Men are at times sweet extraordinarily so, like Aaron Siskind and Buddha, each thought of as i began my glide path towards sleep drifting on a pond filled with water lilies; Buddha on one, Aaron on another. Myself, just your average toad.
Having held an 8x10 Kodachrome transparency, viewed closely, one can never be really happy with anything smaller. I last saw Aaron Siskind before leaving Rhode Island forever and we both laughed glad to confess our age and the disability to carry large cameras very far. I knew him from having been assigned to write an interview with he and Harry Callahan; both were teaching at The Rhode Island School of Design.
Shortly after I began interviewing Aaron he chanced to mention, out of context with anything; not having made love with his wife since the birth of their 27 year-old daughter. Stunned. I said I had a conflict and had to leave abandoning the interview of either photographers I'd admired then and more now.
It could have been that Aaron confessed this freely as I once did the death of my only two children; seeking answers to something troubling; a devastating loss grieved for.
Possibly given my more than passing familiarity with mental illness, specifically bipolar issues, his statement could be attributable to that problem. In time since I've become aware of a pattern of receiving confessions unsolicited. Could it be some quality in me that prompts this from others? It is common for travelers to trust one another deeply since there is no accountability. We are all fellow travelers between birth and death. Otherwise it is common only between friends and mentors to be so candid and transparently honest.
In time we all age wearing out. Death becoming a welcome relief from physical and psychic pain. A wisdom earned by experience -- KISS -- Keep It Simple Stupid. Recognizing what we can change and what we cannot -- knowing the difference too intimately. Overwhelming at times.
Why Buddha? Because to me Buddha is more accessible than Jesus or Mohammad making complex issues simple. Add to which I now am shocked that what I wrote before sleep was partially answered in a prayerful dream and now consciously awake have recognized it an intensely personal question. Is it better, or easy, to die or keep on keeping on suffering?
To know yourself deeply; the height, width, breadth, endlessness . . . at peace, fearless, stable or crossing life through days covered with marbles in mute dark confusion is to know chaos well. For me the idea of suicide has been a constant companion. An alternative to striking out destroying everything I otherwise could love finding solutions to my agony.
Yesterday forgotten tomorrow impossible.
Momentarily I entered the truth of myself knowing immediately this equally true of others who did act out terminating all doubt.
Communication in the information age has become, 'much ado about nothing.' Entertainment stirring the pot of confusion, consequential only in adding to the turmoil and craziness.
Weapons were once simple now complex they are vastly more consequential killing many in a fit of rage. Words are important and can be lethal or seductive. I write seeking sanity in an age of anxiety. Seeking more now, not celebrity, acclaim or material reward; but seeing that I like many others can go either way to love or kill.
Unlike all men, or history, known well; I accept the gifts of, whatever you call or think of as, God saying thank you moving on. Never educated in a formal way I am greedy to know all that I can learn about nearly everything counting best the days I learn something new.
M, on occasion, when asked, says; "I believe God intended us to be friends." And what a friend she is to me and all of us. Since through me she has a voice available to anyone who can read.
And as with God I approach M without fear and with immutable trust. She is not 'god' but like God inscrutable accept to my intuition and empathy which informs me that we are siblings; like children of God. Ignored, neglected, abused and abandoned by our biological parents. We pay close attention to the joy and sorrow of one another. For each of us death is near; knowing each parting as the last or possibly so.
In my lexicon success would be one person saved from self-destruction thus saving many hypothetically. My empathy is equal towards the slayer, slain, maimed, etc. It for this I live and write about.
Photography is now an avocation and writing a hobby.
{note to myself} St. John The Baptist used water in recognition of Jesus, not oil. Christ, meaning anointed one, was applied long after: the murder of-the idea of-not the body of: Jesus. Water is our most precious and unique resource in the known universe.
120912 22:15 Aaron & buddha
© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved
No comments:
Post a Comment