me


across a blankness like a frozen fjord,

an emptiness floating beneath ice
I have to blink away,
but I know that when I do

it will be gone,

this breath of mine,

dissipating and

                    disappearing

in the air in front of me.

It happens that fast.

Silent as the trees,

their bark a sullen hue,

their limbs and trunks showing through

the emptiness of what once was there.

The nearest one

in my leafy brain

a woman, naked, her ochre dress

fallen to the floor by her feet in the bedroom,

silkened soft arms and breasts and legs opened to me

swaying to the sibilance of her windvoice,
dry leaves whispering in the quiet--

my name.
Her whisper, a sound so soft,

until it is

                                             lost
and once again as before,
as always,
only the morning's wind

in my ear.


And so--


A mug of hot coffee by my face

and at my lips
(her smile, her mouth, her hands--soft ghost--her legs, her laugh, her hair, her fingers)

my fingers opening and closing
wrapped around this fire,

the sting of blood returning while

breathsteam entwines like a silver thread,

falling slack, bending, looping around itself
like some slumbering "8"
(the sign of infinity tattooed in the air)
and then tightening

from some other end to

pull at me.


And I have to let it go.

Early morning

near the end of a year
like any year,
sitting alone

in the cold,

drinking coffee and breathing,

     breathing,

          just like that,

and watching it go.

meltwater: 5 views

(1)

ice and snow dissolve
a slow return to the source
sunlight caught inside


(2)

cold glass stalactites
dripping away to the earth
my ancient spirit


(3)

winter is heavy
a pane of glass cold and white
breath held in blue air


(4)

memories of loss
weighted limbs bowed and broken
sole hibernation

(5)

this dawn of new spring
sight and sound of glistening thaw
meltwater at last

Getting to Forgiveness

Imagine a place somewhere
out of the way,
a place found on a map, even,
with corners and angles and squares,
a sign on the outskirts of town
faded with age and made on barnboard, maybe,
or else new and shining under the sun
and with words of open arms.

  "Welcome to Forgiveness!"

it might read,
to let you know that you were there.
To let you know that you had reached
your destination
finally.
To let you know
that you had
made it.

I wonder sometimes
how such a trip must feel.

Traveling alone, more than likely.
A car ride, it would seem.
The loneliness of your road
stretching away from you,
reminding you not only how far
you have to go
but also how far
you have come.

Observe directions.
Pay attention to signs.

Remember what you see.
Stop when you can or must.

And if you're still afraid of getting lost,
then tear your anger
into tiny little scraps
dropped in the wind
behind you,

marking your path

for the return trip
    home,


and reminding yourself
(as if you need reminding)
that the road is there.


          Make the trip when you can.

Dharma Bummed

"Beggars should be abolished entirely...

It is annoying to give to them, and it is annoying not to give to them."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

"And that's the way this wheel

keeps working now..."

-- John Mayer

__________________________

The Exit ramp off Interstate 80--one of the many leading into Joliet--was backed up nearly to the shoulder of the highway. Green light, green arrow pointing left, allowing for a safe and legal turn onto Houbolt Road. My daughter was asleep in the passenger seat next to me, the radio playing loudly from the last station her finger had visited on the dial before tuning out herself--a habit she is wont to do--and leaving me wondering all of the sudden why I hadn't thought to change the station.

Not that I have anything against popular music of the day, actually.

[Aside: I always swore I would never become one of those kind of Dads, bemoaning the loss of the supposed "glory days" of music/film/sports/cars/culture-in-general. Rambling on and on and on about some romanticized vision of some ethereal past that probably--if push came to shove--never existed anyway. You know...that guy. The veritable "Grumpy Old Man." The buzzkill. The literal death of the party.]

I like to think of myself as championing the theory of Always-Trying-To-Do-The-Right-Thing-When-It-Needs-To-Be-Done--an example I like to set for my daughters when I can. It's a theory of open-mindedness, I like to believe. It's a theory of inclusiveness and awareness of another's feelings and attitudes and beliefs in the grand mix with mine.

