Bay of Soul

Bayofsoul died today. He lived in New Zealand.
He emailed me last week.

______________

hi Charlie, thanks very much for mentioning your battery operated bike - what a great idea. I really want to give my bike a go, but I know I'm going to get stuck sometime. The battery version is such a great option. I can work when I can and cruise when I can't.

thanks

Bayofsoul

Cape Cod Golf Course (Thanksgiving)

Cape Cod Golf Course (Thanksgiving)
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

joy troubles me

It's cold and dark. We're tired. It's late.

My sister and Elliott put me on the train home. I cane my way over the gap between the train and the platform and lean into the glass and metal partition in the little train-car entry way. The inside of the train is warm and crowded.
I steady myself with my cane and my sister puts a spinach salad in my hands but remains on the train platform, like she's pulling something off.

"Thanks, I got it, I'm good." I slur. (I must sound drunk).

Elliott pops just his head in the car, "Hey, you!! (addressing the passengers) Can you move over? Is that an empty seat?"

"Hey Elliott, please, stop ... I can still speak."

My sister blows kisses.
The doors close.
I lean deeper.
I am fine.
I know this. I've ridden these trains all my life.

The train glides away and I am relieved. I am alone again.

"Can I help you find a seat?"

The conductor (meaty with mustache) punches my ticket.

"Sure! I'd love it! (I am guileless) but it looks pretty packed." (A year ago I would have just sat on the floor).

The conductor finds a couple on a three seater (napping as one) and wakes them. Their unknotting is slow but when they've upright, the conductor signals for me.

I stare down the crowded car. The vacant seat is about 25 feet away past jutting legs and elbows.
I don't dare risk it.

The conductor walks back down the crowded aisle to ask if he can take my bags.

"Sure!"

What have I done to deserve this? We should all carry canes to experience such kindness.

After I sit, I don't unzip my coat. I don't eat my spinach salad. I sit and I don't move.
I sit frozen in my seat like the new kid in class who arrived late and doesn't want to draw attention.

_____________________

We are at Grand Central.
As we exit the train, a young woman asks if she can help me but I smile and shake my head before she finishes her offer.

I need to focus. "Man on Wire".

I use the side of the train to steady myself but sometimes there are gaps. These gaps require extra attention.

I stop and calculate the distance between the train and a recycling bin. The distance seems impossible.
I laugh at my situation. How can this be that six feet away seems to risky to walk? When did this happen to me?

This is a genuine joyful laugh and this joy troubles me.
I wonder if something biologically is happening to me, a genetic button pushed to rescue me from depression.
Everything seems funny to me.

My conductor spots me frozen in my calculating. The other passengers have long gone.
I stand by the train eyeing the recycle bin. Grand Central' s main terminal shines in the distance (like Oz).

My conductor faces me. I look him in the eye. He reminds me of a gifted character actor. There is quiet charisma here,
a thinking man in a working man's outfit.


"You know you can order a skycap. If you let them know ahead of time. They'll meet you with a wheel chair and get you to a cab."

"Oh, I didn't know that." I feel shy and caught.

The conductor stays with me. He watches me move. He feels compassion for me. I feel distant from this compassion.
He might assume that this difficulty is something I've dealt with my whole life. I want to say to him that this new to me, that it would never occur to me to have a wheel chair greet me at Grand Central.

But I don't say anything.

I move but the conductor stays where he is. "Are you sure I can't help you in some way?"

"No, I'll be fine." How can he help me? How can anyone help me? This is something I must endure.

He nods okay.
He turns and resumes his speedy conductor's pace.

City of Conquests

I watch the movie with Elia Kazan that Jackie lent me.
It's called "City of Conquests" and stars James Cagney and Anne Sheridan.
The movie was made in 1940 and is totally entertaining until the second act when
you can see how it's all going to work out.

The movie takes places in the West Village but was clearly shot in the Paramount back lot.
The opening scene is on the Williamsburg Bridge.

A young sexy Anthony Quinn plays the villain.
Elia Kazan is excellent.

At one point, Cagney says to Ann Sheridan that he'll make something of himself and get them out of the Village so they can move somewhere decent, like the Bronx.

