My favorite passenger

Last night, in Michigan's winter darkness, I was making a lonely drive home from Ann Arbor.

My only passenger was a shopping bag of Christmas presents for my children, who would be making their way home over the next few weeks. Home to me.

With a hundred miles to go, my Apple playlist was interrupted by a Bluetooth announcement - a call from Gainesville; from a too-far-away college campus. From my youngest son.

It seems like only yesterday he was buckled into his car-seat behind me. There was no Apple playlist in that car - just James and the Giant Peach, sweetly singing James, James, James, how are you...isn't it a lovely day? 

And in those days, I'd usually drive one-handed; twisting my arm behind me so that the beautiful boy could hold onto my finger while we drove.

But I must have been driving Einstein fast; warping away the years and morphing our minivan into a fancy SUV.  Because it seemed like one minute my passenger had his tiny fingers wrapped around mine and the next thing I knew he was talking to me about anthropology.

"Dad, have you ever looked into a virtual reality display? Once you do, your beliefs about the universe might change. You'll understand how easy it would be to create a virtual life - a holographic version of reality."

This from the same passenger who I just saw sitting in his car-seat, wispy blonde hair gently blowing in the open-window wind. From the same blue-eyed child whose most expressive act was to just smile, showing two tiny little top teeth.

But in those days - that was enough. In fact, it was everything.

"You mean like those big headset things?" I asked, being the hip dad I am.

"Yes, we have them at school. The textures and detail are so real, you would start to question just how real our lives might be. It's like life as a video game."

At 75 miles left, we began talking about music and poetry. The alluring constellations of music and pathos and metaphors. I told him that I could listen to Tupac for hours and hours; how I would become mesmerized and drawn by his lyrical sadness:

Nobody cries when we die
We outlaws
Let me ride
Until I get free... 

Oh, Tupac.

I confessed that it was scary that I could feel such empathy - and even an odd longing - for a place of gangsters and violence and death - a world I could never understand; a world turned hologram by music and art and poetry.

"Dad, don't you see? That's what I've been trying to tell you; that just because they speak of suicide and drugs and death, it doesn't advocate it - it's just part of the art form."



Now, I do see. It's a VR place.

Perhaps the evocative pigment of Monet's Haystacks will one day be compared with paintings of our current reality, where colors are words:

"I got pennies for my thoughts, now I'm rich
See the twenty's spinning looking mean on the six
wearing flags, 'cause the colors match they clothes
They get caught in the wrong hood and get filled up with holes" 

At 50 miles, we spoke of the city, the snow and being together for Christmas.

There, somewhere along the dark and cold shores of lake Michigan, he said, "Dad, I'm counting the days to be home with you." Me too.

Oddly, I don't remember feeling that same way about coming home from school.

And honestly, I don't remember the same kind of personal experience with my own father. From him, I'd learn how things were supposed to be. Sometimes, he'd show me what things could be. I'd watch him paint. Or play the piano. Interact with the world.

But he'd rarely ask me what was inside my head; how I felt about the world.

And with this youngest child, I think I've found that being a father isn't just about being a role model. It isn't just about showing your son what it means to be a good person. It's also about opening his mind wide to a sense of wonder, then questioning and challenging and pushing him into the void of infinite knowledge.

My father was talented, kind and generous. He helped me learn how to be a good person. But I'm just discovering that there are things he didn't do - couldn't do. Insights that I wish I'd been taught - and what I'm just learning now. Maybe they were too Yogi for my Victorian father.

I'm learning from that kid in the back seat. That a mix of the intellectual and the mystical - the lyrical and the musical - is what gives life to the world. And it melts the barriers of our worldview to see and explore a different, infinite galaxy.

At 25 miles to go, our call was almost over. My virtual passenger was going to the gym.

My favorite passenger. The one who always showed us his two top teeth.

Now, with so much more to say, he needed to let go of my finger.

And I can still hear "James, James, isn't it a lovely day?" when he disconnects.

Yep, it is.

An Atlas of Clouds, an Ocean of Poppies

“What wouldn't I give now for a never-changing map of the ever-constant ineffable? To possess, as it were, an atlas of clouds.” - Cloud Atlas

I have this envelope on the seat next to me. I keep glancing at it, wondering. It's addressed to someone who broke my heart. Who changed my future. And my past.

And I can't decide what to do with it.

"Do whatever you can't not do."  It's a whisper in my ear, from my better self.

Inside, there's a bank check and a folded note, written on printer paper.

And it's the note that bothers me most; that it could have been kinder. Could have been written by the better me.

But the pain of a re-written past is too great. And so is its twin, a divergent future. Birthed on the narratives of noble intent, they hide happiness like phantoms and ghosts that shadow the living.

Which is why the note is so devoid of kindness.

But to the thing that I can't not do.

I think about George.

