Sixties Chick

“It’s me, the Jew bearing gifts,” I announce with bravado as I let myself into the house after a few perfunctory knocks. I hold up the bag of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies as soon as I see him across the room. “Look what I’ve got for you!” I say, and go to give him a big kiss on the cheek.

He can’t extend his hand to take the cookies, so I put the bag on the kitchen table, the nearest surface, but still beyond his reach. “So how are you, handsome?” I ask this good-looking 30-year-old man in a tone as light as I can make it.

He is semi-reclined in a wheel chair. It’s an electronic one and seems state-of-the-art, at least to me. It was bought from the money raised from the fundraisers that have been held for him since the night he was shot on a city street for the sixteen dollars in his pocket.  The shot that blew the earring out of his ear and left him a quadriplegic.

The chair moves up and down, backwards and forwards with the slightest pressure of the head, the only part of him he can still move. It allows him to shift his weight off a body that lies motionless 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It is a ritual that’s performed every half hour to avoid lesions that could be life-threatening.

He wants to hear about my week, but I’m reluctant; I want to hear about him. He asks again so I scan my short-term memory for anything worth telling. I go over the projects I’m working on: PR materials for a new Bible App—the creation of tech-savvy, Midwestern evangelicals; web content for the launch of an innovation firm with 16 consultants worldwide, each with a different opinion and a strong ego.

And, perhaps the greatest irony of all for one who knows nothing about managing money, an assignment that has me writing about wealth management for a bank on Philadelphia’s Main Line.

I tell him about my dog, the Vet and my plea for doggie Xanex, and about my friend Lorenzo’s brilliant exhibition in Seattle, entitled The Pizza Presidents. Of course, I rant a bit about the latest affront to humanity, which this week I deem to be genetically modified foods. I try to make the stories juicy, funny, as outrageous as I can.  I want to entertain him. I want to make him laugh.

He doesn’t need me to make him laugh. He’s just happy I’m there. What he does need, though, is his nose scratched–something that only dawns on me after I watch him twitch it left and right and up and down for longer than I’d like to admit. Sitting with him like this—his spirits so good—it’s easy to forget that this able kid, who was once my tenant bounding up the stairs to the third floor apartment, is no longer able to brush his teeth, feed himself, write, pick up a phone or scratch his nose.

That’s right. Scratch his nose. And, if you’ve never had the experience of scratching someone’s nose or having someone scratch yours, let me just say; it’s plenty awkward. It’s personal. It’s innate.  It’s one of those things that when done for someone else can never be done adequately.  Is this the spot? Is it too hard? Too soft? Is that better?

The point is—it’s a helluva thing to have to rely on others to do for you.

Since that time, I am vigilant, always on the lookout for that first twitch.  Consumed with the prospect of what it must be like, I can’t help wondering how I would fare. Could I carry on?  Would I have the strength? Could I dredge up some gratitude—the way he has—even just the tiniest bit from that bottomless pool of loss and despair to find my way back to love?

Without trying to, this young man shows me the grace that comes when you live in gratitude. Without his uttering a single word, I hear him affirm, “True, I can’t scratch my nose, but how grateful I am for those who would do it for me.”

For updates on  Kevin Neary: kevinneary.com

For 5-part gallery talk on the Pizza Presidents by Lorenzo Moog: http://vimeo.com/52893283 

Why am I surprised?  Of course the chipmunks are back,  sneaking about under cover of night, hopping up into the pots on the porch,  nibbling with abandon on the roots of my carefully coordinated floral display. They wrecked havoc last year and, sure enough, they’re doing it again this year. Damn chipmunks. I hate them.

Last summer, I declared an all-out war on them, a kind of suburban search and destroy mission. All summer long, I tried one “critter ridder” remedy after another, solutions suggested by Google experts who sure sounded like they knew. Glowing testimonials appeared on screen like the Holy Grail: “Since spreading the red fox urine around my begonias,” one woman wrote, “I haven’t seen hide nor hair of them.” I rejoiced with her.

