Enlightening Nonsense

I’m on vacation this week in Florida, hanging with the parents in their Delray condo which they inhabit for the winter months, as Jews can walk for forty years in the desert but three months of cold New York weather and they fall apart like a vegan latke whose egg replacer just didn’t hold. I come down each year for about a week and it’s usually a good time: lounging around the beach or the pool all day, reading, bullying gray hairs on the shuffle board court, hitting a multitude of all-you-can-eat buffets for dinner and being done by 5:30 p.m. and checking out a few flicks. The artificially dyed cherry at the top of the Jewy sundae is that my parents don’t let me take a dollar out of my own pocket. It gets annoying at times, like when I’m like, “Guys seriously, I need to wash my pants so I have to take out my money,” but I make due.

The other day we had dinner with my Mom’s stepmother, Sue. Long story short: she was an abusive mother but as a 94-year old, she’s decent company. Step-grandma Sue resides at an assisted living place that was overly perfumed to cover the smell of urine and death, where she is provided with someone to bathe her, dress her, 2-3 meals and literally 30 pills a day. I’m thinking of moving in just for the drugs! At that night’s Early Bird Buffet, I asked Sue if she had any good friends in her asylum. She said no. I asked why.

“There are three men who I sit with at meals. Let me tell you who they are. One is blind in one eye. The next has Alzheimer’s. The last is always complaining about his health.”

I told her how someone’s physical condition isn’t who someone is but it seemed she was more interested in stuffing down her plate of pasta than my equally stringy spiritual philosophy. When I excused myself for my third plateful of air to fill up my soon to be “spare tire,” my Dad followed me and said, “I just wanted to say that I thought that was a very good point you made.” As much as I, like everyone, wants my father’s approval, I was like, “That’s nice, old man. Now back to the table and don’t ever interrupt my feeding frenzy again!”

The next day after a bowl of cantaloupe and watermelon chunks and a peanut butter and banana sandwich on the patio (the sandwich was on a plate, not in the same bowl), my parents and I went to a nature preserve where we saw birds and alligators and flowers. A highlight was the ducks that would submerge their head and upper body underwater to feed, leaving only their asses sticking out of the water. I found myself strangely aroused and worried that I would now be unable to see a 50s hairstyle without popping wood.

When we got home I crashed for a few hours, only to be awakened by my father in a rather annoying way. First he rubbed my head in what I suppose was a loving manner with his hand, although after serving a 10-year stint at San Quentin for child molestation, I questioned whether I was being rubbed in a perverted way and prayed that it was in fact his hand that was doing the rubbing. But when my eyes opened and I was in that barely conscious state, he started talking Mothereze and shaking his arms and hips like Urkel from that retarded television show “Family Matters” dancing.

Adding that trauma to the list of dozens that has helped shape me into the sociopath I am today, we were off to Sweet Tomato for my favorite all-you-can-shove-down-your-throat buffet. After dinner we went to the Caldwell Theater Company’s production of “Dangerous,” which involved nudity, guys kissing guys, guys kissing girls, and an young actor who I met in New York whose eyes I will now have to avert, having seen his penis and all. It felt almost like being in the health club locker room, the only difference being that the men’s balls in the show did not hang down to the floor.

Driving home, when we were only a few minutes from home, a car cut into our lane and my father said, “Jerk! He cut into our lane. What a jerk that guy is!” I probably should have kept my mouth shut and let the day be remembered as another indistinct day of feasting, lounging around and mild entertainment. But I didn’t.

“He isn’t a jerk. He may be a crappy driver, or maybe he wasn’t paying attention, but that doesn’t make him a jerk.”  Why did I say it? Perhaps if a shrink had me on his couch he would coax out of me that I have sensitivity to being judged by others based on actions I have done and feel misrepresented and misunderstood. I would probably say, “Just shut up and fill my prescription, bitch.”

My Dad defended his position and then I got more adamant about mine. What is typical about how people tend to engage in argumentation is that often what is being argued is really not the point in dispute. My Dad went off about how this guy could have hit us. I was like, “I’m not disagreeing with that. Maybe he’s a shitty driver but that doesn’t necessarily make him a jerk.” My Dad said, “If he hit us, then he’d be a jerk.” I was like, “No. His jerkiness is not dependent on whether he hit us or not.” Needless to say, the debate went on longer than necessary. Anything more than, “I disagree,” was probably longer than necessary.

My Dad ended up apologizing for overreacting but it was a bullshit apology. And now I was done defending the indeterminate jerk in the car ahead of us and was defending truth. “That was a bullshit apology, so why would you give it? You are clearly trying to condescend to me with your tone and don’t feel sorry about what you said.” My father continued to defend his position, which only confirmed to me that his apology was bullshit. “So then your apology was bullshit. You get annoyed when people show a pleasant face and beyond the façade they are thinking nasty things about you—how is what you just did any different?”

Have you ever heard the phrase, “Never go to bed angry”? No? Jees, I may go back to requiring my readership to have a minimum of a 4^th grade education. The night ended with my parents going to bed frustrated and me going for a walk.

I walked on the sidewalk along Ocean Boulevard, periodically pausing and shaking my head, one time dropping to my knees. I called a girl I knew who lived in the area but hadn’t responded to my multiple emails and calls telling her that I was going to be in her backyard this week [see “You Can’t Pee In The Same River Twice”]. I left a message that said, “Hey. I just had something happen that was really frustrating and could use some company now.” It seemed she couldn’t overcome her own human frailties to help out a fellow traveler in despair and I was, as usual, on my own.