In a scene from Back to the Future, I remember George McFly standing in the diner, bravely, notepad in hand and finally summoning the courage to ask Lorraine for a date.

"I'm George. George McFly," he said. "I'm your density. I mean, your destiny."

In that pity and humor, something can be found. In our density, we sometimes get it wrong. Maybe they're gawky or freckled, skinny or awkward. Perhaps like George. Or maybe so beautiful as to be fatally imperfect. That we can - and do - mistake our density for our destiny is evident everywhere.

And for those, like me, who dyslexically chose density, all is not lost. The universe seeks destiny too, and has unknowable power to force a cosmic do-over.  The process - a collision between the squandered soul and the universe - is not without pain. Everything must be shattered - the atoms of our illusions and dreams - into a million particles.

Once reconstituted, we have the chance to seek a new timeline. To be like George - or perhaps Lorraine, instead, to choose the better of the two.

I believe the universe of souls is like an unending and infinite ocean of poppies; each flower, each petal, a potential destiny.

We must walk among them, searching and believing.

Believing that we can find it. The right timeline. The right love. The right soul.

And as we do, perhaps we'll also discover that there is wonder and happiness to be found in the looking, in the searching. In our time spent among the deep, beautiful  shades of crimson and scarlet; among these flowers of souls.

And since that's where I want to spend my time, I pulled the note from the envelope and tossed it into the trash.

The Way Back

I thought I saw you out there crying
I thought I heard you call my name

It's always there. In our beautiful and mysterious hearts and minds, there is a protective aura, one that is gifted by God.

We need it. It's a force-field, woven in the the naiveté and belief that humanity is good, kind, and noble.

With it, many of us can pass through the time-streams of our lives in contentment and hope, blissfully ignorant to the things in the world that can hurt us.

Things that lurk in the deep water. From pain that hides in the shadows of the everyday world. It averts our eyes from things we shouldn't see. From visions that we are not ready to accept. It muffles words and truths that could harm us, that could reach us, if we get too close.

There are times when we see things that we shouldn't. Times of despair, loss, failure, betrayal. Of mortality. Hopelessness. The very same place that our God-magic tried so hard to hide from us.

And we become so, so lost.

Lost in a place where the light is too bright and the dark is an inky well of black. A place where hearts are broken. In an upside-down, opposite-day world that smothers the self-goodness of our souls. And those who have the most tender souls, the kindest hearts - they are the most vulnerable.

Through the darkness and confusion, we try, blindly, to retrace our path; stumbling on our own sadness, pain, self-doubt, and regret.

We're out there. Crying. Calling. Trying to find our way back.

Back to how our souls used to feel. We long for our lost connections. Familiarity. We want to dream again. Feel the honesty of tender kisses. To float.

We want to hold a warm, never-let-go hand that connects us to the greater elements of the universe. The simplest and most profound of all God-connections.



Will someone show us the way back?

No, but I think I've found the path.

It's a yellow-bricked road of kindness, sweetness, acceptance and truth. When those things find their way back into your soul, you become a bright light in that inky darkness.

You don't need to cry.

Because even though you don't know it, you're shining, calling. Not crying anymore.

And the universe is watching and listening.

And it's there to bring you home.

Inside a Beautiful Mind

Perhaps God - or his angels - plant the seeds of sweetness, goodness and love deep in our consciousness. Or perhaps they are inherent but distant parts of our souls.

Whatever their origin, these embryonic elements of ourselves must be carefully tended and grown.

Perhaps those who show us early love and tenderness play an important role. Or maybe we're on our own. That we must pilot our own path of destiny. We'll never know.

But what grows from those initial aspects of our beings fill the spaces that make us who we are.

In the very special few, it can become a place filled with serenity, patience, oneness and desire. An inner beauty illuminated by something that is hard to express. A light that is difficult to define.

It's inside those beautiful minds where charisma can be born.

We intuitively know when someone has this special kind of goodness inside. It's an unconscious, epigenetic recognition. We look twice. Listen better. Wonder.

We just know it.

It has nothing to do with being beautiful. It is not speech-making stuff. It's a different kind of hypnotism.

It's an undefinable knowing that we all share. We're all drawn to charisma by a powerful longing for our own goodness.

To be near it, somehow, is to also be special. That to be close to this kind of vortex is, by itself, inexplicably fulfilling.

So what is it? It is certainly part soul. But it's also about our ability to live happily inside our minds. A place where we have learned to feel and express love, in our own way, effortlessly.

Within the walls of those beautiful minds - they have discovered who they are. At least to the current way-point of their destiny. Their smiles are genuine. Their eyes sparkle with what lies behind them. They radiate something that is mysteriously compelling.

For others, a space that should have been seeded with goodness, happiness and sweetness - is sadly fallow. Too often, it can only be filled by something else - from the outside. Someone else's thoughts, opinions, and ideas. Physical, material things. Bitterness. Regret. Resentment. A sadness that a person cannot love themselves. That they cannot live happily in their own minds.

