What Do You Mean By That?

Maybe you have noticed the same rhetorical device that I experience on a somewhat regular basis: "What do you mean by that?" It is a clever device when critiquing written materials since you can pretend to have read something and you put the pressure on the person to find other words to somehow clarify something that already may be perfectly obvious. It is also useful in face to face exchanges in diverting the discussion away from your own arguments and creating new territory for exchange.

A corollary phrase is "I don't know what you mean by this." This is, of course, much more aggressive, since it implies an accusation that someone has not made things crystal clear. This is, in modern circles, a grievous error, except when you are writing poetry or philosophy.

The reality may be that as marvelous as language is, we may never fully know what is in the minds of others who are speaking and writing. This is part of the human dilemma. We never know ourselves fully, and whatever we disclose in a particular moment is enclosed and relevant to that moment. How it relates to past and future is a process of discovery, and is never fully revealed.

In fact, isn't that the miracle of language and words? Words in combination are a way of making meaning through extending ordinary meaning into extraordinary combinations that become new knowledge in the world. This is true of poetry and of creative writing where words are tools of extension that produce original ideas. In the act of uttering, we are in the dynamic disclosure of creating meaning from moment to moment...

...and yes, I am not sure what I mean by that...

A Class Act: Anything Goes!

A group of music education majors from New York University under the leadership of Candace Parr formed a student production group called A Class Act and on April 7-9th demonstrated they rated that designation and more. They transformed a space at Thompson Center into a Broadway Theatre, complete with their own improvised orchestra pit and proceeded to perform an inspired production of Cole Porter's Anything Goes, even exceeding to some degree the professional training programs in musical theatre at New York University. What they lacked in financial and institutional support, they made up for with imagination and inventiveness.

Producer Danielle Lazarowitz, who may be our next David Merrick, helped Candace maneuver through all of the obstacles of producing a musical with absolutely no financial support from the unversity as well as no support in providing space. But the driving force was the vision of Candace Parr and the talents of everyone involved.

The scene was set by the pianist/accompanist Kyle Henry who was playing at the "piano bar" as the audience arrived. He has a genuine connection with the audience, and is one of the few left-foot pedal pushers you will find, which gives the impression that he is always poised and ready to leap off the bench to take care of some musical problem.

Sitting in the audience and inspired by these young song and dance actors, I thought back on the early efforts of those who went on to fame, and saw that same potential in all the talent on stage. I couldn't help seeing analogies of actors who have gone from their initial efforts to full careers.

Michael Holder playing Billy Crocker combines the looks of Sam Shepard and Richard Gere, but brings his own distinctive style to the role, with a wonderful voice and deft character. There were also elements of Fred Astaire as he shaped an utterly convincing portrait of a schemer and dreamer who has fallen in love with Hope Harcourt.

Joe Piccirillo as Moonface Martin could be the double of a young Robert De Niro who brings sleight of hand, humor, and perhaps the best performance of "Be Like the Bluebird" that is on record. His performance and his character were classic. He has an instinctive comedic flair, but also has the natural tools of an actor. I doubt that he studied the moves of De Niro in The King Of Comedy, but he has them in his vocabulary.

The Ethel Merman role, Reno Sweeney, played by Jaclyn Altieri, at times must carry the show with numbers like "I Get a Kick Out of You," "You're The Top," "Anything Goes," and "Blow, Gabriel, Blow," to name a few. Not only does she manage this feat, but she has a presence that reminds me of a mix of Mitzi Gaynor and Debbie Reynolds.

A vivacious Heather Wilson playing Bonnie Le Tour could be how Laura Dern must have looked in her early acting days... fresh, energetic and enthusiastic... she brightened the stage with a dazzling incandescence. And Christina Kompar played mother Harcourt with all of the comic panache of Peggy Cass as Agnes Gooch in Mame. And while we are at it, Jim Kuerschner reminds me of how Eric Roberts looked in his first days as a professional, projecting a kind of lyrical devil-may-care cynicism. His portrayal of Elisha J. Whitney was superb.

