Six years ago on this night I was at my friend Amy’s in Glen Falls, NY while she was in Philly at some Buddhist conference. The soup I’d made for dinner turned out badly so I went downstairs to the endlessly fragrant Thai Sushi restaurant in the building for a splurge. Eating orchids and spicy raw fish, watching all the relaxed convivial people. Drinking wine just a bit to indulgent excess. Back then I almost never drank alcohol.... maybe 5 times a year at most. Now since a stroke and cancer, never. But in those days on rare occasions, liked to feel somewhat intoxicated in a biochemical way at times, a way I couldn’t use will to resist. That night I was still following Crazy Cloud aka Ikkyu…(“Studying texts and stiff meditation can make you lose your Original Mind.
A solitary tune by a fisherman, though, can be an invaluable treasure.
Dusk rain on the river, the moon peeking in and out of the clouds;
Elegant beyond words, he chants his songs night after night.” )
Sitting there eating by myself I noticed I was in a state of missing someone; drifting through recollections of who that might be, I found I was missing some who brought such tenderness unexpectedly to my life ... who at the same time I've often found to be those who tend to have a quiet voice in our world, and through suffering or neglect are often overlooked in our culture. The people from my Greenwich Village childhood that neighborhood adults called junkies but who seemed more like just children like me but bigger, with their laser-locking eye-beams that would zero in on mine and pull me into their startlingly ravaged and profound beauties. The man with withered arms and shockingly luminous green eyes washing windows in the pre-dawn dark at the pit stop where my knee gave out while pumping gas and who helped me to my car and gentled me with his smile, a cup of coffee and words of care; the tiny, exhausted woman from India with a bad leg and silky skin who was cleaning my hospital room and was so terribly lonely and told me of her yearning for a dog to love which she just couldn't afford and in her pain and frustration looked like she was gruff and mean but was really just always on the trembling border of torrential sobs of unrequited longing; also, and with stunning clarity, the pale blond-haired young man with Down's syndrome who had passed me in a crowd of people at the airport many months before but who caught my eye and mine caught his and as we walked in opposite directions we both swiftly turned and started walking backwards so we could continue to stare and rapturously smile at each other until we were out of range.... Obviously we fell in love at first sight. At least I did; maybe I shouldn’t speak for him. I mean, I was at least almost fifty years older than he......
And I don’t mean anything sentimental, romantic or gushing, I mean we fell into each other’s awareness at the same time the way some irrepressible, elemental force of life comes breaking through your ordinary with its mystery right when you’re unknowingly ready and strikes your heart beyond reason, cracking you open until you see clearly..... and are seen in return. Where original Beauty makes its stand and declares itself, no matter what the world considers its limitations or value.
These are some of my unforgettable loves, and I don't — ever— forget. These raw gifts of a moment, memories of people and brief experiences held dear where my heart travels...over and over..... these strangers I'll never see again in whose generosity of sharing themselves so spontaneously, directly, and so powerfully I can wrap my heart and spirit with the timelessness of it all, as I lie quietly, and wistfully, in the night.
Unforgettable Loves