A Week of Talk

My entire week has been filled with vigorous and interesting conversations:

1. With my mother, about what happened in her painting class. She had spent one class, kind of standing next to who she thinks is the “best painter in the class”, and instead of going right ahead and painting what SHE wanted to paint, she semi-copied what the other woman was doing. They were all painting the same building, but of course, every single painter will see different aspects, focus on different things, use different colors. Mum didn’t trust, yet, that her view, her vision, is okay. And not just okay, but GREAT. Essential to her becoming an artist. She said, “And my painting STUNK.” I love Mum. So she learned a beautiful lesson through that experience. I love people’s self-awareness. Being able to see what might be missing.

It’s like that AWESOME story about Michael Jordan. (Well, one of the many awesome stories about Michael Jordan.) After every single game, he watches a playback of the whole thing. Not to glory in his talent, not to curse himself for errors he might have made … No. He watches it to see what might be missing. The greatest basketball player the world has ever seen still knows that there is much to learn about his game. Still knows that there is probably stuff he is “missing”.

That’s the lesson Mum learnt, and I loved that she shared it with me.

2. With Jen, yesterday morning, on our brisk FREEZING walk. We vigorously re-hashed the entire party of the night before, telling stories, filling each other in (“Well, Rich said to me…” “I loved watching David and Joey…” And also: we had to discuss in exquisite detail Brooke’s fabulous and radical new haircut…) Then, for some reason, I regaled her with the tale of my frightening experience on an L platform in Chicago, one cold winter night, years ago. Jen and I have lived together for EIGHT YEARS. It is the longest most successful relationship I have ever had. It is literally like we are married. But Jen had never heard that story. Maybe I’ll tell it, later on.

3. With Hunter, last night. We sat in Dempseys. (My God, it’s pathetic…We practically live there now. We don’t even have to say, “Let’s meet at Dempsey’s tonight”. We just show up and there we both are. Siobhan works there, so it is a way to see my sister almost on a daily basis as well.) I ended up talking Hunter’s ear off and I told him “the story of —“. (Cannot say his name. Must protect his identity.) This is not something I talk about in any normal way. I was saying stuff like, “I do believe in invisible forces of good in the universe … and that is who — is for me…” Or “Being his muse, it is probably best that we never see each other … ” It, so far, was the most important love affair of my life, but I never talk about it. Why bother? However, re-living it, and trying to find a way to DESCRIBE it to Hunter, was so therapetuic for me. It’s good for me, as a writer, to try to express the ineffable. And how amazing, too: after all these years, and all the work I have done, there were certain sections of the story that still brought tears to my eyes. There is a reason why I never speak of —. It’s best to just let it go. Like the tide going out.

4. With Siobhan, on the phone, yesterday afternoon. My precious sister.

5. With Brendan, my precious brother, a couple of days ago. He called me at work to tell me he had just finished reading The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay , a book I had given to him. I cannot recommend the book highly enough. It gives me hope for the future of the American novel (sorry Jonathan Franzen!! I believe Michael Chabon beat you to the punch!) Michael Chabon creates characters who LIVE. They live on in my mind when the book is done. I forced myself to read the ending slowly, because I did not want it to end. It hurt to say goodbye to those people. It is an EXPERIENCE. So Brendan had to call me to talk about it. He was blown away, and actually kind of upset about it. I had the same experience when I finished the book, too. I was so moved by it all, that I didn’t know what to do. Also: and here (for me) is the true beauty of that book: At the end, I had an overwhelming sense of: “Wow. People really are good at heart.” (Thank you, Anne Frank…) I don’t need literature to be uplifting, or to enlighten, or be positive. No. But the love that Michael Chabon has for his characters, the love he feels, actually, for EVERYBODY, pulsates on the page, and you MUST participate in it. You must fall in love with humanity, too. It is a rare rare book that can do THAT. Brendan and I talked and talked and talked about it. He said at one point, “I know that I am going to cry about it … I just don’t know when. I can feel it coming.” Yes. I know that feeling.

6. With Nate, a good and old friend of my sister Siobhan. We met for drinks at The Triple Crown, and talked our heads off for 2 hours. I haven’t seen him in a long time. There was a lot of territory to cover. We got talking about Eminem and 8 Mile. Oh my Lord, the DEPTHS we reached. We talked about Eminem as though we were talking about the situation in Nigeria. But we were in sync about it, enjoying ourselves. I said a very assholic thing with complete seriousness: “Eminem has tapped into the zeitgeist…” SHUT UP, SHEILA. All I know is is that at the end of 8 Mile, the credits start to roll, and “Lose Yourself” begins. The grating and thrilling hard-rock intro does something to you when you listen to it. It is one of THOSE songs. It is above and beyond pop culture, it soars above any other song of the moment, it makes trivial any other music you may hear currently on the radio. It is akin to what happened to people when “Smells Like Teen Spirit” debuted. Everyone realized: “Oh. My. God. THIS is what I have been waiting for. Huey Lewis?? The Go-Gos?? WHAT? No. THIS is music.” In one moment, the entire decade of the 80s was trashed and forgotten. A new world began. We still live in that world. That Kurt Cobain created. Eminem stands alone, in that respect. It is his moment. Also, weirdly, when that song starts, at the end of the film, I felt like: Wow, this is actually just the BEGINNING of this movie. So anyway: Nate and I talked in this manner for two full hours. It was gloriously fun.