Ayurvedic Wisdom

I use memories, but I do not allow memories to use me.
(bondage vs. freedom)

Origins of diease are not the origins of health.
Health is not the absense of disease, health is a state of vitality, creativity, a higher state of consciousness.

Blue Skies

Hi Blue Skies,

I'm not sure what to think (for myself) about staying off PLM. I'm working with issues of denial.
I need to jump in (I guess) and understand it more. (Maybe).

My Dr. Wang, is Doctor Gui-tai Wang on 141 East 55 #7F. 212-980-2844.
Shabby office, family run. Hal Prince's son goes to him.

I also do craniosacral therapy. I think that's pretty cool. I can give you his name too.

I've done acupuncture before and it does help me. I know this sounds weird but I think the Chinese are the best acupuncturists.

I'm off to the Catskills for a weekend of meditation!

I was reading GQ. Clint Eastwood said he's been meditating twice a day for 40 years. So does David Lynch. He even wrote a book about his life of meditation. I smell a huge film career for me (after this weekend).

C_R

HAIR TEST FOR TOXINS

Tarantula Arms

I bike to my dentist on Broadway and 69th to discuss replacing my fillings
The last time I was there, I biked on my old Schwin.
Today I get there on a battery operated bike with a cane strapped to the back.

My lady dentist is cold and kind, pretty with a frozen smile - like a popular girl putting up with a loser.
I am vulnerable and ingratiating to gain favor.

I go through the preventative information I've gathered from the web.
She listens. I appreciate this. There is serious protocol to follow.

After I'm done with my spiel, she tells me she knows I'll be fine because she removed an amalgam from my mouth last June.
I did not know this or did not understand this. We took no preventative measures (that I can remember).
I am down the rabbit hole.

___________________________________


I bike to APPLE on 14th and Ninth. My iphone is broken.
The store is awash in young, materialistic, prettiness.
I can't breath.

_____________________________________

When I get home, Jackie comes over and we complete my hair test.
The hair test is a mail order exam that checks for toxins.
It requires you to cut a lot of your hair, as close to the scalp as possible, from all over the scalp.

I sit in my one rickety antique chair (my back aches because my lower and mid back muscles are wasting).
I take the shade off the table lamp so that Jackie can see better.
Jackie gets the scissors from the secretary and starts cutting, chunks at a time, leaving holes in the back of my head.

The first few cuts we do wrong. We haven't read the directions correctly. We put the hair in the trash and start over.

There is a little aparatus that comes with the kit, a sort of makeshift scale, that shows you when you;ve cut enough.
We have to keep cutting and cutting to fulfill the test's requirements.

I finger the hair on the table.

My hair is black and grey and very soft. I don't recognize it. I picture a whole different look and texture (for me). This hair isn't bad, just foreign.

Jackie says, "I'm ruining your excellent haircut, it's a very good haircut and I don't want to ruin it."

This is generous. My hair looks crazy, dry and shaggy. I haven't seen Max, my russian barber, in months.

"Don't worry about it, just cut!"

My vanity is gone and good riddance.
My legs are the legs of the undernourished. My face is a constant rigid expression that says "get out of my way, something is happening to me., I'm not sure what, but get out my way."

After we're done, I fill out the paperwork as Jackie looks through the Medicare Book. She wants to see if Medicare will pay for this hair test. I assure her that they won't, but Jackie's not convinced.

"They just might Charlie, and why pay for it if they will. And you know what? While I'm at it, I'm going to look into getting a free pair of glasses for the BOTH of us. Medicare DOES provide that. You can't choose your frames though, you have to get standard issue frames."

Sometimes I picture Jackie and I as a re-imagined Jimmy Stewart and Thelma Ritter in "Rear Window". Jackie wouldn't like that comparison, however. She doesn't like to think that she is old or that she has a thick New York accent, which she does.

Before Jackie goes, she lends me a movie that has Elia Kazan in it.

I see Elia Kazan's biography in the bookshelf and say,
"Oh, Jackie, you should read his biography, it's great. There's a lot about Marlon Brando in it."

(Jackie loves Marlon Brando. According to Jackie, Brando has "salt and pepper" = (SEX APPEAL) and so does John Garfield, but Gregory Peck or say Tom Cruise? Well, they don't have "salt and pepper". She's quite serious about her male movie stars and who has "salt and pepper". John Garfield has the most "salt and pepper". When I asked Jackie about John Garfield, she talked
a full two hours, I nearly had to push her out of my apartment.