Darrell Dumas as Sir Evelyn Oakleigh turned in a performance that was as masterful as anything David Hyde Pierce has done, bringing a great deal of detail to the role with a distinctive flair. Everything he does has a sense of connection and secure control, as was always apparent in "Let's Misbehave." His work gives us a sense of immediacy and spontaneity. He has a comic imagination that seems inexhaustible, tempered with the craft of an actor.

Jeanne Cascio's Hope Harcourt, reminiscent of Leslie Caron or Anne Baxter, captures the essence of the ingenue lead. winning the day along with Michael Holder in "DeLovely" and "All Through the Night."

Proving it is true that "there are no small roles" were the likes of Sutton Stewart (Captain), Louis Winsberg (Purser), Meghan Phadke (Stewardess), Richard Vagnigno (Bishop), Natalie Nachimson (Soloist), Jennie Chiaramonte (Reporter/Ling), Megan Himel (Cameraperson /Ching), and Lianna Purjes, Julia Rosenfeld (Sailors). The performance was marked by the synchronicity of a total ensemble effort.

Certainly Cole Porter's lyrics and music of this 1936 musical astound us with how well they wear, even when they are topical. The ever lyrical "All Through the Night" as a duet of separated lovers heightens their separation through its spiraling downward flow, but we are lifted up by Reno's Angels (Laura Chzaszcz, Courtney Marello, Amy Rosenfield, Marissa Ur) in a show stopper "Take Me Back to Manhattan." Cole Porter would be proud.

Anything Goes goes because of Candace Parr who masterfully directs the production with a sense of fun, pace, and style. Candace is a budding Hal Prince, with that rare combination of production sense, performance savvy, and a conceptual approach to staging and direction. Anything Goes goes because of the talented students on stage, and the talents of student instrumentalists supporting them in the pit. Conductor Tammy Edwards is poised and keeps the orchestra cohesive and balanced, and even makes a cameo appearance in the second act. The rich choreographic touch of Jeanne Cascio finds just the right moves for the actors and ensemble.

By now, you may have forgotten that this started as a project of music education students who are A Class Act, and who from my perspective are "the top... the Coliseum... The Louvre Museum... the top!" If the future of music education is in the hands of these resourceful, musical, enterprising students, music education is in for a renaissance such as we have never seen before. Look out world...cause here they come! They're the top!

Coffee Times

My mother loved coffee. Mostly it was the idea of coffee. Sipping coffee as she watched the weather and the world go by.

She was a passionate watcher. She loved whatever was unexpected. Coffee was the great mediator of the unexpected. The first time she visited me in the Village after my Father died, we celebrated New York over coffee. Although we went to all the coffee houses in Village (before Starbucks), we also sat on the terrace, which overlooked a garden and included a view of the Empire State Building some thirty blocks away. With our coffee we would watch the clouds marking time, and the glow of sunset over the Hudson, with the shores and cliffs of New Jersey accenting the dwindling light.

Once, a sudden thunderstorm swept through the skyline. It was one of those August electrical displays with lightning crackling all around and thunderclaps exploding in cataclysmic eruptions and rumbling across the sky in fading fierceness. Inevitably, shafts of lightning bolts attacked the top of the Empire State Building. My mother insisted in sitting on the terrace, delighting in the display, despite the driving rain which was soaking the terrace, including us. For her this was a thrilling light show. This was all the more remarkable because I remembered her being afraid of the lightning since as a child she had seen her father struck by lightning while standing in the screendoor during such a thunderburst. Somehow she had overcome that fear. She always was seeking the unusual, such as abruptly driving to Colorado in late August in hopes of finding an early snow among the mountain peaks. She usually found them, and was always exhilerated by such impromptu discoveries.

