Monthly Archives: October 2008

REMEMBERING GERALD ARPINO

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I loved Gerald Arpino very much. A choreographer and one of the founders of the Joffrey Ballet, Mr. Arpino died this week at his home in Chicago. He was 85. I learned a great deal from him. He was a man of kind and gentle heart. His intelligence was formidable and his choreography was both courageous and extraordinary.


In 1967 at age 13, I danced a principal role in “Elegy,” one of his ballets. Set to Polish composer Andrzej Panufnik’s extraordinary 22-minute anti-war symphony, Sinfonia Elegiaca, “Elegy” was the story of a Confederate soldier from the American Civil War, danced by Maximiliano Zamosa. Just when he is blindfolded and tied to a tree to be executed by a firing squad of Union soldiers, he has a flashback to the halcyon days with his wife and children.



I danced the role of his son and Charthelle Arthur and Susan Magno took turns dancing the role of his daughter. Noel Mason, as beautiful and elegant a ballerina as I have ever seen, danced the role of his wife. It is at the end of a dance between father and son that the flashback ends, the father is pulled back into the horror of his reality and executed.


The rehearsals were extraordinary experiences. Hard working and sweat filled with Mr. Arpino focused and intense, pushing us to breathe life into our characters, and never failing to seek the input of the dancers, including mine!


After the execution, there was a funeral scene. I had a small wooden sword tucked in my belt. At one point I break free of my mother’s hand and dance a solo wielding the sword because, as Mr. Arpino said, “You are following in your father’s footsteps and at the same time you are trying to kill those who killed him.”



Mr. Arpino turned me loose in my solo. He never told me what steps to do and instead sat back and freed me, allowing me to pour my all into it. The solo ended when my mother took the sword from me, determined that her son would not die the way her husband.


But Mr. Arpino taught me more about life than just ballet. He and others in the Joffrey helped me discover that those who are gay are no different than anyone else. I had fallen in love with the ballet when I was five and began training in earnest when I was eight. I was an ignorant little homophobe whose idea of homosexuality had about as much to do with reality as the Wizard of Oz. And, while my dancing career was cut short by a series of unforeseen circumstances, I left that career no longer burdened by the poison of homophobia. Mr. Arpino and others taught me that you you don’t have to be heterosexual to be a real man.


When Mr. Arpino died this week, the world lost a wonderful human being and a real man. Like I said, I loved him very much. Still do.

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WRITING MY WHOLE WIDE WORLD

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“You can go ahead and write now,” he said, smiling at me. “Now’s the time.”

“But I feel like when I do I’m non-existent, as if nothing matters, like it’s all a waste.”

“You’re wrong, Pete. Think about what you teach others, that our feelings may not be exactly what is, other than they are our true feelings.”

The younger man stood and walked over to a window that looked out over an expanse of rolling verdant hills that seemed to stretch on forever. “It feels like I’m leaving you behind.”

“If you write?”

“If I go ahead and write, maybe do an open mic night, but especially if I write.”

“I’m the one who left you, Peter.”

“You died. You never left me.”

“Well then? What makes you think you’ll be leaving me if you go ahead and write to your heart’s content? You’re almost done with the memoir; you’ve got two novels started and the third book about working with brain injury.”

The younger man turns away from the window and looks at the soft-warm image of the older man, his father. “I don’t know, Daddy. That’s one I can’t figure out.”

“Maybe that’s why I’m here… Remember the time you ran away to Tarrytown when we lived in Nyack. You and Bobby wanted to see those girls, Jody and Noel?”

The younger man laughs. “You remember their names.”

“We have the all of our memories here. Do you remember?”

“Yes, Dad. I remember.”

“You and Bobby took the battery from Poppop’s Mercedes so you could start Pascal’s boat.”

“God. That was a shitty thing to do.”

“True. Funny as hell though. Even Poppop thought so.”

“Really?”

“Sure. He got up that morning; his car wouldn’t start, so he called the Mercedes dealer in Englewood. The dealer sends a mechanic to the house. Imagine their surprise when before Poppop could even turn the key, the mechanic had the hood up saying, “I think I know the problem, Mr. Beach.””

“You and Poppop caught us.”

“Well for God sakes, Peter, it’s kind of hard not noticing you and Bobby lugging the battery across the lawn moaning and groaning about how heavy it was.”

Father and son laugh, hug, and sit down on the couch.

“Do you remember what we talked about when you came back that time?”

“We were sitting on the couch like now. That I needed to be careful not to base all my decisions just on my emotions.”

“And what stops you from writing?”

“I’m afraid I’m leaving you behind, leaving you alone.”

“That’s emotion, don’t let that by itself be what stops you. And you’re not leaving me alone at all if you write, Peter. I am never without you. I think you fear something else even more though.”

The younger man places the palms of his hands on the back of his knees, leans forward and for a moment presses down hard on both. He then leans back into the couch and lets out a sigh, as if something in him has surrendered, or opened.

“I think you are afraid you will lose me. That if you go ahead and write, when you’re done, you’ll look up and I’ll be gone.” He reaches out and takes his son’s hand. “Peter, I would no more leave you than you would leave me. How many speeches have you given where you said you’d give up the rest of your life in a heartbeat just to hug meone more time?”

“I don’t know.”

“A lot. Don’t you think I hear you? Of course I do. I am so proud of you. I love you and I’m proud of you no matter what you do. I am especially happy for you and for myself frankly when I see you do things I know you want to do.”

“Like write.”

“Like write.”

“I love you my whole wide world, Daddy.”