But, for those that have this special gift; this charisma; those that shine the most brightly, they may not even know it.

But they do know love.

On the inside.

And we long to be near it.

Terry Kath and Peter Cetera's 1972 Debate - "Dialogue I & II"

Into mid-century American history are written two kinds of heroes. Of course, the primary heroes were those who fought in Asian fields of death, dying, suffering and confusion.

But there were others, too. Especially those who wanted them home. Those who spoke of choosing life. Yes, "making love, not war." About what it meant to be a human being.

The nation's conscience was appearing, and it was radiating from our younger, better angels.



It emerged on college campuses; in protests, chaotic disruptions, gatherings and, sometimes, with a certain violence. Yet, there was a sense that something special - and good - was happening.

This new collective conscience was coalesced, memorably and beautifully, by art and music. Soundtracked by Jim Morrison and The Doors, the Who and the Rolling Stones. Chorused by Martin, Robert, Timothy and an historic collection of thinkers and orators.

And, mostly importantly, it created dialogue. Nixon famously despised it - and later, to his regret, he simply disregarded it. Dissonance was attacked with rhetoric, racism, belittlement and shame. Mistakenly - and purposely - righteousness was cast in the context of drugs, pot and ignorance.

But the coffins kept coming home, draped in flags; and the cameras rolled. The images indelibly imprinted and energized the young, beaded and bell-bottomed. The result was a movement that would define their generation.

Musicians and artists added their own kind of symphony and momentum. Historic voices, poetic words, beautifully blended chords and bass rhythms. Like the Who's poetic tantrum about teenage wastelands.

From the past, they leap at us as something really, really special.



Especially a famous dialogue from Chicago V: "Dialogue parts I & II," written by Robert Lamm in 1972.

It was passionately vocalized by Terry Kath and Peter Cetera. Terry, on his lead guitar, sent Lamm's words and chords across the studio to Pete, who responded with bass guitar and inspirational naivete.

It's stirring and beautiful. To sing along and replay over and over is to glimpse the special moments in 1972 when heroes came in more than one form.

Dialogue, parts I & II - YouTube

"Are you optimistic 'bout the way things are going?
No, I never, ever think of it at all
Don't you ever worry, when you see what's going down?
No, I try to mind my business, that is, no business at all
When it's time to function as a feeling human being, will your Bachelor of Arts help you get by?
I hope to study further, a few more years or so. I also hope to keep a steady high
Will you try to change things, use the power that you have, the power of a million new ideas?
What is this power you speak of and this need for things to change? I always thought that everything was fine - everything is fine
Don't you feel repression just closing in around?
No, the campus here is very, very free
Does it make you angry the way war is dragging on?
Well, I hope the President knows what he's into, I don't know
Don't you ever see the starvation in the city where you live, all the needless hunger all the needless pain?
I haven't been there lately, the country is so fine, but my neighbors don't seem hungry 'cause they haven't got the time
Thank you for the talk, you know you really eased my mind. I was troubled by the shapes of things to come.
Well, if you had my outlook your feelings would be numb, you'd always think that everything was fine"

Cosmic love Kathleen

Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'
Into the future... Steve Miller Band

New. That's how we felt. And what we were, at seventeen. In 1977, we were skinny and invincible and unafraid. We were beautiful. We were very much alive.

We had new driver's licenses and our first part time jobs. Our first cars. We had razors we never used. Striped jeans. The girls wore lip gloss, bell bottoms and crazy gypsy shirts. And we pretended that we knew how to kiss.

That newness was the hook, the chorus of our lives - and it played endlessly from our back-dash Pioneers, record players, and staticky bedroom radios. We sang, we grooved, to Earth, Wind, and Fire, Parliament and the Who. Practiced those kisses to soundtracks of Fleetwood Mac, Elton John, The Eagles and Eric Carmen.

And Steve Miller.

Miller, in his soothing, synthesized tracks, warned us, though, that time was slipping away.

We didn't listen - of course. We were too busy singing and fast-clicking through our spinning slide carousel of everyday discovery.

Too busy dreaming.

Looking back, I think we clicked past some of life's best moments - before we even knew what they were. We should have opened our eyes wide, smiled, held up our hands and forced time to stand still. Taken the time to scratch "OMG" on the bottom of the slide. To annotate the moment.

But we didn't. We couldn't. We kept clicking, life kept clicking.

Most of us didn't spend time looking in the rear view mirror. As the music played, the fleeting magical moments would have to be remembered - would only be remembered - sometime in the future.

Woven throughout many of those new days was a kind of love. For some, like me, it was a magical, uncertain, indescribable thing. It was sweetly confusing. It was hard to hold, hard to understand. It could be powerful but inconsistent. And inescapably filled with teenage drama.

