Up On the Roof

My friend David came over last night, lugging a bucket of beer, which we took up to my roof – my beautiful roof, with its spectacular Manhattan panorama.

It was early evening when he arrived, the sun on its way down behind us, through a thick bank of grey clouds. Manhattan, across the river, looked soft, its edges blurred, everything grey and dim. Sometimes – when the sunset is clear and open, with no clouds obstructing the glow – the buildings in New York will catch the glare, and suddenly – for about 5 minutes – burst into a fiery reflection of the sunset. All windows, in all buildings, up and down the island – flaring out into golden fire.

But last night the sunset was dimmed. Everything was grey, soft, submerging into shadows, with lights slowly coming on.

David and I sat on my roof for hours. Talking, talking, talking, talking.

His eyes are so blue. Piercing blue.

We’ve been friends since we were teenagers. We live close to one another. We see each other often. And yet still – it is always like we have SO MUCH to catch up on.

Our emails to each other take on joking tones: “So … any epiphanies lately? Any life-changing transformations?”

We’ve always got some huge life-changing transformation going on.

I have to admit that I’ve been a little bit blue. For about 5 days now. I didn’t really talk with David about what was making me blue, at least not directly – but I ended up telling him this long-ass story from my past – one he had never heard before. It, to me, was a symbol. Indicative of all that I miss, I suppose. Even though the story itself was kind of upsetting, and WACKO. Involving a bar called The Gingerman Tavern. We were howling with laughter about it …

Somehow, though, in telling him this long story … my blue-ness disappeared.

It’s not so much that I miss the past. Although, obviously, I do. It’s one of my struggles. It’s that … I need to incorporate the past more. I need to not LIVE back there. I need to accept those things that are now gone, that are now just memories – and embrace them as such – not spend so much time missing them – and know that I will NEVER lose them. Take my eyes off of the rear-view mirror, so to speak.

David’s listening always helps me to do that.

There was also MAD guffawing laughter, as we drank our beer. Ohhh, the dramas, the tragedies, the comedies … the 432 epiphanies we both have had since the last time we were together.

We also managed, somewhere in there, to have a very interesting conversation about the myth of Narcissus. And what we can learn from it. The rigidity of self – how dangerous it is, if it gets too hard, too unyielding. Like Scott Peck talks about so perfectly in his book on the psychology of evil: People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil. Peck defines evil as a REFUSAL to grow. A conscious REFUSAL to change. People refuse to look inward, refuse to question themselves, refuse introspection, and instead spend all their time and energy justifying, and building a case for themselves, propping up their decaying edifice. Either because they have an inability to do so, or because … their edifice has grown so hard, so rigid – that there is sheer terror at what will happen if that edifice breaks.

The beer was cold, the city glimmering and fluid with movement, the Hudson dark and grey, boats chugging by, leaving foamy white wakes, gleaming in the dark.

Haven’t been sleeping well lately. But I slept like a baby last night.

Thanks, David.