And so, by surrender, that theory also extends to the music played these days in my car when my daughters--now of the pre- and full-fledged teen variety--are along for the ride with me. When they were younger, it was so much easier; I could get away--while driving them here and there--with indoctrinating them to my taste in music. It was always my radio station of choice. My personal collection of CDs played over the car's stereo. My iPod's music list plugged into the auxiliary outlet on the panel.

I was rather proud of the fact that my daughters--at the wee ages of 4 and 7--could recognize the opening chords of The Flaming Lips' "Waiting for a Superman." And not only recognize the song, but sing along with it. Flawlessly. And even request to hear it again, played on repeat ad nauseum.

I was raising some well-rounded, respectful, cultured, and open-minded young ladies.

[Aside: But after all, what were they going to do, disagree with me? I was Dad. And they were 4 and 7, for God's sake. Besides, I was getting to listen to my radio station, and my CDs, and my extensive musical library in digital storage. But that's beside the point. And anyway, that was then....]

Still, I had to wonder now, as the line of cars stacked up along the Exit ramp and slowly inched along, one by one, to the lure of the left-pointing green arrow, what sort of fog I had been in that I hadn't changed from the usual top-40 fare blaring from my car's speakers. My daughter had fallen asleep, like usual. So it was just me listening to this crap. What had I been thinking?

And it was then that I saw him. Standing on the edge of the left-turning lane, dressed in worn-out, stinky-looking clothes--long, tangled blond hair held under a greasy ball cap, an untrimmed beard, scuffed boots, torn jeans, an oversized hoodie hanging on his frame. And most notably, perhaps, a ragged rectangle of corrugated beige cardboard held between his hands just at lower-chest level--a message scrawled lightly, and apparently quickly, in black permanent marker. I was still too far away to read what was written (and probably misspelled, I assumed) on the piece of cardboard ripped randomly from some leftover box resting in the ditch, I would imagine. But then again I also assumed I knew just what the wording on the young man's homemade sign was. (Or at least a close facsimile.)

It was also at this time, not coincidentally, I began to wonder just how long a green left-turn arrow lasts.

I knew it would happen the way it happened. And so it happened. A row of red blinking turn-signals disappeared in succession, like lemmings over some God-forsaken cliff, and still the green left-turn arrow remained. Five cars ahead of me now. Four. How soon would it turn yellow, and then red? I noticed the cars ahead of me speeding up now, ever so slightly, just to make the light. A helpful ploy, for all involved. Surely the green arrow can't last much longer. Surely it won't change now, though. Nobody wants to be that car, sitting stopped, with a supposed homeless beggar weighing on their conscience off to the side of the road.

Nobody wants that.

Three cars now, each moving along nicely. Time is of the essence. Everybody being polite, after all. Everybody taking their turn. Everybody observing--to the best of his/her ingrained mannered abilities--the proverbial "rules of the road." A staple of civilization, I suppose. One of those things, like the opposable thumb, I would guess, that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. The lesser beasts of the earth. The unwashed herd. ("And speaking of 'unwashed,'" I thought...)

The green arrow suddenly paled to yellow. Who's it going to be? Two cars now. One. How fast can the remaining car ahead of me move?

[Aside: AND FOR THE SWEET LOVE OF GOD CAN'T SHE MOVE ANY FUCKING FASTER THAN THAT?!]

She couldn't.

The yellow left-turn arrow faded to red as the driver ahead of me made her casual advance, completing her turn, and speeding successfully along her way. I, on the other hand, remained behind. I was that car that didn't make the left turn. I was the car sitting at the front of the line now, waiting on the red light to change. I was the car directly next to some guy, a stranger in used clothes who looked like he hadn't had a bath or a decent meal or a full night's sleep in ages and who--for God-only-knows-what reason--had been reduced to standing alone alongside the Exit ramp, stalwart and stoic, holding a cardboard sign in front of his chest, begging for money, for a ride, for help, and waiting for someone--anyone--to acknowledge him.

"Of-fucking-course this would happen to me," I thought to myself, careful not to give voice to such frustration (even though my daughter was still asleep). "Just my luck..."

At least from this newly acquired vantage point, though, I could now make out his sign:

OUT OF WORK & OUT OF HOME

PLEASE HELP

ANY HELP APRECITED

The fact that I was right, as it turns out, about his sign being misspelled was of little satisfaction. The only reason I had finally read it was: 1.) I was now sitting comfortably in my car just mere feet from the guy, my air-conditioner blowing and the stereo blaring the latest masterpiece from Maroon 5; and 2.) I was wearing my aviator sunglasses, large enough to hide my eyes and to sneak a sideways glance at him and at his scrawled misspelled message on his pathetic piece of cardboard. I didn't want him to notice my looking, however--I didn't want him to know I was glancing at him and thereby bring down all the attendant expectations such a noticed glance could inevitably bring.

I quickly thought of all the things I could do to make it look like I was suddenly an extraordinarily busy and important person. I thought of fidgeting with the stereo--or at least pretending to. (With this thought was the presumed assumption on my part, I guess, that my car doors were, in fact, padded with some miraculous soundproof lining and that though he was poor and obviously down-on-his-luck, this meant, for some unexplainable reason, that the guy standing 4 feet away from me on the side of the road was also deaf.) I also thought of becoming inordinately interested in suddenly fishing for something under my seat--like some misplaced change, or a piece of gum, or a dropped detonator. Something like that. I thought, too, of immediately bringing my cell phone up to my ear (thank God for 21st-century technology, after all) and falling back on the old familiar standby of suddenly finding myself in a very elaborate and animated phone call.

[Aside: Who among us hasn't tried that old chestnut at least once, for various reasons of our own and with equally varying results?]

But then, as I glanced at him again out of the corner of my eyes--with his sad, bedraggled appearance and his sign and his pitiful "1,000-yard stare" (as if not wanting to make eye contact with any of the random motorists pulling up randomly alongside him, just about as much as none of us wanted to make eye contact with him) I thought of this also: That could be me out there...

I thought shamefully of the unpaid bills piling up at home, and of the mailbox full of more, always more. And I thought of past-due balances. And of overdraft notices. And of debts. And of the repeated litany of questions every month, rolling through my mind--a list of questions forcing me to prioritize my needs, like some absurd sort of financial triage: "Do I have enough money to cover these payments? How about these? And which bills are the longest overdue? Can I pay those off now? Will they accept half a payment? Which bill(s) will go unpaid this month? And what about gas? And what about groceries? How overrated is eating, really?..." And the endgame to all of that, then, of course, are the creditors calling ceaselessly, day and night, wanting to know where the money is. And can they, in any way, be of help? ("Oh, the irony," I thought suddenly, sitting comfortably in my car. "Where's my piece of cardboard?") I thought of vacations and new cars and expensive toys and top-shelf hobbies and the lifestyles all my friends seem to be living every minute of the day--if what one sees on social sites like Facebook is to be believed. Everyone seems to have found the secret, it would seem, except me.

Well...me and the young, bearded, homeless hippie standing next to me at the moment, I had to guess.

And that's when it all, in just a second's passing, came crashing down on me: That could so easily be me. Any day now. Standing on the side of the road with, yes, my own cardboard sign, in fact, held in front of me, desperately asking total strangers for help.

I looked at my daughter then, sleeping so peacefully in the seat beside me. Blissfully unaware--thank God--of the cares of the world, and of the weight of being a single Dad, and of absurd unrealities to her of such things as child-support, and health insurance, and responsibilities that reach far beyond the tangibles of paper money and paper mailings and paper guilt.

Bruno Mars was belting out his latest rehashed falsetto anthem to young, amazing love (or some such thing...) and I recalled, briefly, how just seconds ago it seemed so miraculous to me that I had not changed the radio station, when the only one who wanted to listen to this sort of music was fast asleep in the car on the drive to go shopping in Joliet. It would seem my theory of Always-Trying-To-Do-The-Right-Thing-When-It-Needs-To-Be-Done had, indeed, gotten the best of me--no pun intended. I was mindlessly mindless. Selflessly selfless. So much so that it was no longer about me--I was merely a microcosmic speck of matter in the great stew of life in this thing we call the Universe. I was matter that did not matter.

I switched off Bruno Mars' voice, then, and in the silence that followed in my car, waiting for the red light to turn so I could be about my day, I heard, instead, John Lennon's paradoxical ramble sift through the music library in my brain:

          "I am he as you are he as you are me.
           And we are all together..."