Some of my more special moments were with my high school girlfriend, Kathleen. Known by her friends these days as "Kate."

Our journeys took distant paths - as they inevitably would. My sisters would remind me over the years, when they'd see her in the neighborhood with her children, about what I'd missed. Tease me about a long-lost teenage love.

After we both moved away, all I knew of the girl were her occasional posts on social media.

And now, the point of this story.

Four years ago, my time-stream shifted. In that turmoil, one of my children whispered to me, "Dad, can't you see it? She doesn't love you." And, "You need to find someone that loves you for who you are."

No, I hadn't seen it. But they were right - she didn't.

As time and pain passed, I found it hard to remember how love used to feel. And, when my friends would ask why I was still alone, I didn't have a rational answer, But I knew; I was hoping to find that newness again.  As it remained hidden, I began to wonder - could I even recognize it; something I didn't understand, that I couldn't feel?

Steve kept singing and time kept slipping. Then, one night in July, I had a vivid, almost lucid dream. In it, a beautiful, mystical, seventeen year-old Kathleen told me, "John, of course I love you... I know you."

There it was, that feeling. Simple and profound. How it was supposed to feel. And it was so real that I could still remember how it felt long after waking.

And so, even if I don't find it again, feel it again, I am so grateful for that memory. Of what it's supposed to be. What I'm supposed to find.

Perhaps, in 1977, our shared, innocent discovery was so new, so formative, that our souls became connected in ways that we're not meant to understand.

Maybe they're mysteries never to be revealed. Milliseconds of magic that can only be tapped in the fast, fleeting moments of youth.

These days, my seventeen-year-old cosmic love is successful, married and content. My reflections here are about moments that persist and linger in the timestream of 1977. This is about the soul. The past, the present, eternity.

I sent Kathleen a Facebook message a few days later and thanked her for a message she never knew she sent. And yet, I received a happy and tender reply, wishing me well.

Perhaps we don't just have to dream of love - a certain, special kind of love. The kind that is woven into who we are and who we were. An enduring, unknown soul-borne connection.

The kind of love that is found deeply; in the close-up, crystal depths of someone's eyes. "I love you. I know you. As if I've always known you."

The kind of love that can make us new again. Alive again. Across the cosmos, seventeen again.

The kind I'll never stop searching for.

Thank you, Kathleen. You'll always be Kathleen in my cosmos.

A Hemmingway Affliction

In Mariel Hemingway's autobiography, "Out Came the Sun," she spoke of the mental health issues her family has faced - including the suicides of her famous grandfather and her sister, Margaux. She also spoke of a sister diagnosed with bipolar schizophrenia.

“I am a Hemingway," she wrote, "and to me, that means that I have a ticket to understanding a world of darkness, of courage, of sadness, of excitement, and — at times — of complete lunacy. And yet, other people with other names feel these things too. It may just be that they don’t have an American myth to which they can connect themselves.”

Mental health disorders affect nearly 1 in 5 Americans. They are the leading cause of disabilities in the U.S. and Canada. And too often, when a family member is diagnosed with a mental health disease, the entire family suffers.

Brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers. They see wounds that can't be treated. Sufferings that change, sadly, who were are and who we used to be.

To my college son yesterday, I said, "Matt, we are like raw nerves. We sense brightly, see everything, feel everything. And that makes us different - maybe special - but vulnerable."

We're a kind of human high-def display. One that sees the detail of our self-universe - but also all of its flaws and imperfections.

As one of us, you might collapse under the weight of beauty or under the burden of neurotic imperfection. Perhaps the world can keep fewer secrets from us.

We love rain and sunsets. Music and magic. Art.

But we see ghosts.

Mariel knows. Brilliance and lunacy - normalcy and madness - are often separated by a thin line.

And not just among the Hemingways.

Citations:
Author: Hemingway, Mariel
Publisher/Additional Information: 
New York, NY: Regan Arts
Link:  http://books.simonandschuster.com/Out-Came-the-Sun/Mariel-Hemingway/978194139323...
Year: 2015

At Summer's End

It seemed that the hottest days of childhood were always in August. They were the late days of summer when it felt like time stood still.

While the sounds of cicadas muted the noise of the city, we'd sit on the porch and watch sprinklers move in gentle arcs across the spent summer grass.

On those long afternoons, all we could think about were blue ice pops in the freezer and the breeze coming from the box fans in the windows of our house. It was an old Victorian place, shaded by giant oaks that reached high over the roof. Our front yard was similarly shaded by elms, whose branches intertwined and arched over the street.

We'd spend our days in swim suits and cut offs and canvas Converses. We'd do anything to avoid the chores scribbled on the kitchen blackboard - or shouted up the back stairs. If we had actual paying jobs, they were probably sweeping sidewalks or pulling weeds for a neighbor.