The bounty of suggestions included, but were not limited to: mothballs, cayenne pepper, cayenne pepper with baby powder, bloodmeal, chestnuts, hot pepper wax, used kitty litter, owl decoy, poison gummy worms, traps from $17.99 to $54.99, a five-gallon bucket of water with sunflower seeds floating on top, an Attack Wave Ultrasonic Pest Repeller, Deer Off, cat hair, dog hair, even my own hair, and of course, the aforementioned red fox piss.

The ones I tried—and there were many—proved useless.   Instead of an end to harassment, what I got was an odor so strong and so offensive that I feared it would stop the mailman from coming up the front walk.

I spent a lot of time scooping clean the vile smelling potting soil, then replacing it. I also spent a lot of money on new shoots, replenishing the mangled, half-chewed blooms to fill in the gaps left by their hearty appetite.  They wouldn’t stop.  I couldn’t stop.  I was not about to let them mess up my artwork.

So, here I am, once again, confronted with those sorry stems lying mutilated in their pots. Day after day, I gather them up from the dirt and toss them over the porch with a “fuck you” and a sigh of exasperation. This year, I am not in the mood to fight. It’s too hot.

Lately, I’ve considered letting nature take its course. Of letting the chips—and chipmunks—fall where they may.  In truth, I am not pleased at how the situation has deteriorated into a battle of wills. I regret my part in the old “man over beast” paradigm , which according to Ecclesiastes 3:19, does not end well for either of us.  With Rodney King’s recent passing, I am reminded that I should at least try to get along.

With some hesitation, I make one more run to the local Garden Center for six more containers of orange impatiens, replacements for the victims of the most recent big-tooth rampage.  To my surprise, I spot a product I’ve never seen before. It is a bottle of overpriced granules that proclaim right on the label, Gets Rid of Chipmunks. Money Back Guarantee.

“Does it work,” I ask the not-so-young clerk. He doesn’t know. “Nobody comes back to report,” he says.

“Oh, I’ll be back,” I tell him.  Yes, I’ll be back, because, at that moment, I know my inner chipmunk won’t let me give up. When it comes to stubborn, Alvin and friends have nothing on me.  “I’ll either be back for my money and some more plants,” I tell him, “or”—ever the optimist— “for another bottle of this miraculous stuff.”

It seems, of late, there are no clocks in my house that work. Not one tells the right time. It has taken me awhile to realize it, and even now I couldn’t tell you which of the several clocks scattered around the house are fast and which are slow, or by how much. All I know is that whenever I think I know what time it is, I’m wrong.

For someone who is partial to punctuality, this situation has me more than puzzled. I’m ticked.

To date, I have changed the batteries in the big round clock on the kitchen wall at least twice and reset the clock radio on the nightstand more times than that. I have fixed the clock in the car as well, but this normally reliable time-teller is still off.

Then there’s my watch, recently back from a three-week rehab at the manufacturer’s (Danish, no less!), and still not working right. Even the expensive clock I took from the home of my dear departed Uncle (after his departure, of course) whose coordinates are beamed down via satellite, is not giving me the correct time.

I am nonplussed. If you can’t trust a satellite…?

How strange this sudden and sweeping breakdown of all my time-telling tools. Mere coincidence? I, of course, think not. This can’t be about replacing timepieces or restocking the lot of double “A”s.

Here’s the message I’m getting: When it comes to time, I should just forget about it. Cease caring. Since I feel like I never have enough anyway, it might do me a whole lot of good to stop counting it.

Let it go, says the voice in my head. Seconds, minutes, hours; what difference does it make? Even Einstein said time was an illusion. “There is only this moment,” declare the teachers whose books line my shelves. If we’ve only got this one; then, obviously, it’s the right one.

So, whether it’s 2:43 or 6:26; GMT or Daylight Savings; whether I’m waking up in the Colorado Rockies or in Hoboken, New Jersey—be present, I remind myself. Be in the moment.

If I can just get this one critical piece of timeless wisdom—I mean really live it—then, whatever time it happens to be, the moment is all mine.

