Category Archives: Beethoven

25 Years Later

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Tomorrow marks the 25th anniversary of the day two teenager held me up on a Brooklyn street. One put a gun to my head and fired. He and his accomplice, who was rifling through my pockets when the trigger was pulled, got $63 for their efforts. The bullet is still lodged in the brain and I take great pleasure in feigning disappointment that I do not set off  airport alarms (if you were hoping for a humor free essay you might as well stop reading now).

To this day there are occasions when, upon hearing about the shooting, a person will lean forward, their brow furrowed a bit, and say things like,  "Did it change you?", or, "Is life different?" or, "Do you understand life in a way you didn’t before?" Honest questions all, but I always get the impression that the asker believes being part of an extraordinary act of violence automatically results in a deeper understanding of life. It doesn’t. At least I don’t think it does.

The experience did give me a new appreciation for the importance of ducking. It certainly increased my awareness of the human capacity for cruelty. And, it has helped me to remember to live, not miss the moment I’m in,  and not miss the chance to tell people I love that I love them.

Much has changed in the last 25 years and there is nothing unique in that. Some wonderful things in life have happened as a result of the shooting. I have been given the gift of being able to work with survivors of brain injury, their families and people in the health care field.

The health care field itself exposes you to wonderful people and to people who have a capacity for cruelty that outdoes the cruelty of shooting an innocent person in the head. Health care providers who see and treat people with disabilities as sub-human beings that are on this earth so they can make a profit ought to be jailed. I know one owner of a community-based program who has run clinical meetings for people in the program and doesn’t have one iota of training as a clinician, yet his ego is so distorted and the lack of regulations so prominent, he gets away with it, to the detriment of those receiving services in the program. I know another director of a brain injury program who told the wife of a brain injury survivor, with her husband present, that there needed to be a funeral for her husband because he no longer exists and she and her husband needed to allow this director and his team of sycophants to re-create him. By comparison, the kid who shot me was simply having a bad day.

There is another thing the shooting gave me. An appreciation for having a bucket list, though it wasn’t until the movie came out that I became aware of the term bucket list. I was, however, aware of experiences I wanted  and want to have before my time is up. I want to meet Bruce Springsteen and thank him for the role his songs had in helping me stay alive during some dark times. I’d like to visit the Grand Canyon and spend a week or more exploring the canyon itself. I want to stand in a room that Beethoven was in, and in a room Tolstoy was in, and in a room Dickens was in. I’d even like to get married again some day, really share life with a soul mate. I’d like my daughter and I to have a relationship again before time’s up.  And, of course, I want to write and write and write. The list goes on.

One other thing, I’d like to thank God with all my heart and soul that I am alive 25 years later to even have a bucket list,  and write this essay for you.

 

Fury Over the Lost PC

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On my writing table is a bust of Beethoven, a childhood hero of mine. He once wrote a short piano piece of fury and heartbreak called Fury Over the Lost Penny. It’s not a long piece but there is enough fury and heartbreak in it to last a lifetime. He wrote it after a coin he’d set aside for food fell into his piano and was lost forever. Well, that is how I feel this morning. My PC has crashed, crashed to the point it will not even boot up. I get these warning signs saying more damage will be done if Windows allows it to boot up. Been a long time since I’ve had an overwhelming urge to break any, well, windows.

Being on a fixed income this event is, in a word, a disaster. Worst of all, I’d just begun writing a piece that I fear is lost forever. All my other writing is saved, thankfully, but this piece I fear is lost and I loved it, as I love all the things I write, even when they suck, and most do. I’m writing this feeble piece on what can best be described as a Model T Laptop.

Lousy morning. The good news is I will be sober seven years tomorrow and don’t think I don’t know I’d be handling this a lot differently if I wasn’t sober.

The Freedom of You

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I remember songs.

Songs that moved my stride forward, lifted my head up. In the dark days of hunger and homelessness songs kept me warm, fed, loved, gave me air to breathe. Through all my life music carried me through Certain songs in certain times got me to the sunrise and let me rest my head in peace after sunsets drifted to deep blue, then black.

I don’t know what lifts your spirits, but I can tell you they deserve to be lifted. I don’t know what feeds your soul and fills your heart, but your soul deserves feeding and your heart has a right to be full.