But real work? No. August was about our right to freedom. And to unapologetic, innocent bliss.

Because we knew it would soon end. The leaves were already withering. And that meant change.

And, good God - how we hated change. It was so unfair. The water was finally getting warmer at the pool. We'd endured countless sunburns just to get tanned and freckled. We wanted it to last. We wanted to always smell Coppertone and strawberry lip gloss. We wanted to eat Toasted Almond ice cream bars every afternoon.

But when those summer days slowly slipped away, we somehow barely noticed. But slip they did. And slip and slip and slip.

And that brings me to this morning. All those once-skinny kids sat together in a sun-speckled backyard and talked about change. About moving from one season of life and into the next. It was a dialogue filled with both sadness and optimism. It was for our mother.

As I left, I wondered if we properly remembered how it felt when we had to put the swim suits and cutoffs in the attic and get out the blue pants and plaid skirts for school. If we remembered how it felt to lose that sense of freedom. To be told to rake leaves. To shovel snow.

I hope we're all able to remember those feelings. And that we keep in mind that even though school lunches will never beat a toasted almond ice cream bar on a hot August afternoon, they do bring basketball games and new friends and maybe even a future boyfriend or girlfriend.

Not that we would have been ready for that.  But thank God for change.

Because eventually we were.

And I hope we can convey that message. One of hope within change - when the time comes.

Moments along the arc of the universe

"I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice."

Those were the words of Theodore Parker, theologian and abolitionist, as part of an 1850 treatise. These words that were so profound, so compelling, that their echoes could be heard in in the underlying tenants of Abraham Lincoln's epic address at Gettysburg.

Words that were so powerful that, a century later, Martin Luther King Jr. paraphrased them in 1967, when vowing that the fight for civil rights would never be lost. He repeated, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

Indeed, the arc of the universe is forever bending; always toward justice.

Call it karma, if you will. Call it cosmic. But it's infinitely more powerful than you - and any way you may foolishly try to redirect your soul and its destiny.

Along the arc of the universe, your soul is measured. The decisions you make are magnetizing; your destiny is mapped. The bright, pinpoint light of your soul in the universe is pulled by an inescapable gravity. It speeds along the arc, ever heading towards justice.

To stop it, you might as well be a space cowboy, riding a meteor while throwing bottled messages for help at passing stars. Messages that will never be read as you ride toward justice.

Our world has endured times of inexplicable and disturbing injustice. Like the dark, bleak days of World War II. Then, philosopher Albert Camus reminded us that tragedy should not give us despair. That we would recover, heal, and bend back toward normalcy - and justice. While he didn't speak of the arc, he knew it.

He knew that despite the tragedy, despite the darkness, despair would not frame the future. That in the end, the bend of the arc would prevail.

There are moments in time when are made to believe that it is ours to deserve happiness, that it is ours to define justice. That we are entitled to create the bounds of righteousness. But we would be sadly, cosmically mistaken.

Go ahead, call it karma. But it's a powerful, insurmountable cosmic black hole of justice. Perhaps, even, the Hand of God.

Every holy religion - Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Taoism, Confucianism and others - espouses the basic tenants of justice. The Buddhist teachings say, "Hurt not others with that which pains yourself or in ways that you yourself would find hurtful. One should seek for others the happiness one desires for one's self."

There are key moments in the timeline of our lives, along the arc, when we are faced with choices: faith or infidelity, honesty or duplicity, happiness or suffering, affirmation or hurt, truth or manipulation. Love or hate.

In those moments, stop. Seek for others the happiness that you would desire for yourself. Choose justice.

Because, despite any illusion you may have over the control of your destiny and your soul, your cosmic self rides the arc toward justice.

And with justice, karma.

My Godspell Sister

On Friday morning, I sent my siblings a group text, reminding them of their afternoon responsibilities: "It's Good Friday, everyone. Be home by 2 O'clock. There will be sardines and matzo crackers and vinegar. Meg will be reading from the Passion of the Christ. Don't expect to be out until after dinner." 

It was intended as a reminder of those distant Good Fridays, when my mother would insist that we gather at the kitchen table for a painfully long afternoon, reliving the Passion through New Testament readings and her own invented props, like tasting vinegar.

My mother would make us walk with Jesus across the pages. We'd read assigned passages and roll our eyes when she wasn't looking. The clock on our lime-green kitchen wall ticked with agonizing slowness on those afternoons.

They weren't good Fridays then - but they seem so now.  

And so, after sending that text, I began thinking about those afternoons. I searched YouTube for songs I remembered about Good Friday and Easter. I found a few from Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell.  As I listened, they made me feel things I had long forgotten. I wondered how those feelings - and beautiful songs - had so slipped from my memories.

But I knew why. It was about Godspell.