Just before she visited that August, I had watched a local entrepreneur put together a new coffee place around the corner from our building. It was in a garden-like spot, and the businessman was something of a craftsman as he completely constructed the space over the course of about a month, finishing with a wonderful outdoor terrace in front, a perfect place to watch the Village pass by. I thought of my mother, and wrote to her about the new space which was then called "Coffee Cuisine."

When she arrived, Coffee Cuisine had just opened and proved to be our favorite place aside from the apartment terrace. The weather was idyllic and we sat for hours with our lattes and capuccinos remembering past times and absorbing the spirit of the Village. In fact, if I went out on some business and returned, I would usually finding her sitting outside at Coffee Cuisine. This visit was to be the last time I would see her, and so these times and that place take on a special luster in my memory.

Coffee Cuisine went through several transitions after that, becoming Internet Cafe, and then briefly Leo's Place. Now it is empty, for rent. But as I pass by, I see her sitting there with her coffee, watching the weather and the world go by, and probably wishing for a thunderstorm with snow.

Silence

For me, eloquence is born out of silence.

Everything emanates from the point of nothingness, a dot of infinity, an infinite void... out of which time and being emerge in continuous streaming. We have created a metaphor of this streaming with our electronic media flowing across cyberspace, light and shadow flickering on screens around the world, performing their magic as fast as our connectedness can download successive moments.

For many today, inspiration comes out of the multisensory overload, a kind of Ivesian collage of competing, even conflicting elements vying for dominance among the senses. Out of this pandemonium some grab handfuls of meaning, reshaping experience by remixing the sources. This is the age of remixing. Art has become the sampling of moments. Our process now culminates in the layering of images and sounds, often thick and dense, with a compelling driving rhythm that melds the diversity into a cohesive whole. Rhythm has become a visceral link to a fundamental essence.

Yet, I still listen for the silence.

I have often wondered about the idea of creation being the suddenness of light. Perhaps before the darkness, there was silence, and out of the infinite emptiness came the sounds of beingness, sounds so profound that they shaped order from chaos, modulating the debris of constellations into patterns of delight.

Rain

The rain falls like a mist over everything, an April rain, artful and deceiving.

I walk through the mist of April and look at people hurrying by, shielding themselves from the rain with whatever is handy. Some have umbrellas.

Night is coming with the rain, and the lights of the Village blend and blur with the lights of cars going by. The lamppost through the rain seems almost as though it has been sketched by someone. The wind blows, and gusts shake the trees and street lamps. The trees are leafless, but tiny buds are starting to open. Here and there are cherry and dogwood trees with a certain splendor against a grey and dimming night.

I dreamed of such rainswept nights long ago and far away, when the city gleamed in my consciousness like a distant dream about to happen. I dreamed of the rain. The rain was always the beginning, setting the stage. A story would unfold, slipping from the mystery of the rain like a phantom. The rain is like a curtain opening, and we can see the characters dimly. There they are, waiting for some destiny to tap them on the shoulder.

Now I dream of other cities. The world beckons and I know there are other cities waiting for me in the rain, perhaps in other lifetimes.

Being Wildered

Maybe it is just the approach of Daylight Savings Time, which is always more traumatic for me than any of the solstices. Maybe it is the intrusion of the light of dawn and the light of dusk into the thick of night. Maybe it's the rush of things that always accompany the beginning of spring, when there seems to be so much to do, but your instincts are quietly urging you to celebrate life in ways that depart from your daily routine.

Whatever it is, I find I am bewildered. I wonder what this means, actually. In some way it must mean that I have become wildered. And what is it to be wildered, because wildered is certainly what I am. Answer.com suggests that I am "baffled, befuddled, bemused, confounded, confused, lost, mazed, mixed-up, and at sea." Elsewhere, I discovered it is archaic and wilder once meant to lead astray, and elsewhere bewilder means "to confuse or befuddle, especially with numerous conflicting situations." No wonder this archaic word has persisted into the modern day. Nothing could fit more appropriately with our accelerated times.

