subway kids rejoice

In January, I turned 25. For my birthday, a friend of mine gave me The Alchemist. On the title page, he wrote a note: "MCB, I found this one of the most inspiring books I've ever read. I hope it resonates as much with you." It took me a few weeks to finish the book. As I was reading, I knew something important was happening. The book served to reflect aspects of my spirituality that I had learned over the past six months or so. I put the book on a shelf, feeling cemented in my beliefs, but also feeling like I had missed something, that some of the metaphors were lost on me.

I pulled the book from the shelf yesterday, to share it with a man I've been seeing. I put it in my room to remind myself to give it to him, but decided not to take it with me yesterday. It sat on my dresser all day. This morning before leaving for work, I decided instead to re-read it myself, and I put it in my bag. I pulled it out on the train at 86th street and started reading. I stood from 86th street to 14th street reading, then some people got up to exit so I took a seat. I was sitting there reading, and the man sitting next to me looked over and said, "Your first time reading that book?" I said, "No, my second." He said, "Ah. It helps just to re-read it every now and then."

I agreed with him and pretended to keep reading, but there was an incessant pounding on the inside of my chest, demanding that I keep talking with this person. He was older a bit, probably in his 30s, and he seemed really nice and I liked his vibe. I ignored the pounding for as long as possible until I couldn't ignore it anymore.

"How many times would you say you've read it?" I asked him.
"Ummm, about three."
"Yeah."
"Why are you re-reading it now?"
"Um, well.  I just read it for the first time a few months ago."
"Oh really? That's pretty soon to be re-reading it already."
"Well, I feel like I missed some of the metaphors so I want to go back through and get a better understanding."
"I see. Are you in the middle of a big life change?"
In my heart: yes.
Out loud: "Um, well, I really want a new job."
"Ah. What line of work are you in?"
"Well, right now I work in magazines."
"And what do you want to be doing? Healing?" He laughed.
"Well, I write magazine articles, but I really want to be doing something more creative. Like writing books or screenplays." Mind you, this is a complete stranger and I've never even told some of my closest friends that I want to write screenplays.
"Have you thought about  taking a loan out to pursue higher education?"
In my head: Um, wow. Damn. Straight to the point.
Out loud: "I've thought about grad school but haven't done any in-depth research on it."
"Well," he said, "I'm throwing caution to the wind and taking out a $100,000 loan to go to school for psychotherapy. I feel like it's my calling."
"Holy shit. That's a lot of money."
"There's this school out in Boulder, Colorado called Naropa. Have you ever heard of it?"
"No."
"It's a Buddhist-founded university with graduate programs in writing. They focus on contemplative learning, meditation and stuff like that. It's really cool, you should look into it."
"All right, sounds awesome." Or something equally inane.
"Have you ever heard of Allen Ginsberg?"
In my heart: fucking Christ.
Out loud: "Yes."
"The library there is named after him. He was involved with the writing school somehow."

My stop came. I thanked him and told him to have a great day.
I got off.
I walked upstairs.
The sun hit my face. It was warm.
I went to get an iced coffee but I didn't really need it.
I held back tears as I walked to my office.

Synchronicity.

in the dark of fall

I've seen three movies in the past five days. There's something about fall this year - the way it's pouring onto the city in wet puddles and cold winds, instead of spreading from the top down with leaves red, then orange, then yellow  - that's making me want to sit inside in the dark and hunt for inspiration on a screen. I've not been disappointed so far. I saw The Social Network Friday night, the day it opened, and the theater was totally packed. Then yesterday Stephen Elliott, increasingly becoming my favorite contemporary writer, wrote about the film in his daily Rumpus e-mail. He talked about what touched me most about the film - whether or not Mark Zuckerberg is tragic, or an asshole, or neither. I wrote him back, which I do a lot, and he asked me if he could post my response to The Rumpus. I was thrilled. I said yes.

Last night I saw Howl and Never Let Me Go. Never Let Me Go was beautiful but ultimately bleak and it made me want to be in love. I liked Howl, mostly for the scenes depicting Allen Ginsberg's interviews with the Paris Review, which you can read here.  He talked a lot about his writing process, and a few things stood out to me as a prophecy for my own experiences with writing. Here's a snippet from that interview, and my response below.

"Usually during the composition, step by step, word by word and adjective by adjective, if it’s at all spontaneous, I don’t know whether it even makes sense sometimes. Sometimes I do know it makes complete sense, and I start crying. Because I realize I’m hitting some area which is absolutely true. And in that sense applicable universally, or understandable universally. In that sense able to survive through time—in that sense to be read by somebody and wept to, maybe, centuries later. In that sense prophecy, because it touches a common key . . . What prophecy actually is is ... that you know and feel something that somebody knows and feels in a hundred years. And maybe articulate it in a hint—a concrete way that they can pick up on in a hundred years." -- Allen Ginsberg

When Allen Ginsberg first read Howl at a bar in California in 1955, he was 29 years old and unpublished. I find that comforting.

I think if people have great things inside of them that are meant to be shared with the world, they will be shared. God doesn't operate on human timeframes. It's quite the opposite. Ideas will emerge in their own time. Before he wrote Howl, Allen spent eight months in a psychiatric hospital trying to '"rid" himself of his homosexuality. I think he was around 21 years old at the time. Do you think he wrote during those eight months? I don't know, but it seems unlikely. I wonder if he tortured himself about not writing. That seems more likely, but still improbable. I imagine it's hard to find time for either writing or self-injury when everyone around you is getting shocked with electricity and lobotomized. The act of brushing one's teeth becomes one's poetry.

Allen shared Howl with the world when he was 29, and I find that comforting. Self-injury is mostly just a waste of time. At my most self-injurious, I never really produced a piece of work I felt proud of. Mostly I just laid around and cried and struggled to find words to describe what I was experiencing and ended up submitting myself to my wallowing. But when I've found my path again, which by the presence of God I've always found a way to do, I've felt invigorated and filled with words. Even if on that path lied sadness or fear or grief, I could find the words for it. Spending a night watching television is better for one's poetry than spending a night hating oneself for wanting to watch television. God is, for the most part, very forgiving about television-watching.

If you were born to express something, do not be afraid. It will be expressed. Just keep writing, or whatever it is that you do. God will carry the rest.

And if you were not born to express something, also: do not be afraid. That too will be revealed in time. You can still lead a happy life and love and make the world better by living through your heart.

It's all useful.