Pressing the button on the power console next to me, my driver's-side window hummed down. But only halfway. I reached behind me and felt for my wallet--thin, but... I opened it and pulled out two dollar bills.

[Aside: Two dollars? Really?...]

Upon hearing the electric motor of my window, the young man suddenly turned to me. I don't know who looked more surprised, because I obviously couldn't see my face at the moment. This was definitely out of character for me, to be sure, but of course he didn't know that. And he didn't need to know that.

I just couldn't help but think right then that it was not only the right thing to do--giving this guy some help, any help I could spare--it was the only thing to do. "I would want someone like me to do this for me if I needed it," I thought quietly, still not wanting to wake my daughter. Better she not see this, I reasoned, for some reason.

I rolled my car window down halfway and held out the two dollar bills toward him--lengthwise, like a carrot, leading him forward. Oh, the power I held in those two crisp dollar bills, I realized. His eyes turned to look at me then for the first time. To really look at me. And I cannot describe the smile that crossed his emaciated, hollowed face at that moment. He still had his teeth, I noticed. "I guess the heroin or the meth habit I'm helping finance hasn't completely ravaged him yet," I suddenly thought. This was followed by a quick rejoinder: "Shut up!" I thought to myself. "Can't you just shut up your mind for once and be in this moment? Maybe he'll get a cup of coffee with the two dollars you're passing on to him. Or maybe a candy bar. You don't know. Or maybe something sweet for a loved one--a rose for a girlfriend or a small plush toy for a child who is sick or who is out of the picture for some reason. Or maybe he'll pay it forward, giving your two dollars away, in fact, to someone other than himself who needs it even more, someone who..."

"Oh my God, dude, that is so righteous!" he said. He smiled some more at me and laughed a nice, clean, sincere laugh. "Absolutely righteous..."

I smiled back at him.

"Brother," he said, "you are absolutely a righteous man!"

And I continued to smile, feeling pretty good about the moment, actually. This was turning out better than I had anticipated. Maybe my crackpot theory of Always-Trying-To-Do-The-Right-Thing-When-It-Needs-To-Be-Done wasn't so crackpot after all. Maybe my attempts to be open-minded and all-inclusive and aware had its own sense of reward. Maybe, in its own karmic way, this was its payoff. What goes around comes around, like the dharma wheel, itself.

I had to admit, being told I was, in fact, "righteous" was good medicine for me at that particular time. It was just what I needed to hear, perhaps. An affirmation (despite all the contrary evidence) that although I had maybe neglected to pay this month's gas bill, and although I perhaps needed to start reorganizing and reprioritizing my life and start acting like the grownup I was presumed to be, and although I maybe wasn't living the life of fun and enchantment all my friends seemed to be living and inadvertently bragging about online, it could just be that maybe--just maybe--I wasn't so bad after all.

Maybe, in fact, I was even "righteous."

Righteous.

I know what that word means--"righteous." I have used it often myself, in differing times and situations. But I have certainly never used it (or even thought of using it) in regards to me. And even though I know, with a fair degree of certainty, the full denotations and connotations of that word, I couldn't help but think I wanted to look it up in the dictionary as soon as I got home, just to be sure I was right.

Just to be sure I was righteous, in fact.

"You are so righteous," I heard again, as if this young down-and-out gentleman had somehow read my mind and was confirming my obligatory crisis of self-doubt. These two dollar bills were certainly making his day, to be sure.

And then he moved toward me, and not just to retrieve his gift of two-hundred pennies, either, it would seem. He stepped toward me then with his arms unbelievably outstretched and opened wide, as if he were moving in for an embrace.

This guy--this total stranger standing on the side of an Exit ramp leading to Joliet where just a minute ago I was innocently going to do some shopping with my daughter, this dirty, unbathed, and almost-certainly stinking young beggar who was panhandling and playing on people's simple sympathies, like my own--was moving in to get close.

This guy wanted to hug me.

As it turns out, my surprise and my recoil could not have been stronger. I leaned back into my seat, further away from my half-open window, and felt with my left hand along the control panel next to me to make sure, in fact, that the doors were automatically locked and to slide my index finger into place on the power-window control button--just in case.

