Month: March 2022

Luke

~ thoughtsatlarge ~ 2 Comments

There are people you encounter in life that offer a glimpse at the purity of soul you know you’ll never achieve. They own a confident sense of self for which we can only reach. It doesn’t matter at what stage of your life you encounter these people. You know it when you see it. And because they are so rare, you remember them, envy them, and admire them. They follow their own inner song and seem to have their own gravity. They appear to travel through life but as if from a tangential universe not bound by our universe’s constraints, touching ours and changing us.

I met one of these people in high school. He was equal measures effortless cool and offbeat quirky. I don’t recall anyone not knowing him – or not liking him. I’m sure I was instantly forgettable, and I doubt he would have remembered me. But I never forgot him or the free spirit he beamed. And unlike so many other radicals who age morph into stamped replicas of our parents, he was an artist in the purest sense of creating art every day and supporting himself and his family. He created in many media, and each piece radiated his spirit.

That is not to say his tangential universe was immune from pain or suffering. His long illness and death yesterday afternoon seems unreal. How can so pure a spirit suffer? Why are those we admire taken so early?

I had not seen or spoken to him since high school. He lived in my memory, online via Facebook and through his art installations. And now, unfortunately for everyone in his life, his family, friends, and acquaintances, he only lives there for them. The free spirit he brought to everyone’s life was gone; the darkness of grief replacing the light he brought. The pain for his family is all too real.

However, though he is gone, remember, he was an artist who created objects that outlived him. Each piece exudes his spirit, a physical manifestation of freedom. His paintings were not photorealistic (or at least to those of us who live in this universe). Perhaps, in his, that was how he saw the world. They survive. And through his works, he is immortal.

To his family and friends, I am sorry for your loss. I know your loss and understand your pain. I know you don’t believe it right now, but the darkness and despair you feel right now, the burning heat of doctors, nurses, hospitals, treatments, pain, and suffering, will eventually be replaced by a glow of light. The morning will return to replace the night. That light will be the good memories and his spirit.

Luke Randall touched so many in life. Today, at least, try to reach for the spirit of freedom by which he lived. We may not reach it, but try. I’ll never forget him that way.

Control

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Can this be how it works? I’m 57 years old and see more life in the rearview mirror than the open road ahead. With that perspective, I find it’s become essential to reflect on what I’ve done with my time on this planet. Blissfully ignorant of the repercussions of news events growing up in bucolic suburbia, adulthood, parenthood, citizenship demanded my attention as I aged. I’ve experienced events no one wants. People summarize it as “life” when you see death. I’m not special. Just frustrated.

After the massacre at the movie theater in Aurora, CO, I began to write. Not with the expectation of affecting change, but rather to give my anger, my emotions, an outlet, an offramp for the toxic blood poisoning my body. I saw gun violence stealing a generation. While some social issues had moved the Overton Window, political intransigence (keep cashing the NRA’s checks!) and eventual American ennui accepted gun violence as baked into the American fabric in the name of “freedom.”

After the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, CT, I began to speak. Surely, a tragedy of this scale would shock Americans (and politicians) out of their stupor. Nope! I talked to groups in Texas as the lone spokesperson for the Brady Campaign in Texas. The only one. That alone tells you all you need to know about the calculus of “I NEED my gun, dead kids and teachers be damned.” Thoughts, prayers, and sad face emojis flooded social media until America’s fruit fly attention span moved on to the latest “tragedy” affecting Kim Kardashian.

My anger peaked with the death of my wife. Fuck cancer makes a great tweet, a guttural reaction without consequence. Utterly suicidal and dying with my wife, I could not yell at the tumor. I took it out on God for a while (also useless) and even turned to God for a bit (utterly meaningless). There was no one to blame, no revenge to be had. No offramp for my anger.

And then Americans, in the obvious next step for a society that had abdicated all personal responsibility and suffered no consequences, elected a narcissistic moron president—a billionaire (if you believe him) speaking for the uneducated rubes. Merit and logic were dead. With each lie, with each crime, I expected consequences. None came. Robert Mueller fumbled the ball with no defenders anywhere near him. Facts were relegated to the trash bin. Tweets became governmental edicts. And I waited. Furious.

When I get angry (when I get down), it is because things should be easier. “Keep the simple things simple; the hard things are hard enough.” But nothing was easy. Changing a light bulb resulted in the glass bulb snapping off the metal base, a trip or two to Lowes, and a call to the electrician. Nothing was easy. Ultimately, I realized it was an absolute lack of control. There was nothing I could do about any of it. My wife was dead, guns were more important than life, freedom from fact and responsibility replaced actual democracy, and rabid evangelicals believed in Trump as the messiah. Stop the world; I want to get off.

And now we have Ukraine. Again, one man brings the world to the point of a world war—one man. Ukrainians are fighting to survive- as a nation and a people. “Denazifying” Ukraine? Really?

I’m reminded of Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot speech as I watch an army destroy entire cities. Stepping back for a second, it seems bizarre that NATO and the UN watch the massacres with tepid financial penalties because Ukraine doesn’t belong to their club. It’s like a high school clique turning its back on a less cool student getting beaten up because they don’t wear the “right” jeans. I understand the political ramifications of engagement. But on a human level, it seems callous and impotent.

So here I am—no one special, poisoned with anger and unable to control or change anything. Hell, I can’t even watch baseball now! The billionaires are too busy fighting with the millionaires. I get the feeling that if aliens did visit earth, they’d look down and say, “Nah, they’re petulant adolescents with nascent technology and a penchant for killing each other. Keep driving.”

So, my clock continues to tick down, and I’m not ignorant enough for its promised bliss. I’ve read Viktor Frankl and Thomas Paine but still cannot find reason or acceptance. How do I accept all of this? How do I “let it go?” No, seriously, I’m asking.