Hands, Hands, Heaven

It was a Thursday in the city. The Thursday before Labor Day Weekend and summer was going out with a beautiful bang. Glorious. Sexy. Sunlight. I ducked into the mid-Manhattan library to try to find a book on body language. I got onto the elevator and the door closed. A man had followed me on to the elevator to make it a solid five men in the car. The man who entered last said, "Now this is the way to ride, all male elevator. Men only. No women." I said nothing, No one did. He was a Hasidic Jew, full drag. He continued, "The other day, there was a couple in here, in the middle of the car, embracing." He was glancing my way, I was closest to him. "It made me think of one of those moments in the movies, you know, there should have been a hole in the floor of the car, and whoosh..." He made a gesture of sucking, pulling, opening up the floor, and I took it to mean that he would have liked to have been able to make the couple disappear for their transgression. A few of the men got off, the doors closed. There were now three of us left. "You know," he went on, looking at me squarely now, "there is only one god. People may deny it, but the truth is, there is only one god." i spoke now, "Maybe for you, but maybe other people have a different god, or no god at all."

"No. There is only one god, my friend." he said. The doors opened. "Maybe other people think differently," I said. "There is one god." He was getting off now. "Peace," I said, "Love." And the doors closed on the peace signal I realized I was holding out toward him. My two fingers in the reverse V for victory...Ridiculous. Antiquated. Useless. But sweet.

The book I had come for was checked out. I got something else, a book about re-creating the self, based on the writings of William James, Henry's brother. William said, "Each human mind's appearance on this earth is conditioned on the integrity of the body with which it belongs, upon the treatment which that body gets from others and upon the...dispositions which use it as their tool, and lead t either towards longevity or destruction. Its own body, then, first of all, its friends next and finally its spiritual dispositions, MUST be the supremely interesting objects for each human mind."

I left the library and entered the flow of mid-town foot traffic. I came up the disembodied, blue-palmed gloves on the sidewalk. What a story there must be in there. Someone quit in the middle of the job. Someone threw them off in a fit of lunchtime revelry. Someone lost them on their way back to the construction site. Who knows. Being a creative type--I decided they symbolized the disconnection between my elevator companion and myself. And I was also reminded of the famous drawing of the hands by MC Escher, the ones that are drawing themselves as they are drawing each other. Something about that image seems to be about a mid-century desire to make sense of the material world, to connect it to itself, to connect it back to the spiritual world. I've always felt that Escher was reuniting the spiritual with the material, the mathematical with the divine, the rational with the metaphysical.

These two blue-palmed hands on the sidewalk just seem lost. No story to them even.

Entering Bryant Park at the back of the library, I remembered the beautiful bronze statue of Gertrude Stein. Those are her hands up above. She seems resigned. Her body language even suggests a bit of apathy.

I was thinking when I took this picture of the day last week when I started calling all sorts of motels in the Catskills to try to book a cheap room for the holiday weekend. I found one in Fleischmanns, New York, a place I've never been but am sure to enjoy when I get there. While on the phone with the hotel clerk he said, "I do have to tell you, there are a lot of Jews here right now, I hope you don't mind." I was caught off guard by this. "Um...as long as they're quiet," I said. "Oh yes, and there's only five or six rooms right now, so by next weekend, there will be maybe only three." He said this in lightly accented English, with the stamp of India on it.

It occurred to me that he meant Hasidic Jews. I recalled having read about the Catskills being a haven for many Hasidic Jews. And I thought, how does them know that I'm not a Jew? Why does he assume that I won't be offended by this comment. And why do I not tell him that I'm offended by the comment?

Gertrude Stein might say, Other, other, Other, Other, Other, Other, Other, Other. Other.

Later that day, I was on the upper westside. Early for an appointment, I decided to sit and have lunch on the steps of a synagogue. The light was perfect. The sandwich was good. I took some pictures. I looked up and noticed patterns and. A beautiful door. Craftsmanship. A house of worship. I read a bit of my new library book at lunchtime. Here's another quote from William James, "You must put together your own beliefs, guided by what works for you under these difficult circumstances. Don't rely on ideology...Within your limitations, for your own story. A useful one will alleviate at least some of your suffering."

Now, late at night at the end of a big, busy day in the city, after downloading my pictures, downloading my anecdote, downloading my matter into spirit, it occurs to me that what makes the day is the light. And what makes the hands is the matter. And what makes the temple is the sky.

Chiaroscuro

On any given day in New York, if the sun is out, as it is today, you will find moments and pictures of small revelation. Here, outside the Asser Levy rec center, is a stone column partially hit by the midday sun. Made me think of chiaroscuro--the technique of modeling an image in high contrast for dramatic purposes. Something about the moment hit me--it was a happy moment, but there was melancholy in it, and the column and the light/dark capture that. The feeling of having a joyful day, being alive and the sadness of the passing of time. Saudade, I think the Brazilians call it. Edward Hopper paintings have this in spades. Something about well-rendered images gives them that sadness, too. It strikes me that the near- perfection of anything evokes loss, somehow; temporality is most alive in the beautiful, the excellent.

Rooftop Installation

Sunday afternoon after the most recent service of The Secret City, I was up on a rooftop in far Queens. It was a great moment, the late afternoon, summer light, and the designs in the tar paper. You know those moments when you see the world as a work of art? It's similar to seeing waking life as the same as a dream state--you realize everything is perspective.

The Secret City celebrates that idea--that by looking at the world with the eyes of an artist (seeking beauty, meaning, intention, theme, structure, etc) we begin to see the world as a work of art. And, by extension, the world becomes a work of art--capable of being collaborated on by us, and others.

Funny, as we were hanging out on the rooftop, Bobby and Elik and I were talking about what an intense time it is right now, how it can seem that the world is being taken over by interests bigger than us, that there's an immense, uncontrollable movement of ownership and influence, and how that can feel scary. 

That's when we noticed the light, the designs in the tarpaper, the seemingly happenstance structure of the world, the art work of that afternoon. Beauty.

This is what is not easily vanquished or owned in the end--the power of the imagination, the ability to see, the choice to find the art in the everyday. And then to share it, to tell people about it. It's accessible. Available to everyone. A birthright. 

Something in that is related to freedom.