Yes, I know the song Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered brought the word back into modern parlance. Yet no one has really parsed the meaning of bewildered in terms of our times and mindset. I have heard the party discussions that suggest that the word means to be "wild," which means to be "out of control." Maybe there is an element of wild in being wildered, but certainly not to the extent of "a walk on the wild side" ---which might be an excursion into the darker side of our being.

Whatever it means, I recognize when I am wildered, and I don't need the dictionary to know that I seem to be wildering more and more as time goes by. My theory is that the older we become, the harder it is to be fully in sync with Now, because the past becomes such heavy baggage that is harder and harder to pull into the present. In sync with Now allows us to filter the barrage of the present, while an enlarged domain that encompasses the past with Now interferes with those filters, since experience brings a deeper set of values to the same incident. We just keep getting wilder and wildered the deeper we go into the infinity of ourselves.

A Wash of Light

i visited what I think of as my singapore muse and found this provocative entry by ismene:

i don't want to be cool.
i want to be a wash of light.

we wrap and unwrap ourselves many times over.

her images are breathtaking... and i find myself in the midst of this wash of light from the east... like a brushstroke of early morning wakening me to the newness of another day unfolding... imagine a shaft of light diffusing and bathing the world in the substance of dawn... imagine the fresh scent of morning bursting into consciousness like a delicious aroma of some exotic condiment of beauty...

if the earth didn't spin creating the cycles of day and night, we would have to invent the night and morning, for we require the renaissance of recurring days... we must "wrap and unwrap ourselves" in a festival of renewal... a wash of light that cleanses the soul and renews the spirit....

Magnificent Sound

The first moment he heard her sing, he was astonished.

Her singing filled the space so completely that there was no sense of location, no voice coming from the direction of a person...just the full, mystifying presence of singing sounding in the fullness of the room. In fact the area was actually a sanctuary, and although it was spacious, the deep contralto voice filling the space seemed to resonate beyond the walls and spill outward.

He had never heard such richness of tone, or smoothness of texture. He thought at first he must be bewitched. He was certain that he must be under some spell, such perfection could only be a magical manifestation.

It was his nature to idolize her because of her singing. He developed his obsession through all the newness that her presence brought to his life. He researched everything he could regarding repertoire for contraltos, great recordings of contraltos, and used these findings to add to her aura.

She had one other irresistible feature that fired his imagination and obsession: she was unattainable---or at least unavailable.

So he began to compose music for her, songs, solos, and cycles. Some of his best work came from that time when he was under the spell of her remarkable voice. They would go through many difficulties, and they were destined to enter forbidden territory. But through all of the turmoil, and hanging on the outskirts of Time itself, the integrity of his discovery remained untouched.

Her musical pervasiveness that had captured his imagination, totally invaded his very existence at a time when he was most vulernable. Ultimately their mutual fragility would doom them. But in the meantime, they would endure and survive in the essence of her magnificent sound, which somehow inextricably bound them in a shared journey of discovery.

Spring is Here

Why doesn't my heart go dancing?

Spring arrived masquerading as winter.

But in my heart, I hear grass greening, see trees leafing, smell shimmering spring showers, taste tanging strawberry tarts , and feel the sunning of the sun. Spring is like the contagion of hope, infecting us with delight and expectation. But winter betrays our trust, and spring delayed paralyzes our reawakening to life renewed, rendering us immobile, ineloquent, and impatient.

But I still remember the countless solstices of spring restoring the cycle of being alive, urging me to explore life and love with greater passion and commitment. I still remember the music spilling from the soul in a festival of song. I still remember the feast of fantasies that fueled my imagination with the celebration of spring.

Spring might be a little late this year.

I Do Not Know

Whose footprint is that paulonia leaf
That drops softly, rousing ripples in the windless air?

whose face is that blue sky
Glimpsed between the threatening, dark clouds
Blown by the west wind after a long rain?

Whose breath is that fragrance in the sky
Over the flowerless tree, over the old tower?

