the long walk home

I bike to a doctor's appointment on 42nd and Second Avenue.
It's raining.

When I am done, I get on my bike and realize that because of the heavy rain, my brakes are not working at all.

So I walk the bike home.
I decide to make a day of it.

I will pause and sit and rest along the way.

It takes me eight hours.

 I get home at 10 o'clock.

BILLY ELLIOT

I get stuck in the apartment because cooking and cleaning and dressing takes so much time.

I want to empty the place.

I did tackle some calls to the doctor for my SAG retirement.
And I opened some bills.

I called my mom because she texted me about her coming visit.
I told her I found friends to take the additional (expensive!) orchestra seats for Billy Elliott and she told ME that my brother was coming after all.

I went through the roof.

I was angry because I emailed him requesting him to visit and join us , but instead of emailing ME back, he calls my mother (I guess?) and says he'll come.

Why can't he email ME?! I just assumed when I didn't hear from him that it was (out of the question), that he's overwhelmed.

Maybe he called my mother to tell her he didn't want to come or couldn't get away and she strong-armed him into coming (since I have this fatal disease) and he simply hadn't gotten around to emailing me back with a "yes". (this is likely the case)

I"ve  given away the tickets.

My rage (on the phone) made me think about how I wasn't acting with love and truth.
It doesn't really matter. The tickets.
I was acting out.
But, I feel sad that my brother can't email correspondence with me.

So...

I swam in the pool.
I made an appointment to get gluthotione intraveniously tomorrow and to see the accupuncturist.
I got on my bike to go grocery shopping and got all the way down to Whole Foods in Chelseas and realized I left my wallet at home.

I biked back through Chelsea by the West Side Highway.
It was packed, (and I mean packed!) with the young art crowd.
It was 7-ish. I was reminded of Halloween at dusk when the neighborhood is over-run with kids.

I came home and sat in the lobby and read a book.
Later, I signed up for an organic food delivery service and made a tepid order with Food Direct for basic groceries. I'm not a food enthusiast. So buying food is a chore. If I could, I would drink coffee and eat corn chips all day.

Falmouth Cape Cod

Falmouth Cape Cod
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

Pockets of Perfection

I return the dented car to AVIS in Stamford Connecticut today.
It takes me hours to get out of the apartment this morning.
I didn't sleep well last night because I have been thinking about that doctor who is suing me to pay for tests I never had. I am frightened and enraged.

I pick up the car in my garage and drive toward the George Washington Bridge. I fight with the doctor in court (in my mind). I don't pay attention and end up long into New Jersey.

I pay an $8 toll to get going the right way back on 95 north.

In Connecticut, I stop in Darien and go to the Thrift Shop.
Darien has changed so much. It used to be clapboard gift shops and rickety Vitorians.
They have been ripped down and replaced with a corporate Brooks Brothers mall.

But the Thrift shop is still there (with a new corporate sign)
I buy a kitchen clock for $4.

I return the car in Stamford and tell them about the dent.
"What's to be done with me?" I ask the surly Avis clerk.
The guy writes me off. He does. I have a limp and a weak voice.

"Once I fax the report, they'll contact you."

He answers me without even bothering to look at me, as he walks away, talking to a friend or fellow employee. And he is right. How could I raise a ruckus? How could I be indignant? I can barely speak or walk.

I sit outside of Avis. There is that eerie late summer, early fall, cricket sound.
The sunlight doen't seem quite right.

I don't know when the next train is but there is nothing on my schedule for...

the rest of my life.
So I stand there and lean against a wall in the early autumn light and sob.
I cry for my circumstances. I think, I would like to make plans to get out of here, away from CT away from New York. I am sick of this area. How did I end up stuck here?

And I sob because I can't really leave. I have to stay by people who can help me.
Unless I kill myself. And so I check myself, I scan my inner core to see if that's possible (yet).
Am I capable of it, (yet)?

I wander through the Stamford Train station. I buy coffee at Dunkin Doughnuts.

There is a smart young looking handsome man costumed in a tidy suit. He has a polished haircut and tan, and he would be marked as instantly gay by me because he is too perfect looking, but he wears a wedding ring.

I imagine that I look like a lost, sad, clumsy, tubby man.
I don't even register.

I ride the train and read the New Yorker. E L Doctorow's new book "Homer and Langley" (about those brothers who died in their own trash in New York) critiqued by Joyce Carol Oates.

She uses the word "lurid" a great word. I look it up on my iphone dictionary.

I also read a book by a man who's life was changed through Christian Science.

At Grand Central. I must hold on the side of the dirty train to get myself into the station, off the platform. My hands are black with soot. A conductor walks by and smiles (takes pity on me).

In the station I must use all of my focus to get across the grand room.
When someone makes me stop abruptly, I say aloud (like a crazy person) "Oh no, please no."
Because if I stop too quickly, I fall over without a wall to hang onto.

I get my camera out (my flip video camera) and film my staggering through the station.

I used to work in recording studio nearby. I imagine running into those guys.
What would I say? What could they say?

On 42nd Street, I decide to see if I can get the M42 bus, but it's too hard, so I get in a cab.
The cab driver wants to drop me off a block before my building (traffic is terrible) but I start to protest and he remembers my staggering limp and backs off. Even a New York taxi driver doesn't want to be cursed for betraying a gimp.

I eat fishsticks for dinner and bike to church.

Tonight's service is about not being the victim.

HA!

I listen to testimony. I believe. I feel relief.

I let Arc, a man in his fifties, a former anchor for CNBC, test my bike out on Wooster Street.

I bike home. the battery runs out and I cycle most of the way home. This is a nudge from G-d.

I want to leave NY sometimes. I really do. But where would I go? And the thing is, there are pockets of perfection here.
\

Falmouth Cape Cod

Falmouth Cape Cod
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

old time(y) shutters

Falmouth Cape Cod

Falmouth Cape Cod
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

This house has a corsage.

Falmouth Cape COd

Falmouth Cape COd
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

Tomatoes along the bike path.
25 cents each

dent

I drive home from Cape Cod.
Before I pack the car, my mother backs into my car and dents the front.

On the road, I sit in silence. I have fights with people in my head.

When I get to New York, I'm not so happy to be there.
I put the car in the garage.
I pick up my mail. I get a letter from some county clerk office.I think that a doctor is sue-ing me.

I don't know.

Today I'll drive back to Connecticut with the car.

spontaneous acquiescence

I think this Buddhist wisdom perfectly describes the actor in rehearsal.


The right attitude for studying the way is just complete spontaneous acquiescence. Who cares whether it takes twenty or thirty years; you'll be naturally at peace, without the slightest bit of doubt or confusion. How can there be any obstruction again after spontaneous acquiescence? How can anyone arrive by way of externals?

feet

feet
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts