A Small Event in San Luis Obispo

I first became aware of the existence of San Luis Obispo, California, in 1969. It was my freshman year in college near Chicago. My brand new roommate thrust his hand into mine and declared, “Hi, I’m Rob, and I’m from San Luis Obispo.” Hailing from the picturesquely named Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, the odd name of the California town stayed with me.

Neither of us could know that less than two years later I myself would visit SLO, not on a lark of a trip to the west coast, but on a mission. Rob had been hitchhiking home for Christmas vacation in 1971. The convertible veered off the road and flipped. The owner was killed outright, and Rob was comatose.

Rob and I had sung together in glee club. When the club toured California in the spring of 1972, 25 club members crowded into his hospital room. As his closest friend at the time, I was ushered to his bedside. He appeared to be taking a nap, hair neatly combed; I shouted into his ear as if that would break the coma’s hold. Still, he slept on. Eventually, we all vacated the hospital room.

My next visit to SLO was in 1974. Rob had continued to sleep on. When the nursing staff at the long term care facility rolled him onto the grass, strapped into his wheelchair, they had to reassure me that the person I saw was indeed my former roommate. Pale, blind and curled in a fetal position, I made a vigorous attempt to rouse him. Instead, Rob would sleep on for another 12 years before his light would finally be extinguished.

Tonight we are again in San Luis Obispo, waiting for the start of the movie, “Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould”. The theater looks tiny because it is. There are exactly 47 seats. I sit in one of those seats, reviewing my own inner life, and a consequential chapter that started playing here in San Luis Obispo, what now seems so long ago.

The Conformist: A Dream 

One day last week, before the alarm interrupted my sleep, a dream played through my mind:

I entered a house of massive, temple-like dimensions. Inside, I was greeted by the wealthy owner’s wife, who showed me around the gigantic rooms. The vista from the kitchen window revealed an expansive view of a large swimming pool and, beyond it, a clear view to the ocean below. As we exited the kitchen, I encountered, almost incidentally, her husband, the wealthy owner of the house. He stood tall and straight, dressed in an elegant sports coat and neatly pressed slacks. His greeting was polite, but for a man of his financial stature it was surprisingly gentle, almost understated and deferring. His wife escorted me to the spacious entryway as I made my way out of the mansion.

My second visit to the house confirmed the prosperity of the owner. Major renovations and construction were underway. New plaster was being applied to what seemed to be acres of walls, making the house appear even more cavernous. Again, the fashionably-dressed owner bid me a courteous but restrained welcome, and I wondered what currents ran beneath his calm demeanor.

During my final visit to the house, the gracious owner sat in an office with the proportions of a large game room. Long and hard, the owner and his two adult sons earnestly discussed strategy for the family business. After some length, the sons rose from their chairs, their opinions firm, their gestures passionate. Their views conflicted with those of their father; I expected the father to respond with some animation to defend his own assessment. Instead, unflinching and stirring only slightly in his chair, his demeanor remained placid and relaxed as he took it all in and deferred to their views. I recognized by now the qualities of the man and his mastery of the craft of listening, how to step aside from superficial irrelevancies, and how to maintain the principles that governed him, like the steadying rudder of a ship at sea.

His ever easy and gracious manner seemed to bloom from the congruence his life held with his values. He shed that which was petty, trivial and distracting.

After my departure, I saw the owner once again, this time as a picture: a piece of shiny steel, pressed between two opposing forces, compelling him to conform to their pattern. He bent and unbent again and again, but always retained the integrity of the metal’s true shape.

And that allowed him to conform only, but fully, to that Power which governed his life and purposes, and to graciously let go of the rest.

The Woman with Lions in Her Head

The woman waiting for her train to arrive tried to recall how long she had been chasing lions. Since her first visit to the zoo, they had been her love, and ever since, her affection for them endured. Despite their enormous power, lions display tenderness toward one another, qualities she admired—restrained strength with gentle affection, the same qualities she would have welcomed in a lover, had such a lover ever materialized.

She longed to be near lions, but she refrained from joining the circus life. She once considered it, but their pure and imposing essence seemed tainted by their imprisonment and the taunting of their trainers. The prospect of joining the team of those who stage-manage the antics of such creatures made her blanch—wild carnivores acquiescing to perform tricks in exchange for meals of domesticated meat.

Still, her dream persisted. Even now, waiting on the bench, lions were in her head. They were still in her dreams.

