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Today would have been my mother’s 77th birthday... Is there life after death? Who knows? Maybe (probably) it was a complete fantasy, but I felt Tom around for a long time after he died, invisibly strolling through my living room, toasting me with spectral Laguvulin, guiding my career choices. Whereas my mother abandoned me the moment she gave up the ghost.
I don’t believe in anything, of course. My relentlessly logical mind won’t allow it. But if I could believe in whatever I liked, I’d believe in reincarnation – and hope my mother is in a happier life. The one we shared never did very much for her.
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At 7:30am it was minus seventeen degrees below zero. Un-fucking-believable.
The cold has frozen my kitchen pipes. I have to wash all my dishes in the bathtub.
###
So, Saturday night I went on what I guess was a real date: Michael took me to hear Dava Sobel read. A trio of musicians playing Renaissance music accompanied her.
I don’t know whether I enjoyed myself or didn’t enjoy myself.
Certainly, Michael and I have things in common that I haven’t had in common with anyone but Eleanor for many years. For example – he’s a very practical, pragmatic guy but he’s deeply into astrology. I wouldn’t describe myself as being into astrology anymore – as it turns out the sun doesn’t go round the earth! – but I think, however it works, it’s useful and I know a helluva lot about it. Michael was kind of yr typical overachieving science geek till he came to Cornell in 1970 and fell under the influence of a charismatic professor who spun him around 180 degrees, got him interested in esoteric philosophy, classical music, art, meditation. There was a whole circle of people who fell under the charismatic professor’s spell. Eventually they bought land together on Lake Seneca’s shore, and formed a nonprofit. Professor is now dead, land is worth millions, and Michael spends a significant portion of his nonworking week brainstorming with the group, which is more or less a kind of static group: should they try to recruit more members? or should they accept the fact that like the Shakers, the teachings die with them? Not that any of them are in imminent danger of dying, of course.
I don’t think I’m particularly attracted to Michael, nor do I sense that he’s particularly attracted to me. It’s a kind of dry, cerebral overlap. I mean – I like him, I enjoy talking with him. But what hanging out with him really did for me was that it reminded me that I was 40 years old when I met Ben – that’s quite old. I had 40 years worth of experiences which I more or less pushed to one side when I fell in love.
I suppose you might characterize many of them as intellectual experiences.
Now, Ben is very brilliant but he’s not an intellectual – what’s the difference? Oh, I suppose it has to do with argument. Intellectuals like references and sidebars; their Vedas have Upanishads, their Old Testament has the Torah: they argue from the mind. Brilliant people, on the other hand, argue from their hearts.
###
Earlier that week I’d found myself walking down an icy street lockstep with Ben, looking over at him and realizing from something about his posture, He’s got fairly significant osteoporosis… Probably the cause of all those cramps he gets so frequently – calcium deficiency.
And I realized the reason why Jayne LeGro is never going email about a meeting is because he doesn’t want her to. One of her functions in his life is to protect him from me. That made me quite sad for a moment, as though I was standing at a station and he was leaning out the window of a train, and we were saying our goodbyes to one another – knowing we would never meet again…
I don’t believe in anything, of course. My relentlessly logical mind won’t allow it. But if I could believe in whatever I liked, I’d believe in reincarnation – and hope my mother is in a happier life. The one we shared never did very much for her.
At 7:30am it was minus seventeen degrees below zero. Un-fucking-believable.
The cold has frozen my kitchen pipes. I have to wash all my dishes in the bathtub.
So, Saturday night I went on what I guess was a real date: Michael took me to hear Dava Sobel read. A trio of musicians playing Renaissance music accompanied her.
I don’t know whether I enjoyed myself or didn’t enjoy myself.
Certainly, Michael and I have things in common that I haven’t had in common with anyone but Eleanor for many years. For example – he’s a very practical, pragmatic guy but he’s deeply into astrology. I wouldn’t describe myself as being into astrology anymore – as it turns out the sun doesn’t go round the earth! – but I think, however it works, it’s useful and I know a helluva lot about it. Michael was kind of yr typical overachieving science geek till he came to Cornell in 1970 and fell under the influence of a charismatic professor who spun him around 180 degrees, got him interested in esoteric philosophy, classical music, art, meditation. There was a whole circle of people who fell under the charismatic professor’s spell. Eventually they bought land together on Lake Seneca’s shore, and formed a nonprofit. Professor is now dead, land is worth millions, and Michael spends a significant portion of his nonworking week brainstorming with the group, which is more or less a kind of static group: should they try to recruit more members? or should they accept the fact that like the Shakers, the teachings die with them? Not that any of them are in imminent danger of dying, of course.
I don’t think I’m particularly attracted to Michael, nor do I sense that he’s particularly attracted to me. It’s a kind of dry, cerebral overlap. I mean – I like him, I enjoy talking with him. But what hanging out with him really did for me was that it reminded me that I was 40 years old when I met Ben – that’s quite old. I had 40 years worth of experiences which I more or less pushed to one side when I fell in love.
I suppose you might characterize many of them as intellectual experiences.
Now, Ben is very brilliant but he’s not an intellectual – what’s the difference? Oh, I suppose it has to do with argument. Intellectuals like references and sidebars; their Vedas have Upanishads, their Old Testament has the Torah: they argue from the mind. Brilliant people, on the other hand, argue from their hearts.
Earlier that week I’d found myself walking down an icy street lockstep with Ben, looking over at him and realizing from something about his posture, He’s got fairly significant osteoporosis… Probably the cause of all those cramps he gets so frequently – calcium deficiency.
And I realized the reason why Jayne LeGro is never going email about a meeting is because he doesn’t want her to. One of her functions in his life is to protect him from me. That made me quite sad for a moment, as though I was standing at a station and he was leaning out the window of a train, and we were saying our goodbyes to one another – knowing we would never meet again…