7. With Dave, Siobhan’s new boyfriend, last night at Dempsey’s. I don’t know him that well, and I feel like we both walked away from that conversation not only knowing each other a little bit better, but also as better people. I’m not really describing it well, but in general, that was what it felt like. As I commuted home, I kept re-playing it in my mind. Nodding to myself, thinking: “Good. That was good.”

8. With Ruben, my friend from Baltimore, in an Instant Messenger capacity, yesterday afternoon. The man is hilarious. He has a damn way with words. I have a date on Monday, and I want to buy some nice shoes for it. Girlie shoes. I said to Ruben, (or, I “typed” to Ruben), “All I have are combat boots and Converse sneakers. I need some PUMPS.” Almost immediately, he starts sending me links with pictures of different shoes. The man is phenomenal. “How about this? Or this? I’m thinking this might look good.” Shoe after shoe after shoe. We also were talking about the whole goth scene in Baltimore, or lack thereof. Ruben told me that yeah, there are goth clubs, but it’s all just rich kids from the suburbs, trying to be radical, using their huge allowances from their parents to get another piercing, or whatever. It’s phony goth. But here is how Ruben boiled it all down, and I just BURST into laughter: “Count Chocula is more goth than these frowning brats.” Brilliant. The man should have a column. In my opinion.

9. With the cab driver from Bangladesh who took me home to Hoboken at 5 in the morning after my birthday party. Here’s how that happened: We began talking about the upcoming fare hikes. WHERE WILL IT END? Then I asked him where he was from, and he said, “Bangladesh.” I began interrogating him about his country. Eventually, Bangladesh will be my “Country of the Week”, so this was the start of that inquiry. His whole family is in Bangladesh. He is here alone. But he is going home in a couple of months to meet the woman his mom picked out to be his wife. He has never met her. He is very excited to meet her and also very excited to be a husband. He’s 28. “I am ready to get married.” I said, “And you trust your mom to pick out a good person for you?” He said, “Oh, yes. Oh, yes. My mom knows me so well. She knows what I like.” I said, “Wow. That is so terrific. Good luck!” He will go back to Bangladesh, and then return to America with his brand-new wife. He has one day off a week, and goes to the movies, and has a couple of beers at a local pub. This makes him happy. He told me that Bangladesh is a democracy, a new democracy, and on its way to be a functioning one. “We are not like Pakistan.” “What’s different between you guys and Pakistan?” I asked. He said, “Well, Pakistan is HARD Muslim. We are not HARD Muslim.” “What do you mean by hard?” “Well … they are illiterate. They only are interested in religion. They don’t care about anything else. They don’t believe women should be educated. We aren’t like that. We are soft Muslim. Also, in Pakistan, the military is in everything. The military controls everything.” I said, “Well, yes. I mean, Musharraf is an army guy!” “Yes! Musharraf took over the country, backed up by the military. Bangladesh isn’t like that.” “So … what is going to happen with Pakistan, do you think? Is this just going to go from bad to worse, you think?” He said, “Miss, it is not a good situation. They do not know what they are doing. They have no qualifications to run a country. It is a country full of lunatics.” I said, “It’s interesting to me that when Pakistan was formed … people thought that religion would solve everything. Like: as long as everyone here is Muslim, then all else will follow. But it hasn’t worked out there.” “No. It is a very bad situation.” By this point, we were turning onto my block. I said (also, by this point, I was sitting on the edge of the back seat, leaning over the front seat, with my head through the little glass window.) “So can you tell me why Bangladesh seceded from Pakistan in 1971?” At that moment, the absurdity occurred to me, and I started laughing. “Can you boil the entire situation between Bangladesh and Pakistan down in ONE BLOCK?” Ha ha ha. We both laughed. And then, we actually sat in the parked taxi outside of my apartment for 15 minutes, and he told me what had happened. The Cliff Notes version, but it was good enough. It was a beautiful connection. After I paid him, he turned around and held his hand out for me to shake. We shook hands. I said, “God bless you, my friend. And good LUCK with getting married!” He said, “God bless you too, miss.” It was like we were cultural ambassadors. There is an enormous cultural divide between us, but we communicated very very well. I’m Irish-American Catholic. He is a Muslim from Bangladesh. It was 5 in the morning. And he told me all about the relationship between Bangladesh and Pakistan. Beauty!!

10. With Rachel, the night of my birthday party. She told me about her theory of “love and fear”. Every interaction in our lives, every single time we run into anybody, stranger or friend, we are faced with a choice: Love or Fear. She lives her life that way. I found it completely thrilling. “See, when I sit down and talk with so-and-so … it’s Love. Clearly.” It’s as simple as that. Love or Fear. Choose.

It has been a week of talk. A week of connection. I am blessed.

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