“Happy Birthday, come on down,” my Brazilian ex-sister-in-law shouted over the phone. “You’ll stay here.  I’ll take care of you while you recuperate.

She was suggesting that I avail myself of her talented–and very reasonable—plastic surgeon who has already performed three facelifts on her. He’s also seen her on more than one occasion for liposuction and, most recently, for a tummy tuck in which belly fat was scooped up and then deposited derriere to correct the inevitable pull of gravity.

“I told the doctor to make me look 20 again,” she said with a laugh. “I’ll never stop.” She’ll be 60 this year.

A few days ago, I officially became a member of what a friend of mine dubbed the Circle of Elders, celebrating a milestone birthday whose number brings with it the inevitable thoughts of aging, its byproducts, death itself. Though it’s only a number, it is formidable nonetheless.

The week leading up to the “big” day was marked by the nagging sense that there was to be a new relationship between me and my mortality. A new plateau, if you will, from which to view what was still to come. How I chose to feel about it, clearly, was entirely up to me.

The notion of circle of elders really helps. I love the sound of it. I love what it conjures up: the go-to wise woman, seated cross-legged around the tribal fire, bedecked with feathers, beads and blanket, serene and all-knowing.

Learned in the ways of the world and the laws of the universe, she is valued for her well-honed wisdom, venerated for her hard-earned open heart. The craggy wrinkles on her face are nothing but a testament to a life fully lived. I like to picture myself around that fire.  I adore feathers.

Still, I confess, my ex-sister-in-law’s pleas pestered me all week long.  A slight snip around the eyes, a little tweak at the neck. Is it so unreasonable to want the crow’s feet gone? Youth is so compellingly beautiful. A siren song to be sure. Even for those of us who know it’s not what matters, it matters.

So I have spent the past week trying to fit plastic surgery into the framework of my philosophy, to justify a nip and a tuck with my yearning for self-acceptance and aging with grace. I cannot seem to reconcile the two.

In fact, I’m feeling that inherent in this question of “circle of elders vs. plastic surgery” lays the  opportunity for an evolutionary leap; one propelled by 80 million of us baby boomers taking a stand for what counts, for what is real—like we did those many years ago. Plastic surgery? The cult of youth? We could just say “No”.

And this “No” could turn out to be our shining moment, our generation’s chance to leave a mark more indelible than, say, rock and roll or even legalized pot. It could be our Rosa Park’s moment, a chance to refute that bad rap we’ve picked up as self-absorbed and indulgent.

But it’s hard to buck the trend. Even Jane Fonda succumbed. She could have taken the lead once again with a clarion call far more radical than Hanoi Jane’s. But we are confused, we humans, so easily drawn to the beautiful package, forgetting that it’s all about what’s inside.

Really, though, at the core, it is about finally dealing with death. It is about forging a new relationship with life’s natural conclusion.

So the question is: Can we, the wide-eyed, love children of yesteryear, can we finally fulfill our destiny and change the consciousness of this culture for the good?

Can we, instead of focusing on our sagging behinds, be the generation that makes it trendy to age, cool to be old and okay to die?  Let’s at least try.

My daughter and I are chatting via Skype; she in Brazil; I in New Jersey. She’s catching me up on her day to day in the luscious world of beaches, bikinis and black beans.

She is coming back to the States after all , but informs me that she won’t be doing a nine to five any time soon. I guess that goes for the cubicle too. Even the compelling power suit holds no sway anymore.

It took her only one corporate job to come to this conclusion. And only eight months at the job at that. Why am I not surprised? I never liked cubicles either.

I flash on the white #10 envelope that arrives each month with her name on it. It’s from her quite single-minded girlfriend, Ms. Sallie Mae, who lent her a substantial sum of money to pay for college.

I bite my tongue. In any case, what can I say? This is one offspring outcome that, in all fairness, can be blamed on the mother and not on Rio.

Inspiration struck one recent Sunday on a visit with Van Gogh at the Philadelphia Museum of Art www.philamuseum.org.