Whose song is that bickering stream
That quietly flows, starting from nowhere
And making the stones weep?

Whose poem is that evening glow
That adorns the fading day,
Its lotus feet standing on the endless sea,
And its jade hands patting the sky?

Burnt ashes become fuel again.
My endlessly burning heart,
Whose night does this
Flickering lamp illumine?

...Yong-Woon Han (1879-1944)
(translated by Chi-Hwan Yu)

Two additional translations of I Don't Know can be found at Pilgrim Priest, an attractive blog about the journey of life.

This poem was the catalyst for a major dance work by Kim Myung-sook which premiered in Seoul, October 2005, and has been officially recognized for its contribution to Korean cultural life. Kim's dance company, Nulhui, has explored Korean cultural values and aesthetic ideas with stunning success in the past and has projected its work through performances incorporating ancient practices and modern technology. Kim's new work will be described in a later blog, but for now, the poem speaks from its time to ours. Han was a Korean Zen Buddhist whose poetry provides a legacy in the context of the resistance to Japan's occupation of Korea.

The poem's shifting images raise questions of identity, ownership, and belonging. At first we might think we are being led into meditation that awakes us to the source of Being. But there are disturbing images "threatening, dark clouds...the flowerless tree...the old tower...the stones weep...burnt ashes..." This is much more than meditation. There is a confrontation that emerges from the stillness. The past is recycled and renewed, and a core of being burns endlessly, while a flickering lamp illumines the night, but just whose night is this? This emergence of the underlying Korean spirit denying the subjugation of foreign occupation is an eloquent image. Inside is the "endlessly burning heart," the passion and identity of the Korean psyche, while outwardly the lamp may illumine, but its light is flickering... perhaps ebbing ... perhaps yielding to the spiritual intensity within.

The poem celebrates the timeless Korean environment: the "paulonia leaf...the blue sky...the dark clouds...the west wind...the long rain...the stream...the stones...the evening glow...the lotus...the endless sea...the night..." the quiet and awesome wonder anticipated by the title, I Do Not Know.

Who owns this night? Whose footprint...whose face...whose breath...whose song...whose poem...whose night...? these images silently tear the soul...

Underneath the text, the poet seems to be asking Have we forgotten who we are? The underlying answer to each question is that these all belong to and emanate from the Korean Spirit.

No Accidents

There are many that argue that the universe is a chaotic chance generator, that the creation of life itself was simply an accident, and that accidents drive the sequence of events despite all the "best laid plans."

They may be confusing the element of surprise with accidents. Surprise can be part of the joy of living, when the unexpected erupts into the moment catching us unawares. The present may be the leading edge of existence, and yet, my sense of accidents is that they "happen" for a reason, and if that is true, they are not accidents at all.

People come into our lives seemingly by chance, simply sharing proximity, or mistaken identity, or colliding physically or mentally, and as time unfolds, we make meaning from such aleatoric encounters, often suddenly understanding that our lives have been immensely transformed in ways that are meaningful and decisive. Chance was the catalyst for change.

Was this predetermined? Pre-ordained? Events in motion, like filaments in an infinite tapestry shape the present in extraodinary ways. However, this is much different than cosmic events in which comets may collide with planets whether or not we are witness to the event. The difference of accidents within the domain of human experience is the conscious awareness of humanity experiencing and interpreting Time as emerging reality, a reality that is necessarily ambigious. The ambiguity provides a point of departure, so that our knowledge of the moment and truth is personal.

In one sense it is simultaneously "accident/no accident" and our experience and consciousness shapes this balanced yin and yang into some interpretation of the moment according to our predisposition. Since accident always includes its opposite, the debate of a universe governed by chance or structure is an inexhaustible discourse whose rhetoric may influence us in vacillating directions over time--never reaching a final resolution.