I retrieve the Elia Kazan book and Jackie puts the shade back on the lamp where we were cutting my hair.

"Enough with the bare bulb! I can't take this bright light anymore, it's too much!"

'You're reminding me of Blanche Dubois, Jackie, another Kazan movie."

And without missing a beat, Jackie says to an imagined listener,

"Straight? What's 'straight'? A line can be straight, or a street. But the heart of a human being? "

(and)

"Tarantula was the name of it!!! I stayed at a hotel called the Tarantula Arms!!"

UNDRESSED

I am told to remain upright for as long as possible, reduce and eliminate toxins, change my diet, work out, don't lose weight -better yet, GAIN weight... and most important -  remain positive.

(I'm dancing as fast as I can).

This morning is lost to cooking, coffee and the paper.  The kitchen. I don't want to clean it, I want to tear it down and build a new one. The shallow sink is always full - the white tiled floor, filthy - the plastic counters, wet and crowded.

After brunch, after my first gulp of vitamins,  after JUICING! -

I massage my body with vata oil, an Ayurvedic method to detoxify the body. The oil has " a synergistic blend of 9 herbs, including ashwaganda, bala, passion flower and jasmine. Traditionally prepared in a base of organic sesame and olive oils, it warms and lubricates the delicate vata system, restoring calm and providing strength".

 I read and meditate.

My daily schedule to save myself is huge.

I want to sit on the couch and drink coffee.
I want to eat crackers and go to park.

BUT!

I have an appointment at 1 pm to see Gabriel, my cranialsacral therapist. I will be late.

I shower and dress. Dressing involves the frustration you might feel threading a needle with shaky hands (and time is of the essence) - I curse!

I step over kitty litter, old newspapers, dirty clothes

I surrender to DOG PATCH. And with Aroo daintily stepping over a lost sock, I realize I am brewing my own GREY GARDENS.

Before I go,

I strap on my leg brace and check for;

Keys, phone, wallet, glasses, sunglasses, cane, nuts and an apple, books, notebook, bike keys, bike battery, camera memory chip, nikon camera, mini video camera, gaffers tape. (I will tape the video camera to the handle bars of my bike today).

I swallow my second round of vitamins - the ones that need to be taken on an empty stomach.

I put on my dated periwinkle-blue Patagonia coat, and bike to the mess (where east meets west) in the lower thirties.

When I get to that thick traffic, the unique grainy cloud of New York that can't be replicated in movies made in Toronto or LA -when I get to 115 west 30th - a round hispanic teenager (part thug, part shy little guy) lifts my bike onto the sidewalk (the six inches in too much for me) and escorts it to a post twenty feet away. I follow with cane.

This act of kindness is a surprise for him (not for me, I'm getting used to being waited on).
He hadn't expected to be acting with mature charity.  His look says both shame and pride.
I am immune to his transformation. I am tired and resigned and foggy voiced.

I thank him like a worried old man.

Locking up my bike, I run into the same college friend I ran into last week! He's on his cell phone. He grins and pantomimes - "I'm on the phone,  I can't talk" also implied is - "this  is embarrassing! We ran into each other last week! and we didn't have much to say then, and here we are again!"

On the 12th floor of 115 west 30th (the floor filled with quiet creative start-ups) I peer into an open lofty room with one orange wall and racks of kid's clothes and toys. The business is called (something like ) "Organic Kid Scape".

I pass other inspired companies until I reach Backbone and Wingspan, where my craniosacral therapist works.

Gabriel is quiet when I greet him. Our last session was so successful, perhaps he doesn't want to mess it up with small talk.
He does comment that he likes my cane.

This time, we are silent. There is no speaking in tongues. I silently release my pain to him and it's almost sexual. I am good at letting down my guard when I need to (I think).

During the therapy, my mind dances. Some ideas I plan, and some I don't.

My body- I imagine it to be an aquarium - and went Gabriel speaks to my body (to my soul) and asks it communicate through my voice, I  picture the whole underwater world poised and listening, interested.