In 1970, John-Michael Tebelak wrote Godspell as part of his Master's Thesis at Carnegie-Mellon. Stephen Schwartz, an alumni, re-wrote the musical score and it opened off Broadway. The rest is 70's pop and folk history.

My sister loved Godspell. It was so fitting. She was an artistic, creative, musical soul. She was the real-life version of the girl with flowers in her hair, singing and dancing with Jesus. I'm sure she had already envisioned Jesus in a Superman tee shirt and suspenders.

While many people could never see John baptizing followers in a New York City fountain, she could. Hers was a true soul; a cosmic karma destined to be loved - and to love.

In the 70's, I remember her in fringed gypsy shirts and bell bottoms. Her full blonde hair; enviously everywhere. She was always ready to dance and skip with John the Baptist in the fountain waters.

Her entourage of high school friends were inseparable and unstoppable from the 1970's until a just a few years ago.

On that gloomy January day when we said goodbye, her friends planned a secret farewell song. At the end of the ceremony, as the tears fell, the words, "Prepare Ye, the Way of the Lord," began. It was part sadness, part happiness.

An ending that we are taught, like Good Friday, was really a beginning in disguise. Listening to that song, it was impossible not to feel thankful for her. For her love and charisma. In the music, we could almost see her in her bell bottoms and flowers in her hair. Laughing and dancing with her friends.

My mind must place those memories protectively. But on Friday, I heard her music and I did remember.

It was Godspell.

And God spelled it C-A-T-H-Y.

This will never get old

"Young, all we ever think about is fun

All we ever want to be is twenty one
Hey, doesn't everyone want to sit on top of the world
R. Kelly on the radio, screaming out 
this will never get old..."

All we need is Batman.

At night, here on the 11th floor, Andrew and I sometimes feel like we're in Gotham City.

Out one window, the view is almost mysterious. Beyond the natural history museum and dinosaurs, there's a distant planetarium; then an endless stretch of dark Lake Michigan water. Looking north, the sky is filled with silhouettes, skyscrapers, and architectural chaos.

Here, high above the city, the floors are often strewn with workout clothes. Empty Gatorade bottles, wine bottles. Half eaten pizzas and pizza boxes. Half-wet towels tossed on beds. Skimpy clothes in the dryer that I don't recognize. Well-tuned guitars.

Sometimes, the lights never go out. The X-Box never gets turned off. Windows never close and the door is rarely locked.

I-phones are never, ever turned off. And the texters never stop texting. Because the nights are also long in Lincoln Park, Wicker Park and Pilsen. In Tallahassee and Gainesville.

Breakfast is often made at noon - then again at midnight. Or is that the opposite? I find friends and cousins on the couch as I sneak into the kitchen in the morning to make coffee. It's kind of a millennial mad scientist experiment on how to turn a lakefront condo into a dorm room.

But it's one I'm going to miss.

I've come to believe that what seems like sloppiness and recklessness; forgetfulness and foolishness - is really something altogether different. It's that these millennials seem to have a barrier the world hasn't broken yet. It gives them a kind of innocent sanity that we adults have lost as we've focused on the more mundane. It's a neurotic kind of courage to consume, experience and experiment.

They want to taste new IPA's and hear new music. To run the stairs, ride the train, brave the wind. Wear tee shirts even when it's cold. Buy everything at Trader Joe's and eat Jimmy John's for lunch. Share stories about spin classes and cross fit and UFC fights. Kiss. Hook up.

These Gotham days remind me that there are more important things in life then the ordered and mundane. That life can be bigger - and richer - if you submit to the experience. But if you've lost your sanity to cars and parking tickets and bureaucrats, forget it.

If you haven't, then be happy.  I'm so jealous. You're probably sitting high on your pile of pillows and blankets and dirty clothes on your bed, texting and laughing.

And you'll come to understand, later, that where you're sitting is on top of the world.

So, despite that initial OMG feeling I get waking up, seeing empty wine bottles and couch surfers, I'm really - really - going to miss this.

I remember the innocence of a different Gotham City long ago. There were Batman figurines and toys on almost every carpet in every room. I miss that, too.

That's why for me, in Gotham, this will never get old. Ever.

Above Lyrics from: Underage: Songwriters: Josh Osborne / Kelsea Nicole Ballerini / Scott B Stepakoff
Underage lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Audiam, Inc

And in the End

And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love
You make

- The Beatles - credit

When asked about the line Paul McCartney wrote in the last verse of the final song the four Beatles would ever record together, John Lennon said, "That's Paul again ... He had a line in it, 'And in the end, the love you get is equal to the love you give,' which is a very cosmic, philosophical line. Which again proves that if he wants to, he can think."

Lennon got the actual lyrics wrong.  But the essence of it - he understood perfectly... The love you get is equal to the love you give.