To my surprise, I discovered a whole body of work I’d never seen before – work from his last three years in which he focused on the familiar but with an eye brought way up close. The head of a sunflower, a blade of grass; the kind of art that requires nothing less than intense focus.

My “Eureka” moment happened while in the second room of the exhibition, there among the nuns and the children messing with their audio players. A voice—maybe Van Gogh himself—broke through the silence of the hushed gallery and whispered ever so clearly in my head (and I swear it was with the slightest Dutch accent):

If you want to accomplish what you say you want to accomplish, all you have to do is… focus. Focus on the next indicated thing.

Right, I thought. Easy for him to say. Though he had to wrestle a few demons in his time, he was living in the 19^th century. Who can focus these days? Too much information, too many distractions. We’re living in our own loony bin,  though, unfortunately, not in the South of France.

So all I have to do is focus. And not on the big, overwhelming, far-reaching scheme but on the next indicated thing.  What about you? How’s the focus thing going for you?

“How does it feel to have a 24-year-old child?” my sister asked me a couple of weeks ago on the occasion of my daughter’s birthday. “To tell you the truth,” I say, “I’m amazed; I never envisioned it.”  But then I never envisioned myself at this age either.

I admit I’ve never spent much time thinking about the future; I’m not one for planning ahead. Staggering student loans and the lack of a  retirement fund attest to that. I used to feel guilty about it. Now I’m thinking it doesn’t matter. It’s 2012.

2012; the end of one world age cycle and the start of another wrote the Mayans some 5000 years ago, predicting a great planetary shift that would bring about a quantum leap of consciousness. A time of brotherhood, they promised. An era of harmony, balance and light. Sound too good to be true?

I’m counting on it. Open to any new beginning these days, I cannot wait for the next adventure, cosmically and personally.  I am ready for change.

To expedite it, and without any other idea for the immediate future, I head for the basement to see if I can’t sort through the stuff that has stubbornly hung on from lives in Elkins Park, Paris, Recife, Key West, Philadelphia, Washington and New York. It’s been almost 20 years in this house alone. There are things boxed and unboxed, stacked and scattered across the unfinished basement’s cold, concrete floor. A lot of things. It is overwhelming.

“Just make three piles,” I tell myself, gearing up for the job. “Toss Goodwill and Keep.”

There are the costumes; the dayglow boas and carnival masks, silver-striped Indian bloomers and yards of white netting ideal for head wraps, all of which were quite smashing under the black lights we set up for our regular dance nights. There are the fossil fish my Ex wholesaled with the geodes, and the painted ceramic animals I shipped back from Brazil to sell, but which never managed to leave the house. Toss, Goodwill or Keep?

There are the photos of Les Halles, Paris, circa 1973, pictures of the demolition site that would become the Pompidou Center.  I am there, young, looking through the rubble for treasures of another time. In back of me, a wall of graffiti reads, Une Seule Solution, La Révolution. Fitting, even then.

Mildewed manila files, stuck together in green jackets, hold catalogs from the jewelry business, radio scripts, programs from the performance art pieces my family never understood, press releases on alternative therapies to sewing machines, and copies of letters I wrote to the school board on the outrage of sugar snacks in the cafeteria and other such grievances.

There’s the child’s chair with its orange toucans bought in Key West when my daughter’s preferred playground was the city cemetery, and a carton of beanie babies that was to make us rich. There is the illustrated book she made for me; I, in the character of an angry cat; and a work of art by a one-of-a-kind Appalachian artist, a friend whom I loved, dead of AIDS in 1988. The painting was too brutally despairing to hang up. Toss, Goodwill or Keep?

It’s hard. Harder than it should be. Is it that I might forget? The past, I remind myself, will weigh you down if you insist on carrying it with you.

Clearly, it’s time to let it go.  The future is now, for the Mayans and for me. And when that planetary shift kicks in, full force, I don’t want there to be any resistance on my part. Nor stuff to hold up the works. I want to be ready when that energy moves. Ready, light, buoyant and free.

A soaring and transformative 2012 to all!