My body pleads, please don't do any more harm. Please don't say negative things or do negative things to this aquatic world. We ask you to be gentle.

I imagine the my body filled with cells, happy and angry. The universe (I posture) is mostly filled with smiling cells but my body is filled with a majority of angry, unhappy cells. My unhappy cells need to be turned over - need to change, release, allow the universal power, the strength of the divine eternal - star wars power - to aline happy... in my aquarium.

I don't have to hurt myself, stress out... to be me.
I am a part of divine perfection.  Are you listening Me? Leave me alone.

Afterwards, Gabriel tells me that he felt me open up in a way that he hadn't before. "Good!" he says.
He says he senses a deeper peace, a deeper understanding from me.
I feel my ego.  I am feeling sage-like and guru-ish.., me on my very special journey.

I tell Gabriel about the woman on the elevator who said "Its a good life unless you weaken".
Gabriel's interpretation is more positive than mine.
He takes it to mean weaken spiritually, not physically.

I bike to Whole Foods and the vitamin store to shop for healthy fats and vitamins.

There is a beggar on the corner. She wears a kerchief on her head. She asks everyone that passes her for change but when I pass her she just smiles. And she smiles at me with naked recognition. I feel undressed. We are equals.

I find a dollar and hand it to her.

SUNDAY (a view or Jersey City from Manhattan)

SATURDAY

Saturday at noon, I bike to Patient's Medical (on 42nd and Second) for glutathione, lipoic acid IVs and my B12 shot and I feel better. I am more my self. I feel centered and energized.

(I can't afford these treatments)

huh.

The glutathione induces a happy, angry, edge, like a cup of black coffee during a mild argument.
The glutathione  revs me up.

My apartment will be an inspiring creative haven! A streamlined home/factory! - to write, photograph, design, and edit!

I will derail this disease!

This disease has nothing to do with me or my plans!!

________________________

Write a short story!
Write a play!
Write a one act  or any essay!
Write an actor bio (for the future) describing how I beat this terrible disease!
____________________

Once home, I swim.

And then I turn on NPR; Garrison Keillor, short-stories read from The Symphony Space.
The readers are Mary Stuart Masterson (I kinda know), Cambell Scott, and Marian Seldes.
Marion Seldes - always compelling - reads "Number 10"  by Edna O'Brien, a story that embraces magical realism with wry humor.  An upper class wife willingly sleepwalks and discovers (through her dreams) the true nature of her marriage.

I like radio. It feels pure and communal. It doesn't suck up the room like T.V or the internet.

MALBEC

Miss Malbec!

I'm great.
Hope you're swell.

I'm (slow as syrup) but have dozens of annoying things to do (daily) which I (take on) or ignore as I choose. I've been researching the consequences of stress and diet on the body.
So whenever you want an ear-full about taking care of yourself (i.e no smoking, getting enough rest)
I've got a mouth full to say about it.
CHARLIE ;-)

Prayer at church.
Maybe we might talk about it.
Is the naming of names in prayer at the Presbyterian Church gloomy and foreboding? (Or) Does the naming aloud (of people in need) feel hopeful and life affirming?
I am weary of following a path of doom.

I believe in prayer.

I've always imagined the people named for special prayer during the Episcopal service to be in a final fight for life. Mary Baker Eddy encourages silent (humble, meek) prayer.
_________________________________

Mr. Grape-er,

Great to hear from you! Can you believe this weather?? Seems like we should have a garden party before this summery air goes away...

I find the prayer at my church life-affirming and positive. I am totally into going to church these days. I thought it was just my minister and her fabulous sermons, but today I went and she was away and I still got this amazing lift. I really love my church and it makes me feel good. I think it actually changes my brain chemistry. I just wondered if you want your name known. I pray for you anyway, just as I do for all my friends and family.

Speaking of which, my brother, Pete, (the one in West Virginia who has lived his whole adult life as a holistic hippie: no booze, no cigs, fresh mountain air, etc) has something wrong with his kidney and we are all very worried. Him most of all. My sister and nephew and I are going down there for Thanksgiving.

Yes, I do want you to lecture me about cleaning up my lifestyle. Especially if it is over a bottle of Malbec.

I will be your foot soldier in the fight against the prophets of doom.

See you soon I hope,

E. Malbec