Today I saw an old clip of Emerson, Lake and Palmer singing “Lucky Man,” one of those magic songs that wet my eyes and moved my heart. There were many, many others. For years Bob Dylan kept me going and for many years since it has been Bruce Springsteen.

Always Beethoven has mirrored my soul, jazz my mind, Steinbeck, Dickens, Tolstoy and others the thoughts that fill my mind.

Yet, when all is said and done, freedom seems to me to be the clarion call. Freedom for us all. Freedom to be who we are safely in the world we live in, unhindered by the bigotry and hatreds of others. Free of our histories, of the poisonous trappings of stereotypes.

Freedom to be you is what my heart and soul wishes for you.

And so, I can think of no better song then the one I place below. Paste it into your browser and enjoy. Take it with you through your days. Let it lift you, bring a smile to your face, maybe tears of joy and hope to your eyes, and fullness to your heart.

You are here to be you, it is your right to be you in freedom and peace, after all, you can’t have one without the other.

Go ahead now. Give it a listen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o9WUCqQzS0
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ON RELATIONSHIPS: I STILL BELIEVE

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Someone asked me recently if I still believed in the possibility of a truly wonderful and loving romantic relationship. They seemed somewhat surprised when, without hesitation, I said I did. But look at what you’ve been through, they exclaimed, pointing to parts of my history that can understandably be seen as potential impediments to my ability to believe a loving romantic relationship is a possibility in life.


Well, I said, If I were to give my history that kind of control, then it would still be damaging me, now wouldn’t it? I don’t think it deserves that kind of power, do you?


No, they said. But do you really think being swept off your feet, you know, all that heart pounding stuff, the butterflies and all, you really think that’s possible?


Of course, I said. It’s part of nature. Nature is life and life happens to us whether we like it or not. If you are walking in the rain, the rain hits you doesn’t it? It doesn’t give a rat’s ass about your history, how old you are, how tall or short or thin or fat. No bigotry in nature. The thing is to be brave enough to accept life, and sometimes I think accepting the beautiful miraculous things in life, like falling in love with someone and their falling in love with you, is scarier than the frightening things.


Why?


Because if it is going to work, to flourish, you have to be willing to be you fully in the relationship. So if the all of you is present, it can feel like the all of you is at risk. Equally important, you have to be willing to allow the other person to be who they are. People are always going around trying to abbreviate each other without even realizing it. Like you fall in love with the entire person and then when they feel the same way you get terrified and then, usually without realizing it, you try and pare them down into a Reader’s Digest version of themselves, no offense to Reader’s Digest, by the way.


You baffle me.


Get in line. Look, my closest friend in the world is deeply in love with a wonderful woman and she is deeply in love with him. And he is older than I am. People spend so much time worrying about life, what will or won’t be ,that they forget to live it. These two live their lives together, and therein lays the wonder of it all.


Meaning?


I see relationships all over the place where the two people might be together, but they aren’t sharing life together. People in marriages or live-in relationships where the only thing they really share in life is the bills, if that. It’s heartbreaking.


And what about Gay marriages, the opposition to Gay marriages?


Oh, please. The opposition to Gay marriages is rooted in ignorance, which far too often is fueled by hatred. Hatred is a major fuel for ignorance and vice versa, you ask me. I was friends for quite a few years with two women that were a couple. Man, let me tell. you They really loved each other. I mean adored each other. They worked together, owned a business together, cared deeply about each other. If people were able to see a relationship like that for what it really is, two people that really love each other, and maybe stop giving their histories or antiquated belief systems so much control over them, maybe they would grow a little. I mean is there too much love going on between people these days?


And what do you mean when you talk about sharing life as opposed to – ?


I mean what is the point of simply being tenants in each other’s life?


No point.


I think the joy of a relationship, the pay off if you will, is to be able to share life together. Obviously, individuality is important; you don’t give up who you are for another person. But I can think of things that I dream of, like seeing the Grand Canyon or going to Germany and standing in a room where Beethoven lived and other things that I’d love to share. That’s the wonder of it. And share too what she loves. It’s heartbreaking when you see two people together who are so over yet they are afraid to declare their independence. Sad shit for sure.


So you still believe.


Of course… why shouldn’t I?

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