I went to the beach, took off my sandals and walked to the water’s edge where I stood for about twenty minutes, alternating between silence and crying and silence and yelling and silence and doing mantras on my mala beads and silence and begging the Universe to release me, if not from this life of suffering as a reactive automaton then from ignorance.

My arms were stretched out about a foot away from my body, my left hand holding my sandals and my right hand holding my mala beads. I leaned back with my chest toward the sky and looked at the moon, opening my heart, less to release all my emotions and more hoping that some Indiana Jones antagonist would reach into my chest and pull out my heart and show it to me while it was still beating, leaving me thinking, “Damn, that’s pretty harsh. And how the hell am I still alive?” I looked out at the ocean that seemed to absorb all my angst. I thought to myself, “Hey, it could be worse—at least some psycho isn’t presenting me with my heart” and I was somewhat uplifted. 

I felt detached from my body and if it weren’t for the shadow it cast on the sand at my feet and me seeing what looked like a body somewhere in the vicinity of where my consciousness tends to reside when I turned my gaze downwards, I wouldn’t be sure I had one. I sang a mantra in Sanskrit with only an audience of lapping waves and wind and soon I was feeling much better.

Before I left, I prayed Love and Gratitude to the Atlantic Ocean before me, allowing all the sea life, from the cute to the scary, to be embraced by the bubbling cauldron of this loving vibration. I made one exception: any English bastards on the other side of the Ocean could go fuck themselves; I was still holding onto a 233 year old grudge.

Perhaps the dinner companions of my step-grandmother were jerks; perhaps she was a jerk for closing off her friendship based on their physical infirmities. Perhaps the driver that swung into our lane was a jerk; perhaps my father was a jerk for judging him based solely on his actions without knowing him. Perhaps I was a jerk for defending a shitty driver and shoving my Dad’s bullshit back into his face.

I’m reminded of what the Dalai Lama said in a book I read. “If I never saw another container of yak butter my whole life, it wouldn’t matter to me if Tibet got her independence or not.” He also said something like, “I get angry with people, too. And what inevitably happens is I mull it over for a time and I finally come to the realization that I was wrong and I apologize to the person I’ve harmed, which is uncomfortable for even a lama; I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s best to avoid anger in the first place.”

My step-grandmother defends her position and loses the opportunity to make some friends. My father defends his position and reinforces the concept that carelessness defines the character of a person. I defend what I think is Truth but in the process upset a man who loves me and is quick to express this.

In high school, we got our arrogant English teacher, Mr. Lange, a button that said, “I’m surrounded by a bunch of idiots.” We were a class of Sweathogs and so in his case there was some truth to the button. But for the rest of us, it seems if we could only hold back our knee-jerk reaction to label another person as a jerk, take a deep breath, and perhaps think why they acted in the way they did, that we might better understand them and thus avoid labeling them with a less-than-loving name.

Perhaps then we would see my grandmother as someone who never allowed anyone close to her and is now just incapable, and how sad. Perhaps we would see the shitty driver as someone who felt overwhelmed by the world and all his responsibilities and, just for the moment, he was distracted and lost his focus. Perhaps we would see my Dad as someone who was anxious in the moment and reacted as he knew how. Perhaps we would see a son who seeks higher ideals but at times forgets how to just live, love and appreciate. Then there would be no “jerks”—whether acting the role of a driver, a father or a son—just people doing their best and sometimes falling short.

 

REFLECTION

Have you ever made a mistake in your life? How would you feel if when you did someone was there to shout at you “Jerk!”? Would that bring you a feeling of union or distance with the person? When you made the mistake, what could you have used from someone either close to you or a stranger, a put-down or support?

MEDITATION

Imagine yourself making a mistake, be it driving or knocking something down or breaking something by accident or forgetting to meet someone. Imagine them shouting at you, “You’re a real jerk!” How do you feel? Now imagine the same situation and the other person says to you, “Hey, it happens. No big deal. You’re still a good person.” How do you feel?

Imagine someone else making a mistake and you telling him that he’s a jerk. Notice the expression on his face. Go deeper and imagine the feeling in his heart. Now imagine instead of calling him a jerk you say something more supportive, maybe even, “I can imagine that is frustrating. It’s okay.” How do you think he’ll react to this statement of yours? How do you think he’ll feel inside?

Imagine someone cut you off in a car and you pulled up to her and rolled down your window and instead of calling her a jerk said, “You almost hit me there. Are you alright?” Imagine her responding, “I’m sorry, I just came back from the hospital and I’m not sure if my mother is going to live the week. I was not as focused as I should have been.” Would you still be angry with this person? Consider her a jerk or just a typical lousy woman driver? Can you give the other the benefit of the doubt or do you  always assume the worst from them? What kind of footprint do you want to leave in the hearts of your fellow man?

[AFTERMATH: That night, before setting down to write this piece, I wrote a quick note that my early-rising father would get in the morning. It said, “Dad, I’m sorry about my reaction tonight. I love you a lot.” The next morning there was a note for me from my father. He wrote, “Dear Son, You happened to be right! It was just the timing of it all. I love you, Abbah” (ever since our family trip to Israel many years ago, he has always signed his letters, “Abbah,” which means “father” in Hebrew.) In the morning, my Dad called me to him and gave me a hug and told me he loved me. While the true story involves me smothering my father and mother with a pillow in the night, cashing in early on my inheritance, I thought the world needed one more shiny, happy people ending instead of a “jerky” one, and I am but a servant ]