“I love you my whole wide world too, Peter.”
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RICHARD BAILEY & OUR ADDICTION TO VIOLENCE

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All murders are wrenching. All murders rip into the heart and soul of a community without mercy. Rarely do they seem to make sense. The murder of 22-year-old Richard Bailey in Albany New York this week is no exception. A student at the University of Albany and from all accounts a good and decent young man, Mr. Bailey, a Wantaugh New York native, was shot in the head and killed while walking home to his on-campus apartment October 20.


I don’t know what Mr. Bailey’s last moments were like. My guess, from the sound of things, is he was unconscious for whatever moments in life remained for him after the trigger was pulled. I know when I was shot in the head at point blank range on August 24, 1984, I regained consciousness and the blistering my moments on the ground bleeding to death are beyond the reach of words, my words anyway.


Here is what I do know. We live in a society that is addicted to violence. We live in a society that at every turn teaches us that a true measure of your strength is measured by the size of our capacity to be violent. Look around you: video games, movies, television. It is everywhere. To get free of any addiction, we as a society must go through a withdrawal of sorts. Better that form of withdrawal than to experience one life after another being withdrawn from our midst.


We had better return en masse to the methods of non-violence. I am convinced beyond measure that it is the only way. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a hero of mine for as long as I’ve had memory, once compared non-violence to water. He said, “Non-violence is like water. If you have a fire and you throw a bucket of water on it and it doesn’t go out, it doesn’t mean water doesn’t put out fire. It means you need more water.”


Wherever you live, consider doing something non-violent to contribute to peace in your community, and, perhaps more importantly, in your family. I’ve sent a note to an Albany clerk expressing my interest in helping the Albany Gun Violence Task Force. There’s even talk about creating a position for an anti-violence coordinator. Were the position to be approved by the council, I might apply for it. I would urge the Task Force to consider changing it’s name to the Albany Anti-Violence task force. Let the name of this extraordinary group of people cover all forms of violence. Whether the position is approved or not, I will help the task force in any way I can.

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BUDDHA SAYS SHINE

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Buddha said, “Meditate. Live purely. Be quiet. Do your work with mastery. Like the moon, come out from behind the clouds! Shine.”

When I read this I lit up with a smile, the kind of smile one wears when listening to the welcome voice of an old friend. With a gentle soft clear intimate focus I heard “come out from behind the clouds! Shine.” Be you. Go ahead and be you. Be you, and shine.

Isn’t that what it is all about? Giving our permission to be who we are in the world? Freeing ourselves of the shackles of our histories, or the inaccurate, damaging and dysfunctional messages we’ve been give about ourselves throughout our life journeys. As horrifying and damaging messages of bigotry aimed at blacks, Latinos, gays, lesbians, and too many others have been, the message whites have all too often given themselves is just a damaging. No one can be morally or spiritually right-sized if they cast themselves above or below a fellow human being.

Be you. Be you and shine.

So much can in our way of that. And there so much we allow to get in the way of that: the opinions of others, greed, materialism, money, looks, whatever we’ve come to believe strength, and so forth.

Buddha said, “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”

And there it is, being present in the moment you are in. I am learned that the moment I’m in is the only place I’m obliged to be. As a close friend of mine recently said to me, “Remember, the moment you’re in is the only place you have to be.”

Be in the moment, be you. And shine.
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STRENGTH & THE ART OF ACCEPTANCE

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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “The true measure of a man’s strength is not where he stands in times of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy.”



Dr. King has been a hero of mine for as long as I’ve had memory, and I have tried to follow his example to the best of my ability. Have I always succeeded? Not even close. But, I am doing my best.


Life happens to us whether we like it or not. We are naive, foolish, arrogant or a combination of all three to believe any differently. Given that I am presently in a struggle to avoid homelessness, now is the time for me to help others. Perhaps the most effective way I can do that is to talk about some of the (forgive the overused word) strategies I use.


I believe we have a relationship with everything in life. Therefore, like a relationship between two people, these relationships can be healthy or unhealthy. Remember too that healthy does not mean free of pain, fear or anxiety. It means, I believe, that honesty in our hearts must be present.


In order for that kind of honesty to be front and center, we must begin by what I believe is the most important step of all. Acceptance. We must accept the reality we are in, the challenge we face. We must accept our experience of the reality in which we find ourselves. However, acceptance does not mean we are giving in. Let me repeat; acceptance does not mean giving in.



The acceptance equation goes like this; you have to accept it in order to manage it and you have to manage it in order to be free of it, in order to develop a healthy relationship with whatever the challenge or problem might be.


If you don’t practice the art of acceptance and avoid it, whatever is getting in your way of your right to be who you are safely in the world around you is likely to control you and, in Shakespearean parlance, Kick your ass for the rest of your life.


Acceptance takes courage, strength. Not the Hollywood definition of strength, or the bullshit strength myths believed by many in my country and I suspect other countries too. Myths like strength means don’t cry; strength means don’t admit you’re afraid; strength means don’t ask for help; strength means don’t admit you can’t do something by yourself. All not true. After all, if it is act of weakness for you to cry, then why is it so hard to do? If it is an act of weakness to admit you’re afraid, then why is it so hard to do?


More often than not, real strength is not a pleasant experience. But the results of giving yourself permission to believe and discover the wealth of real strength within you will bring remarkable and wonderful change and growth to your life. If you allow yourself to use your real strength to enact the art of acceptance you will get to be you in life, and that is a glorious thing. You deserve the experience. We all do.


The strength needed to practice the art of acceptance means allowing yourself to go through the emotional experience. Go ahead and feel the fear, the sadness, the confusion, the anxiety…like most things in life they run their course. And once they have and you come out the other side you realize that you did it, you made it. You are, in a very real way, free. Free to be who you are.


It doesn’t get much better than that.

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