"Thank you, man! Thank you..." he said, noticing rather quickly, I would assume, that he wasn't going to get that hug. If he was upset, he didn't show it. He had more of a poker-face than I, probably, and he settled instead for the extended two dollars, as well as my hand in a half-hearted shake.

"You're welcome," I said. "And good luck..."

And I meant it. I was sad for him. Just as I was sad for me. He had certainly seen better times, just as I had. And though my times were evidently still better than his at the moment, if nothing else he was living proof to me--as if I needed it--that it could all slip away so quickly. And I could be him. And if my benediction of good fortune was truthfully being passed on to this stranger who asked nothing of me but "ANY HELP" that I was able to give (whether it was truthfully, on his part, "APRECITED" or not) then my words "good luck" were meant for me, as well.

[Aside: "I am he as you are he as you are me.
             And we are all together..."]

"Seriously, good luck," I said again--adding the "Seriously" this time, as if it was needed for some reason.

He looked at me and smiled again. "Thank you. Thank you, brother..."

"You're welcome. Take care."

"You too."

And that was that. How long did the whole scene actually take? I have no way of knowing. A matter of seconds, probably. How long does a red light last? A lifetime, it seems, most of the time, I know. And yet sometimes--on those rare times driving when we're not frazzled and not in a hurry to get where we're going and to get there quickly--a red light can go faster than we'd like.

I rolled my window up as the red left-turn arrow once again turned green, and I continued on my way to go shopping with my daughter, which had been my unassuming plan all along.

This was, of course, the time she decided to wake up. "Hey..." she muttered, half-intelligibly.

"Hey back." I said.

"What's happening?..." she asked.

What's happening?

I thought back to the scene just played out seconds ago. To my recognition of myself in someone else. To my joy and satisfaction at being called something like "righteous." To my automatic and instinctual fear and disgust at the thought of hugging a dirty homeless stranger who was begging for "HELP" on the side of the road. To the way I so thoughtlessly reached now for the little squeeze-bottle of handwash lotion that I keep in my glove-box--for emergencies.

"What's happening?" I say to her, repeating her question, stalling for time.

[Aside: Yes. What's happening? What just happened here?]

"Good thing you woke up," I said, deflecting for a moment. "We're almost to where we're going."

Putting back the handwash bottle in my glove-box, I reached deeper inside for my iPod, which I knew was in there somewhere. My daughter hadn't noticed yet the silence of the "no-music" sound in my car simply because she was still half asleep and it hadn't registered with her. But it would soon.

"How about listening to some of Dad's music for the last little bit of the trip?" I said. I suddenly wanted to hear a song very badly. "You don't mind, do you, honey?..."

"No, that's fine," she said, with a selfless shrug. She looked out the window at the buildings and the cars passing by.

I plugged in my iPod on the console and searched briefly for the album and song I was looking for. Still there. I hadn't deleted it: The Flaming Lips, their 1999 album, The Soft Bulletin, the 8th track-- "Waiting for a Superman." I turned up the speakers on the car's stereo. Loud. And I hit the PLAY button.

The familiar opening crash of chords was like an old friend.

          "I asked you a question.
           But I didn't need you to reply..."

It only took her a second or two to recognize the song, and she turned to me, smiling.

"We haven't listened to this in a long time," she said.

          "'Is it getting heavy?' But then I realized:
           'Is it getting heavy?'
           Well, I thought it was already
           as heavy as can be..."

I looked at her and smiled back. "I know. It's been years."

And by the time Wayne Coyne had reached the chorus, my daughter and I were singing along, matching him word for word, each one of us lost in thoughts all our own in what was left of the morning.

          "Tell everybody waiting for a Superman
           that they should just try to hold on
           the best they can.
           He hasn't dropped them,
           forgot them,
           or anything.
           It's just too heavy for a Superman to lift."





"...Moose... Indian..."

(on the retirement of a friend from a lifetime of teaching)

"When one's work is accomplished honorably,
to retire is the Way of heaven."

-- Lao-tzu, Tao Te Ching

____________________

There must be a last time for everything.

One of those fundamental truths of nature

we all know deep down somewhere

but don't like to talk about

unless we have to.

Firsts are always so much more fun.