Yakitori Taisho & St. Marks Place

Walking in NYC's Greenwich Village from west to east on 8th street, you pass into the east village as you cross Broadway. You enter a kind of no-man's land called Astor Place with Cooper Union, street vendors and musicians and a curious cube near the subway. As you continue east you enter the twilight zone, a stretch of 8th street so bizaare that it is given a different name: St. Marks Place (named for St. Marks-in-the-Bowery, two blocks north).

The moment you enter St. Marks Place you sense a different vibe. It has been that way for decades, even though the vibes have changed as times have changed. There is enormous energy that infuses you, a heightened awareness as though you somehow were on some substance that once and always flows freely everywhere. But you don't have to be high to experience high. You are sped along a vivid sensitivity just by the surge of people who have keen perception and a zest for living in the moment.

Yakitori Taisho is not exactly a restaurant...it is more like a happening that is spilling over into available crevices and spaces along St. Marks Place. Inside, the chefs are spirited and appear to be having the time of their life. Yakitori seems to be like tempura exploded inside out with every conceivable way of preparing a vast array of vegetables, meat, and creatures from the sea on skewars, in pancakes, and free form assemblages that exist like new edible art forms.

But while the food is the excuse for going to this establishment...the real attraction is the people. People start to arrive early, waiting outside for an available table, sometimes for hours, despite the expansion of Taisho into several spaces. And why not? You could be in the middle of a scene from a new novel...a new F. Scott Fitzgerald or a John Updike capturing a new time and a new culture, or a new movie from Tarantino, who might have already invented such a place in a script written and forgotten long ago. Overnight these blocks have quickly adopted a brash Japanese style, and the absorption of the west by the east is now re-introduced like a cultural isotope slowly dwindling in half-life stages as it morphs into yet something else new and different. The catalyst is the people, the individuals whose energies and dispositions clash in a fusion of hiphop, rock, jazz, heavy metal, and folk genres.

Wildly cataclysmic...

An American in Topeka

As I moved into middle school, my interests seemed to shift more toward journalism. I had abandoned my musical development and composition, stopping my improvisation activities for about three years. I had always had a romance with the fifth estate, starting a neighborhood paper when I was about nine, and then a newspaper for my scout troop, and then a homeroom newspaper in junior high school known as the 205 Home Rumor. This newspaper created such a scandal that the school was disrupted by students at homeroom period massing around room 205 trying to get the latest copy. This reached crisis proportions in that the homeroom paper was in greater demand than the official newpaper of the school.

The faculty sponsor threatened to resign unless I agreed to stop publishing the Home Rumor and serve as editor of school paper. This added to my background as a journalist, which I continued to develop through high school. It was quite an education. We would collect and write the news, type and edit the copy, and deliver the edition to a town about twenty minutes away where a printer specialized in school papers.

There was to be a journalism convention in Topeka Kansas, and my faculty sponsor made arrangements for us to attend over the Thanksgiving weekend, leaving Friday by train and returning Monday. At the last minute, a family emergency made it impossible for the faculty spnsor to attend, and so I struck out for Topeka alone.

The train ride was magical. The rhythm of the wheels against the tracks was intoxicating, and as a fifteen year old journalist, I was living a Gershwin fantasy in real life. Fascinating rhythm!

The conference was terrific, and I was dazzled by the lights of the "big city." On Sunday I went to a film that had opened that weekend called An American in Paris, and suddenly my life was changed. I drifted out of the movie house in a haze, dazzled by the flim and the lights of Topeka. Returning to the hotel, I strolled to the elevator, and once in, I impulsively pushed the button for the Penthouse.

The elevator door opened on a darkened deserted ballroom. Across the floor was an opened grand piano silhouetted against the lights of the city. I hadn't touched a piano for more than three years, but I took my place at the keyboard and began to play. I improvised throughout the night, recreating the music of the film and then delving into new ideas and new regions of sounds I had never known before. I played for hours, fueled by Gershwin, the film, Gene Kelly, Oscar Levant, the city lights and my fantasies.