Unable to reconcile her passion, she remembered how she had longed for a new vision of power and tenderness. She came to admire the desire of nuns living out their quest for their cause, of spiritual mission and its promise of tender redemption. She eventually gave herself to service in a convent, learning the holy life and attempting to fulfill its requirements. She admired and desired the quest, but she discovered that she didn’t do so well implementing the means of achieving it. The rigors of the disciplines chafed at her. Regulated days filled with predictable tasks; predictable tasks held structured sequences. She belonged to the ideals and the faith, yet the restrictive system crossed her longing for freedom. Like the circus lions, she felt confined and controlled. She started dreaming of wild lions again.

She thought of them as her train neared its rendezvous with her, oblivious of her fellow travelers waiting on the platform. She was even unaware of the neatly-dressed man wearing tan slacks and black sweater, waiting along with her at a nearby bench. He had immediately noticed her, with her head cocked and peering toward the sky. His scrutiny might have intimidated her, but it went unnoticed as she held her vision of the lions and wondered what the path beyond the convent would now hold for her.

As the black-sweatered man stared at the women, his gaze slowly lifted, expanded, filled, and gradually an image appeared that he did not comprehend: faintly appearing above the woman were what appeared to be clouds, or cats, or maybe lions—wild lions.

He trembled involuntarily at the wonder of the vision, and the mystery of the woman.

The train’s bell clanged as it came to a stop, calling the travelers on the benches to embark. The black-sweatered man with the tan trousers arose and hurried to the same coach the woman entered, searching for and finding her. He seized the seat directly across from her, and as he drew in a breath to begin an uncertain sentence, he found himself, suddenly, as he had never before found himself—supremely comfortable, at peace, seated beside the enigmatic women from the bench.

She flinched in sudden surprise at her new traveling companion. Her throat briefly grabbed and clutched the air. When she found her next breath, her exhale was long and quiet, as if she were expelling a long-dormant, soured mist. And then—at that moment and for the first time—she released the lions from her dreams. In their place and occupying their space, she made way for the black-sweatered man, strong and tender.

Yoga by the Sea

The pier in Cayucos, California, six miles north of Morro Bay, juts 953 feet into the Pacific Ocean. The usual population of surf fishermen and their fish bait, pelicans, seagulls and pigeons share its heavy wooden planks. Visitors such as myself wander and gaze into fishermen’s plastic buckets, which are never full enough of today’s catch. We stare down a pelican perched on the railing, gaping at our presence. He reluctantly leaves, heaving himself into the air, working hard to gain altitude. Airborne, he will gain a perspective I will never know. Beating his wings against the rushing air, he will cruise and glide, unaware of my envy and also unaware of his gift of flight.

He will peer down on the beach and observe those in the yoga class beneath him who, through mental and physical discipline, seek a greater state of enlightenment. They pursue a way to break the limitations of physical bonds and a way to purify their minds from unworthy appetites. This platoon of practitioners sits in a sea of sand for long minutes, eyes closed, legs folded tightly. Intermittently, ever thoughtful, ever meditating, they arise, bend, and stretch one arm to the sand and one to the sky….

It is the same sky where, under watchful and wondering eye, our pelican hovers. The pelican above, the yoga practitioners below—the steadfast subjects of his interest. Sitting quietly and reflectively, then moving and stretching together, their bodies create a puzzling pattern to his eye.

His eye, however, is an empty one, staring to comprehend these earthbound mortals, while he, oblivious of their quest to be free, soars high and away.

The (E-)mail Box

Most of us will remember the recent iPhone 4 pre-release debacle that transpired when an Apple company employee lost the new, not-yet-released phone in a bar he frequented, and it was discovered by the media.

Now the fiasco has recurred. This time, I am the one who discovered Apple’s latest top-secret not-yet-released gadget, mounted on the back of a bicycle.

This latest hi-tech wonder by Apple is apparently designed to help meet the needs of the non-techie-minded public. The device appears to be a technological step backward. They have created an alternative to having e-mail delivered to a computer’s digital mailbox: a silver-colored physical mailbox, in this case, attached to a bicycle.

The device actually converts e-mails sent from a computer into a physical letter that is delivered into the aluminum mailbox.

