Day 277

 Saturday December 12, 2020

It is with anticipation and trepidation I await the arrival of the vaccine to the United States. My reasons of anticipation ought to be obvious as we all long for the life we lived prior to the pandemic and the vaccine offers us a great hope for controlling the virus and its prodigious spread. The fear I hold onto is because of the way the pandemic has divided our country and it will continue to be evident as the vaccine becomes available. I believe many people in the U.S. will not vaccinate and the divide will continue as those that long to heal this country will be combatted by the unbelievers and such who did not care to help quell the virus from the onset. Also, it is a matter of the unknown. What side effects will the vaccine bring? Will enough people take it to eradicate the virus within a few months or will the process take longer?

Questions. So much uncertainty. Yet we have hope. And that sure feels good as we approach the new year.

Recently I read an article about Brooklyn and how it has changed through the years. Incorporated in 1834 by the Civil War it had grown to the third largest city in America. A century later it was barely a functioning borough of New York. As neighborhoods began to fall from poverty and crime the nail in the proverbial Brooklyn coffin was the closing of the Navy Yard in 1966. Some 12,000 jobs were lost and many fled to the suburbs leaving behind a Brooklyn ripe for decay. Of course it survived and went through many changes as different ethnicities moved away, gangs dissolved and crime brought under control. The modern movement has brought in a younger clientele and the gentrified Brooklyn we know today is thriving.  The following photos are from Brooklyn in the 1960's. 

1. A diverse neighborhood with a Jewish deli, Chinese restaurant and Italian pizza place side-by-side

2. The workers of the Navy Yard give a thumbs down to the potential closing

3. Two New York Yankees visit neighborhood kids.

Reading of Brooklyn made me think of Walt Whitman, raised in Brooklyn, but born on Long Island, the great poet of his time and beyond. He self-published Leaves of Grass in 1855 and the second edition included the poem "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry". Whitman was a volunteer nurse during the civil war and later a printer, editor and of course writer for publications such as the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the Crescent (in New Orleans) and the Brooklyn Freemen. It is Leaves of Grass, Whitman's view of the world as he sees it, in which we are given 32 poems of Americana. One, I sing the body electric, deeply explores the physical body of man and woman. Whitman also explores purpose and one phrase states, 
"Each has his or her place in the procession.
(All is a procession, the universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion.)"

We are sometimes in need of reminding what is our place in this universe and how we ought to go about pursuing or spreading our dream to our fellow humans. Pass on to one another cheer, love and the treasures you know to be talents. Build one another up. Praise those that bring you joy when they sing, dance, teach or inspire you to be more than just the a sacred body, but indeed an integral part of this perfectly measured procession of life. Here I am under the Brooklyn Bridge in 2013.

 

Day 186

 September 12, 2020

Quote by Jack Kerouac: “Be in love with your life. Every minute of it.”

Living life is loving life. The want, the passion, the thrill and the simplicity of it. Going through the every day chores and monotony is not living, it is just the part of existence that is required in order for us to truly enjoy living life in the ways that bring joy, excitement and anticipation to our soul. 

To be honest the last several months since the pandemic was declared and we were given stay at home orders, travel bans were in effect, social distance was suggested and all the fun was taken from us we have had to get creative. Humans designed their own versions of fun living. There were so may amazing people sharing their talents with the world. One of my favorites was Sophie Ellis-Bextor and her kitchen disco!

Here she is in all her glamour with her lovely voice singing pop songs and classics from her kitchen. 

Kitchen Disco Episode 3

Yet even now after all these months and many people are back to work in some way. The novelty of creating our own fun has lost its appeal. We want to go see live music and live sports and visit the art museums and movie theaters. We miss the trips to the library and our favorite cozy coffee shop or book store. This pandemic is wearing on us, but we must persevere. That is what we do as humans. The struggle has always been real. The triumph over tragedy is a human way of life. To press on. To continue to strive to live you best life. (or your okayest life as I saw on a tee shirt recently).

It is now our charge to find the living within the life mundane. The quiet moments when you are reading.  The love moments when you are looking into the eyes of your significant other, the one person in life that gives you great joy. The subtle moments on a walk when you are in touch with the world.

The exuberant moment when you complete a workout and you are breathing deeply and your muscles ache.  The simplest moment of lying in your bed knowing who you are and what you want.

The artist Keith Harring struggled much of his life with this quandary as I imagine many people do both young and old. Truth be told it is not an easy answer to find. Harring, when he was 19, wrote in his journal, "I don’t know what I want or how to get it. I act like I know what I want, and I appear to be going after it — fast, but I don’t, when it comes down to it, even know.

He eventually found it through art. The creation of art for other people brought him the joy that enabled him to find love of life and love of self. By the end of his life he was able to accept it all, the life, the pain, the death, the embodiment of existence. Harring found success and despair during the eighties, a decade of time in which he became a known to the world as a talent, but also saw AIDS take the lives of many of his friends and eventually his life as well. Near the end he accepted the fragility of life and the mystery of life to a degree which resonates with Albert Camus’s insistence that “there is no love of life without despair of life.”

Through our lives it is up to us, the individual to seek and find our path to love through despair. Life is fleeting and fragile and thin. It is there for a time in which we do not know the length. A short poem, a long novel, a short film and episodic series, a postcard, a mural. A life few will see or the world will know. No matter. Your life is yours and it will never be repeated or replaced. Each of us has the unique ability to life and love. And we never really know ourselves because we are always seen through the eyes of others. We are made up of the perspectives and opinions of those we meet and impact.

How will you leave your soul stamp on others? How will you be seen and remembered? 

Embrace life and share it so others may see you as you have never seen yourself.