Although I continued to pursue journalism, music resumed as the major driving force in my life, and I felt as though I had discovered my true identity...at last in touch with a part of me that had been in denial... an American in Topeka launched on a new trajectory...

Chasing Reflections in the Window

He sat at a counter in a coffee shop. He was in a hurry, and focused on trying to cool the liquid in the cup so he could drink it. He sipped slowly at the surface of the coffee and as he did he noticed an image in the shimmer of the coffee reflected from the plate glass window next to his seat. He turned to look at the reflection in the window...

She was ravishingly beautiful with long, black, flowing hair framing a pale, expressive face, finely shaped eyebrows arching over dark blue eyes...a wistful look, almost on the verge of a smile. He could take in this detail without embarrassment because these facets were captured by the image reflected in the window...

As long as he focused on the reflection he could see her every expression in rich detail, and he marvelled that the mind could separate the layers of visual stimulation so successfully. If he relaxed his focus, her image fused with the surroundings outside the window, people walking by, cars parked a long the curb, and traffic pulsing along the street. It was like two totally different dimensions, two worlds alien to each other existing side by side.

Actually three worlds. He turned to steal a direct glance at her beauty. He could catch the edge of her profile. He could see her better in the reflection. She had ordered coffee and was waiting for it to cool as she added some milk. She started to turn toward him.

He quickly averted his gaze and focused on sipping his coffee. The coffee shop was crowded, and though you could hear the buzz of conversations, it seemed strangely quiet. He glanced at her reflection and marvelled at her presence. She had a regal essence that seemed sharply etched in the glass. He savored the charisma of her aura in the window.

Too soon, she arose to go, and when he finally turned to see her for a final glimpse, she was gone.

He paid his bill and ran out of the shop. The street was crowded and busy. He looked up and down the street, and suddenly found her flowing black hair and black coat in a large mirror outside a barbershop. He ran toward her reflection, but she had vanished.

He walked through the streets seeking some echo of her, hopeful and inspired. He felt certain she might appear if he kept searching,

the identities of jack, jerome and oscar

even before there was the possibity of assuming different identities on the internet, i recognized the freedom released if we might be more than one person...

what makes identity? are we what we do?

once i met a very insightful woman who was entering her fifth decade. somehow in her twenties she had made up her mind to change her profession every ten years. at the time, i was mystified by her courage and determination. it also seemed a remarkable way to think of one's self... not anchored by some decision early in life, but free to pursue new treasures through new pathways. at the time i met her, she was launching a new career as a film director, having been a teacher in the previous decade, and a writer before that. i think career choices touch on issues of identity, but i have always thought that identity was something more than what we do.

the woman was engaged in a linear transformation every decade, a new journey following an earlier engagement. and somehow i sensed that she did not regard these adventures as new identities but rather a deepening of the spirit through a wide range of exploration and achievement.

i am somehow refreshed by the thought that our lives can be more flexible and spontaneous by allowing ourselves to be more than what we may choose for a career... to understand that we can carry on many pursuits without surrendering the integrity of our humanity or betraying some notion of a value system that comfortably tucks us away in the pigeon holes we dig for ourselves.

not too long ago, i knew someone who was not only himself as jack, but also existed as jerome and oscar. the individuals in this trio had distinctive personalities, unique handwriting, and differing perspectives on life. they each loved the same girl and competed for her affection through letters and poems. she was very flattered by the attention, and wondered why she never had the chance to meet these suitors who seemed to know so much about her and celebrated her virtues through daily letters and notes left for her in curious places. far from being schizoidal, this was a playful vignette that unfolded as daily adventures and intrigue.

that was at a time when the world was more naive and innocent. now we live in a world full of menace and peril... many individuals are in the business of stealing identities... and fraud lurks as a lingering possibility in almost every encounter...

yet each of us may have multiple layers of existence stretching back to the beginning of the cosmos, many identities reflecting the infinity of being... expressed in the moment of becoming whoever we are or really may be in the next instant...