COVER -> RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT
THE POSTMAN NEVER RINGS - The postman came late today. Very late. That's because he was a substitute. On this street we have a postwoman. She's very nice. I was especially aware of postal delivery today because I was expecting a special envelope from my "Unca Eddie" in Michigan. The envelope is to stave off the wolves of my poverty and keep me afloat until I rise, like cream or Lazarus, take your pick.
How poor am I right now? Well, the rats --- who I used to depend on to fight with the wolf at the door --- took off for greener pastures. They liked to eat and my place had become slim pickings. The dime I had left, too. It wanted another dime to rub against itself. My last sou wanted to take me to court. My idea of a roaring fire had become lighting a match.
You get the picture.
When the mail sub arrived with Unca Eddie's Care package, I rushed right downstairs. Inside the envelope was a group of Franklins and a couple of Grants. I had never been so happy to see Dead Presidents in my life. Other folks have helped me --- they've been paying my rent this last two months! --- but this was enough to cover my bills and my tax payment, too. I could breathe and sleep for a while.
As Eddie said, I love to play the "tough guy." So he snapped on me. He wrapped this quote, from Dashiell Hammet (one of my icons) around the cash:
"But that's the part of it I always liked. He adjusted himself to beams falling, and then no more of them fell, and he adjusted himself to them not falling.." --- Maltese Falcon
Funny guy. That's why we're friends I think.
It reminded me of something Lynda said in a letter, paraphrasing Hemingway, when I lived in Egypt: "It's easy to be hard-bitten during the day, but at night...."
Yeah, even back then, as a kid, it was obvious to everybody else that I would always play the tough guy. Sam Spade, Phillip Marlowe.
It's not easy being a tough guy, though. You take it on the chin a lot. You get tired of having broken ribs and some other guy's shoe-print on your ass.
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Yo and I talked about this heavy stuff that happens to us in that telephone conversation, too. It's not easy being an emotional orphan, we know, so we have worked on getting ourselves back to some kind of wholeness.
So tomorrow, thanks to Darryl, my brother in Pennsylvania, I pay my rent. And thanks to Unca Eddie I pay the utilities and go out and buy some food. I get another few days of breathing room and re-enter the human race.
Was it that close to "crash and burn," to oblivion? YES. But I had taken the path of Love, I had decided, and showers of blessings were waiting to happen for me.
And they did...
The most moving memory I have of my parents is that of listening to them sing together in church. They both had beautiful and moving voices. I remember them singing "Amazing Grace" and "It is No Secret" and bringing all of us to tears. The expressions on their faces, my mother and father, were mirrors of rapture. For that moment, all of their pains and woes disappeared. For that moment, they had a glimpse of transcendence and took all of us sitting in the audience with them. My father often said that if we were open to it, the Lord, the Universe, whatever you want to call it, would offer us showers of blessings.
I wanted to believe that was true.
But my experience of the world was that you had to be a tough guy because it's a cold world. I've always been an exemplar of Dr. Dre's saying that "niggaz gottah supply they own heat."
As I've told you, I'm an extremely slow learner.
Part of the reason Yo and I are friends is because, I think, she saw that in me from the beginning. Maybe Lynda saw that, too. It takes me a while to see things that other people take as a natch. I live in my head and in my dreams.
What I'm learning right now, something all of the rest of you probably knew, is that I need to let Rod be Rod.
I can't "fit in" because I don't, won't, and whenever I try to I fight my best instincts I go down the wrong path. BUT when I just go with it the stars are the limit and I am showered with blessings. Thanks, Unca Eddie, for reminding me of that...
I am learning about compassion, my biggest advocacy, in a new way.
The mission of this magazine, you know, is to provoke more compassion out of you. The world IS a cold place. You have to look no further than Northern Ireland, the Middle East, the Balkans, the former Soviet Union, China, or the house next door on your street to see that. Ask your kids what it's like to attend public school. Or ask your neighbor why he or she drives that world-killing car to work alone every day. We don't just hurt ourselves with how we live, we hurt the entire planet. Cold.
But I keep dreaming of something better. That's why the G21 is here.
The hardest part of learning about compassion for me has been learning that, while looking out, I have to look in too. Do you know what I mean? Love has to do with issues of the spirit. And I'm not talking your usual pieties. What I'm referring to is the ability to release oneself from the need to be accepted by the majority view of what is right. That is a challenge.
That challenge is to be unacceptable in the eyes of the world and embrace a higher standard of living. That challenge is to see that if any single person is diminished, we are all diminished; if any one person is raised up, so are we all.
IF I learned faster, I might have seen this years ago. But I keep listening to what everyone else thinks the world and life are all about --- you know, Reality Checks. So it takes me a while to get it right.
WEDNESDAY UPDATE: THE UNIVERSE seems to be saying I've found my Bliss. No sooner do I get home from paying off rent, phone, utilities, dropping off my huge bag of laundry and filing a story for Silicon.com than two things happen today:
- My editor e-mails me to cover a new story.
- A FedEx truck pulls up with CatMail from beloved friends out in California "Go out an eat some Jambalaya!" they say (to get me in the New Orleans mood.)
And, yo, Ed! Happy Birthday to you and Ben Franklin.
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