Perhaps McCartney was being cosmic - connecting to another writer across time and space. Another "thinking" man, using quill and parchment and not piano and left-hand guitar.

He was Thomas Aquinas, writing in the 13th century, about the same thing. But in far greater depth. In his theological treatise, "Summa Theologiae," Thomas tells us about the need for poverty - that it would cause a kind of humble awareness of the world around us. That it would result in an existential goodness. That we'd become part of something greater than ourselves.

Aquinas believed that if we would only strip away the things that clouded our lives, that suppressed our souls, that altered and influenced our reality, we'd discover goodness - and the truly supernatural in ourselves. And that it was an even greater perfection in the eyes of God that we shared that goodness with others.

That we are called to cause goodness in others.

Aquinas writes, "…Now it is a greater perfection for a thing to be good in itself and also the cause of goodness in others, than only to be good in itself."  Summa Theologiae, I.103.6

Reflecting on how Aquinas's teachings changed her life, Maria Grizetti writes: "...it may follow from this also that one of the purposes of religion is instruction; instruction not simply on truths of belief and faith, but instruction relating to the human, the real, the natural in us, and leading us to discover the supernatural about us." http://bit.ly/1Tux0ML

In the West, many religions and Orders practice Aquinas's teachings today. In the East, we see the essence of the same concepts in practice, espoused by monks and priests from Malaysia to India to the mountains of Tibet.

And, while Aquinas's teachings were intended to be practiced in a very literal sense, they are difficult to follow today - living in a modern technological world. Despite that, their precepts illuminate the path to a profound insight: that within each of us is the supernatural soul - a soul that has a purpose.

Those that cannot part the clouds; cannot see to the core of their being; they will only receive the goodness that they can manage to share with others.

Those who have found this goodness, this supernatural self, have warm reflections on their life, "I am blessed by the love of my children. By my friends. My family." They are content.

In my own life, each day I feel closer to that goodness. More surrounded by love.

But I'm also increasingly saddened by the pain I see among those who have failed to follow Aquinas's 13th century theological map to happiness; his profound insight into the potential of goodness.

Yes, it's the same insight that Paul McCartney shared in that final verse. A punctuation to their final
song; their final act.

Just like a final punctuation in life.



And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love
You make

Make me forget about my sunburn

Let's go Flying
Take me anywhere the wind blows

Chasing fireworks flashing down the Carolina shore
Arms around me, you called me yours
That salty kiss made me forget about my sunburn

Sang with the birds
Every season has a turn turn turn
No use crying
We're not thinking about tomorrow

A chill in the air is just around the bend
You said, "we're never going to get this time back again."

- Lady Antebellum - credit

Tonight, in Chicago, it's going to be 20 below wind-chill. "Wind-chill" is winter weather-speak here; how people know what they'll find when they open the door and walk to the L stop.

With good reason. That chill wind sweeps across the slate-grey waves of Lake Michigan, gathers momentum and hurls itself against pedestrians, salt-covered cars, and dreary buildings. The frigid air creates floating planks of ice - and they are relentlessly added to the ever-growing glacier that stretches out across the lake.

This weather spares no one - even someone like me, who just moved from the tropical shores of the Gulf.

Understandably, I've had to undergo some winter survival training. "Put your scarf around your parka hood, like this," I was recently instructed by a pale and shivering expert. "And you have to wear layers, like two pairs of socks and at least two shirts."

I was mocked for my waist-high winter coat, which I reluctantly and naively bought upon my arrival. "Seriously, you need a much longer coat, one that goes to your knees. You're gonna freeze."

What a change a year makes. When I moved to St. Petersburg, I was warned to put sunscreen on every day, "no matter what you're doing." My dermatologist, wagging his finger at me, said, "With your complexion, you really need to wear long sleeves and pants on the beach."

Seriously?  Everyone else was wearing board shorts or bikinis.

Even though I lived 100 feet from a post card beach of white sand and turquoise waters, I was compliant - at least for a while. Which made me possibly the palest person ever to walk the beach every day.  Except for the white "V" on my feet, where my flip-flop straps crossed, I looked like I was already living in Chicago in February.

And what's so great about being pale? Nothing. At least with sunburn, it would eventually turn to tan - and happiness.

And so, I crossed the wooden sidewalk to the beach without my button-down oxford and jeans. As I did, the Florida sun must have been laughing at me. It wasn't even a fair fight - even with sunscreen. But it felt so good. The sun and my freckles and the smell of Coppertone. Freedom.

That night, no matter how much aloe I gingerly applied, it was disturbingly absorbed into my red skin and freckles. Yikes.

But I sense that was a kind of a turning point. I was ready for some risk. Some flying. Some happiness.

A few days later, I remember seeing my daughter in Sarasota.  When I met her at her door, she hugged me, stepped back and said, "Dad, you look so good."  She smiled and hugged me again. "Really, you look happy." I was.

