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June 3, 2009If I’ve told myself onceI’ve told myself ten timesCUT YOURSELF A BREAK, BITCH.“It’s Saturday night,” says my handsome friend Beau on the phone. “What are you doing?” “I’m on the floor listening to a Brahms quartet.” “At the symphony?” “No (silly)! At my apartment.” BEAU GOT MY MESSAGEthat I’d found his glasses atop a bookcase, where he left them while cat sitting for me. He’s driving nearby and I invite him to come pick them up, but, alas, he can’t find parking, so I take the glasses down to the street. “Do you want to know what I was really doing when you called?” I ask him on the sidewalk. “ ‘Shrooms,” I say, somewhat sheepishly. Beau, walking towards me, is intrigued. “I just saw the documentary ‘Know Your Mushrooms’ at the Roxie,” I explain, “and thought, hm, I’m going to make myself some mushroom soup! So I took a can of Progresso Clam Chowder and sweetened it up a bit with a can of creamed corn, then took a handful of ‘shrooms and ground them up in my food processor and threw them in there like grains of coarse-ground black pepper. I couldn’t taste them at all. “I was in the bathroom admiring the frosted glass window when the phone rang. But prior to that I’d been lying on the floor really, really appreciating Brahms. And by the way, what the fuck is going on?” I ask, waving at the sky. “Somebody’s shooting off fireworks.” “Why? What’s today, May 9th. Ah yes, it must be the traditional Mother’s Day fireworks.” IT WOULD HAVE BEEN TOO MUCH FUNhad Beau been able to join me, but he’s lacking sleep and the timing is bad. “It’s a beautiful night to go for a walk,” he observes. Yes, but I explain that I specifically went on this trip because I wanted to stay in and look around at the home I’ve created for myself. He’d call my place a “gem.” I move off toward my door. “Is my skirt falling off?” I ask, due to a sensation of feeling unzipped. “It’s just freedom,” says Beau and the ee in freedom becomes a great big goodnight smile. Well, his visit really makes the ‘shrooms bloom. By the time I make it up the stairs the hallway is both shrinking and expanding by turns. And there follows one of the most beautiful nights of my life, consisting of being home. Just being, in my home. Listening to Brahms, Schumann, wishing I could throw a big party like I used to be able to do on Page St., to share my magic kingdom with those I love, but I can manage four at most in my little artist’s garret. I go out on the roof with my little beach chair and commune with the sky, stars and wind, with a recurring surprising sensation of all the lights of the city repeatedly coming up at once like a Christmas tree being lit. I RECALL GEORGE HARRISONsaying, in his later years, that he’d looked at marijuana under a microscope and it looked like rope. He told himself, I’m not putting that stuff in my brain anymore. But in typing these notes up, when I stop to look at a gnarled, dried ‘shroom under my tortoise-framed magnifying glass, all I see is a micro-model of what I imagine a cross-section of my brain to look like, with all manner of nooks, crannies, gills, and chambers radiating magic powers. Inhaling the earthy perfume of loam, mold, humus, fungus, I am moved to powder it between my palms over my dinner bowl of pasta, peas and, coincidentally, mushroom gravy. EVERYONE NEEDS A REASONto get out of bed. I was on the phone with a married friend, making a date for breakfast at the Cup and Saucer in Portland, talking about our everyday lives, and I told him that as a married man, he has someone/something to connect with every day, whereas, though I am living the very ideal life I designed for myself, I often have to remind myself why I wake up every day to spend most of it tapping on this keyboard. The rewards are right here, today, with each keystroke, but also unknown and unknowable. An article by Tim Kreider in the Times, describes his year of grace after being stabbed in the throat. I’ve often heard of the new lease on life experienced by those who have cheated death, but, eventually, he concedes, “You can’t feel grateful to be alive your whole life any more than you can stay passionately in love forever — or grieve forever, for that matter. Time forces us all to betray ourselves and get back to the busywork of living in the world. Before a year had gone by the same dumb everyday anxieties and frustrations began creeping back. I’d be disgusted to catch myself yelling in traffic, pounding on my computer, lying awake at night wondering what was going to become of me.” NO MATTERhow good you’ve got it, meaning of life is a bitch. Cut yourself a break, says I. Sometimes, if I feel down or bored or restless, I know that what is lacking is perspective. Not long ago I went to see designers Charles and Ray Eames’s film on the Power of Ten [the author says, click on it and watch it. -Ed.] down on Capp St. at Oddball. (Talk about a marriage of true minds! What couple was ever more suited for each other? Brilliant, endlessly curious, innovative and inventive, their lives, art and work were one, a world of ideas, knowledge, problem-solving, solution-finding—a thing of beauty and a joy forever.) SOMETIMES IT’S JUST TOO HARDto remind oneself that life is ten times as amazing than it seems while riddled by ordinary human anxiety. That’s why I like a little vegetative boost now and again. ‘Shrooms are like putting on sunglasses. You’re still looking through your eyes, just through another lens that colors things differently. For me, they’re a fun reminder that I am both ten times smaller, and ten times greater, than any idea I have of myself.
The author’s brain as a drug ------------------------------------------------------------ Times ten your pleasure
Keep your eyes in the wood chips copyright Alexandra Jones 2009 |
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