{"id":1106,"date":"2004-06-15T11:43:43","date_gmt":"2004-06-15T15:43:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=1106"},"modified":"2010-07-12T07:48:21","modified_gmt":"2010-07-12T11:48:21","slug":"up-on-the-roof","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=1106","title":{"rendered":"Up On the Roof"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

But last night the sunset was dimmed. Everything was grey, soft, submerging into shadows, with lights slowly coming on.<\/p>\n

David and I sat on my roof for hours. Talking, talking, talking, talking.<\/p>\n

His eyes are so blue. Piercing blue.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Our emails to each other take on joking tones: “So … any epiphanies lately? Any life-changing transformations?”<\/p>\n

We’ve always got some huge life-changing transformation going on.<\/p>\n

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 …<\/p>\n

Somehow, though, in telling him this long story … my blue-ness disappeared.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

David’s listening always helps me to do that.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>\"\"<\/i>. 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Haven’t been sleeping well lately. But I slept like a baby last night.<\/p>\n

Thanks, David.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[600],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1106"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1106"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17237,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1106\/revisions\/17237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}