Yes, I might regret it when I'm 75 and my dermatologist is shaking his finger at me again. But there's no use crying when you're not thinking about tomorrow. 

Long after arriving here in the frozen north, I still had tan lines, which made me smile. I'd look in the mirror and remember the Florida sun and sparkling turquoise water. The coconut smell of Coppertone on hot skin.

These days, in wind-chill land, I do wear my waist-high coat. I don't wear my hood - especially with my scarf wrapped around it. And while it's numbingly cold, it's worth it. There's an urban allure that's potent and overwhelming. I've met so many new, beautiful people. I see promise everywhere.

So like the poetic words above, I say, "Let's go flying." Life is short.

Make me forget about my sunburn.


Above - Long Teenage Goodbye - Lady Antebellum

The Symphony, the Soul, and Destiny

She turns to me sometimes and asks me what I'm dreaming 
And I realize I must have gone a million miles away 
And I ask her how she knew to reach out for me that moment
And she smiles because it's understood - there are no words to say
It's all about soul

Bernard Haisch, PhD, in his book, The God Theory, says, "It is not matter that creates an illusion of consciousness, but consciousness that creates an illusion of matter." 

And this is likely a fact known to very few people - except perhaps physicists and ultra-nerds. But it has been clearly demonstrated in both theory and experiment (Gröblacher rt al., Nature, 446, 871, 2007).

Haisch believes that our universe is fine tuned beyond anything imaginable. That the evidence of this is so vast and so complex as to be in itself empirical. In our own world, for example, the slightest variations in certain elemental forces, such as gravity and distance, would have either quickly frozen our planet or instantly vaporized it by the sun.

He postulates that this fine tuning is to create a holography to be viewed by the quantum operations of our brains. Perhaps because its scope is so vast and complex that it cannot be rationally comprehended.  

In his review of Bernard Haisch's work, Professor Richard Conn Henry comments, "It took me decades to finally realize that this is not a joke, and that the universe is purely mental: that mind is fundamental; matter merely an illusion—and that this is physics, not philosophy (or religion)." 

So, if that's a physics fact, how can our minds - our brains - interpret reality? 

Elsevier’s published a peer reviewed study that proves the brain's quantum function. It describes warm temperature quantum vibrations in microtubules inside brain neurons. That EEG rhythms actually are derived from even deeper microtubule vibrations. And that "anesthesia, which selectively erases consciousness while sparing non-conscious brain activities, acts via microtubules in brain neurons."

The theory is called “orchestrated objective reduction” (“Orch OR”). It was first postulated by mathematical physicist Sir Roger Penrose, of Oxford, and anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff from the University of Arizona.

They suggested that quantum vibrational computations in our brains are “orchestrated” by quantum activities in our microtubules.  In other words, the reality we experience in our brains and see with our eyes is orchestrated within the quantum realm.  It's the process which our consciousness, entangled in the quantum universe, orchestrates our reality. 

Of course, it sounds way too strange for science. Even Albert Einstein was disturbed by quantum physics.  He marginalized it as "spooky action at a distance."  But even Einstein was wrong. Today, quantum physics is one of the most proven mathematical principles in science.

So, according to Haisch, we live in a purposely designed and fine tuned universe. Perhaps created by God - but only a study of Haisch's book will offer his interpretation of "god." And, according to proven theoretical physics, how we interact and interpret this universe is via a quantum-driven orchestration of reality.

Before science knew of the quantum properties of our microtubules and the orchestration therein, the only explanations of how we viewed reality were associated with synapses, psychoses and neuroses. 

But Haisch, Penrose and Hameroff have shown something infinitely more complex. That, at the core of how how we interact with life - and reality - is a real, quantum soul. And that our souls see an orchestral view of a precisely designed multiverse.

And it's peer reviewed, proven physics. The soul.

And so, if our souls live within those microtubules, interconnected and entangled in the universe - which Haisch says says they do - then that explains a lot. 

Recently, I've been having lengthy philosophical discussions with my friend on love and destiny. We've been especially talking about why we haven't been seeing what we used to see - what we thought we'd see - in another soul. 

In other words, why isn't this lens working the way it used to? The way it did when we were able to see into another soul and feel the longing for a beautiful, connected future. The way we can feel moved by music? By the charisma and hope of youth. The innocence of a child.

And I think the answer is a quantum one. The way a gifted writer, artist or poet can reach the ideal creative state by achieving a higher - or different - level of consciousness. It evolves in the microtubules and is driven by the quantum soul that lives there. The artist's soul, the musician's soul.

And so, it kind of explains things. We are entangled and orchestrated. Will and determination won't change what we wish we'd see - and feel. We can talk and talk about when our reality will change and never find an answer. 

When will the orchestra play the symphony we so long to hear?  

It's all about soul. OMG.

Lyrics above - Billy Joel