Thanks to this creation, the geek-fearing souls among us need no longer suffer the embarrassment of showing their limited e-mail skills. Apple’s newest common-man’s e-mail conversion technology forever removes the customer’s need to climb the exotic digital-expertise ladder. Apple has found a way to convert e-mails into an old-fashioned physical letter and deliver it into the new, fashionable shiny silver mailbox, which can be mounted anywhere: attached to a bicycle, glued to the hood of a fancy Ford Mustang, or pack-mounted on the back of a miniature schnauzer.

I had to see this secretive device in action with my own eyes. As I stared at the contraption, I heard a distinct whirring sound from within it. What luck! Apparently, a piece of reconstituted e-mail was just then arriving! What an opportunity to break into Apple’s newest product and retrieve this digital e-mail that would be magically transformed to hardcopy letter!

With the bicycle’s owner nowhere to be seen, I stealthily crept toward it. Slowly and gingerly, I drew down the mailbox’s handle, breaching Apple’s high-tech security system.

There, before my eyes, I beheld a message that was still in the process of reverse-engineering. An e-mail avatar faintly appeared, then faded before my gaze. In its place materialized, first as an apparition, then as a reverse-engineered hard-copy, a reincarnation of the original digital message:

“Barry, thanks for your good e-mail late last night. I knew we had been out-of-touch, but it was so good to hear or your wanting to come back on the Winning Side.

“It’s incredibly hard being a mortal, and it’s sometimes hard for even me to imagine. Challenges and defeats often come before victory. Always remember that. Last night, when you connected with me, that was your victory.

“The other hard thing for me to remember is that people don’t easily forget their errors, even once they get on the Winning Side. The thing is, I do forget all those errors—I promise that I do! I know that’s hard for you to fathom.

“So, because of my memory loss, could you shoot me the topic of your defeat to remind me again what this was all about?

“On second thought, never mind—I still won’t remember, whether I get it by e-mail or hard copy. I totally forget everything that you’ve set aright with me.

“Thanks again for trying to be all that you can be. You haven’t disappointed me. I’m eager to see the next chapter.”

Sincerely,

Your father, God

Recreational Vehicle Madness

The annual recreational vehicle show held at Pomona’s Fairplex is among the largest in the world. However, the selection of the pocketbook-friendly smaller, lighter and more economical RVs is gradually shrinking. Despite the shredded national economy, small manufacturers cannot hang on against larger companies that crank out huge vehicles with enormous profit margins. Especially in a “down” economy, wealthier folks wanting large RVs tend to have money left over for such indulgences while the fiscal reserves of many average recreational campers continue shrinking.

Since the overall size of the RV shows contracts with each passing year, the quandary is how to bring in more new potential buyers.

Unexpectedly, I spied this display, doubtless intended to gain attention and thereby assist the RV market turn the corner towards recovery. Be-speckled and be-nippled, this Halloween-inspired gorilla ballerina contraption beckoned me, clumsily lurching to and fro, apparently powered by erratic hidden robotic servomotors. (The sight of it was enough to make me look for the exit, but I hadn’t yet visited the Airstream RV exhibit.)

What inspired this crackpot contraption? Maybe it was an artist’s conception of the perfect customer who would be looking to purchase that “gotta have it” gargantuan-sized RV – the biggest, baddest, most ostentatious RV at the show. Or perhaps it was, in fact, a bankrupt salesman of small and sensible RVs from a previous year’s show, who had finally run out of his 99 weeks of unemployment benefits, donned a lime green tutu and a leopard-print Cat Woman mask, stuffed himself into a gorilla suit, and was now working for tips.

Memories of a Black Widow

This is the last picture I have of her, taken on the final day that I saw her. She had dangled below a light fixture on an invisible trapeze of spun web. Each morning, she was there as I trudged to meet my Monday to Friday train to work. I chose to greet her from a short distance.

I have other pictures of her, but I prefer this one because it displays the bright hour glass on her abdomen warning unsuspecting bugs: “Your time is up!”

In human years, our relationship was brief. But in spider years—black widows can live up to 1-½ years—she would consider our association lengthy, if not intimate.

I knew nothing of her mate, the black widower. I doubt that she ate him. The fearsome reputation of a black widow dining at her mate’s ultimate expense is generally undeserved. More likely, she consumed most of her recent offspring, 750 eggs laid in a sack. Cannibalism thrives, allowing only one or two of the baby spiders to survive.

Now she is gone, and she has no memory of our daily rendezvous—no memory of me, even when I blew on her web, seeing which way she would scurry. It was always up, up into the safety of the light fixture.