The baby's first gasp of air,

an intake of oxygen,

a neuron fired,

a thought: I'm cold.

And a scream and a cry

to say, in words only a newborn can speak,

     "I'm alive.

     This is a good world.

     And I'm here."

A first smile.

First steps.

First words: "I love you,"

if we're lucky enough to hear that

(though we sometimes hear what we need to hear).

First loves. First dates. First kisses.

The first time a girl lets us explore--

like some intrepid adventurer of old--

the heretofore uncharted territory

of some great metaphorical "Northwest Passage."

The first time driving

     alone

behind the wheel

at night

in a snowstorm,

afraid of the ditch

and of getting lost.

The first casting of the line.

The first fish caught.

The first time stringing a guitar,

and strumming of chords--

everything in tune.

A perfect feeling. A perfect sound.

Wrist and elbow, fluid.

The perfect softness of a woman,

the first woman.

Life as garden.

A first time moving away from home.

And the first hangover.

And the first sting of hurt, and of failure.

And the first time we think we have

felt the grip of death on our shoulder,

stared face to face into the void

(and how empty that must be),

turned our gaze away, lest it

look back

into us,

like philosophy warns.

The first time we know what true pain feels like,

and the heartache of loss,

and of redemption.

The heartache of looking back at what was,

and of having, somehow, to start

all over again

at the beginning.

Another first.

Though not quite the same as before,

because nothing is or can be.

Especially after thirty years of doing

the same thing

every year,

day after day.

Though different days and years, of course--

different names and faces

in the desks

over all those different years.

Thousands of names and faces

all becoming one.

The first student.

The final roster.

The first assignment.

The final examination.

A last pencil sharpened in the middle of a lecture.

A last excuse for missed homework.

A last request for, "el bano?"

A last time to hear the words

"Thank you"

and "Goodbye."

The last time to take a measure of a young person's life,

   as if to say,

        "This is you. I know you. You'll do well.... Or maybe not."

The last time to take a measure of ourselves.

This measure of a life

lived in that quiet desperation

so often hinted at

and carried out within these same four walls

of faded posters and pictures and paintings

hung on nails for thirty-odd years--first to last--

like Christ Himself, almost.

The Alpha and Omega.

Final words, maybe,

of forgiveness and salvation.

Words of wisdom, if we're lucky,

or perhaps ours will lean more toward the metaphysical:

     "...Moose... Indian..."

Something like that,

like some transcendental code of Concord,

spoken by a madman spirit who had

moved beyond the meaning of this world

and leapt into the next with the shutting 

of windows

and a last breath--

Thoreau's legendary last words, lying in bed,

   alone.

A closing statement. A summation.

Conclusion of a life well-lived.

A final utterance.

A benediction

and blessing--

each year

and this year, so like the first,

yet different.

We repeat it

as if we believe it:

     "Be good to yourselves."

     "Be good to each other."

     "Do good in this world."

     "Try to make a difference."

We believe it makes a difference,

we say to ourselves,

or else we wouldn't be here.

And in the end that's all that matters,

or so we like to believe,

here at the end of all things.

For there is, after all, a last time for everything.

A last time to recognize that it's not the first time

we've slowly turned ourselves around

and found from somewhere deep inside

the will to reinvent ourselves

and start again.

Once more.

Day one.

A first time, after all, to believe that for the last time

we will say to ourselves,

as if to no one else,

     "I was alive.

     There is good in this world.

     And I was there."

Kensho

In the basement of a church--
musty, acrid, smelling of ancient trapped air and dust--
rummaging near the bottom of a torn box
branded with the trademark Angel Soft
now filled with unwanted books,
my hands found a battered copy
of the teachings of Zen Buddhism.
A bent book, dog-eared pages
stained rainbow
and penned marginalia in scribbled hand--
testament to the  text's
study, devotion,
love.

And somewhere in the middle,
stuck around page 142,
     I believe,
a faded losing lottery ticket
serving as bookmark.
A last page read.
A last paragraph. Last sentence.
Last word.
The rest forgotten,
or not enough time to finish.
Something like that, anyway.
And so much left undone.

But then, in the center of it all,
marking the place
to someday
maybe
start again,
is hope.