Working for Dreams

Today I was in a good mood as I walked to work over and around the slush left over from yesterday's snow storm, and then a bad mood as I barely missed the train because I'd walked so slowly, and then another one didn't come for twenty minutes, and then the connecting train was running on the local line instead of the express line, so despite my plans to arrive fifteen minutes early, I was fifteen minutes late.  My class is used to this, and it's no big deal because we have four hours together, which is more than enough.  But still, it reminded me of a lack of power over my own direction that has bothered me ever since I moved to NYC in 2006.  Then I taught my class and I immediately felt fine and taught as best I could and made them laugh as much as I could.  I had a lot of energy at the end, but then I sat on the train for an hour, and bought groceries, and cooked, and ate, and now I'm just sitting down to write.

I've been thinking a lot about how I used to feel when I lived in New York before I went on my voyage to experience as much of the world as possible, expand my perspective, deepen my understanding and increase my power to be happy amidst my surroundings, whatever they may be.  The good part is that I talk to people at work instead of sitting in front of a computer, I don't have to pretend to be someone I'm not by existing in a corporate atmosphere, I am generally more comfortable around all sorts of people, and I have treasures upon treasures inside of me.  The bad part is that I still live in an area of Queens that has many depressing memories for me.  I'm here because one of my greatest friends in the world is really being amazing by letting me stay here so long and rejecting any offers of compensation.  And I gotta say, he lives in a better part of Astoria than I used to.  That being said, I really don't like Queens very much, and having lived in this neighborhood for two years during my first stint in the city, I feel like I've backtracked within my personal pattern of needing to explore the unknown.  The other bad part is I'm still working jobs that don't quite make use of my full potential, a pattern which is going to be hard to avoid until I break through as a writer, because nobody's going to pay me to sit in a room for 8 hours and write whatever I want to each day unless they know I'm going to make them a lot of money.  And then I would set my own hours in that case anyway, which would be great because I work better at night and need to sleep in the morning.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Basically, the biggest thing that bothers me is I was really exhausted and didn't feel in control of my life when I used to live in New York, and I feel the same way now after two months here (as of tomorrow).  Although, to be fair, it's been a big transition and I haven't even gotten my own room in an apartment yet, let alone a bed.  And I arrived just before the onset of winter, and I'm currently dependent on a work schedule that won't allow me to go on weekend adventures for seven more weeks, or until I get another higher-paying part-time job, possibly as a tutor, which will give me more leverage with this one.  I must remind myself to be patient and appreciate what I have and know that the time will come when I am living the life I love, and until then I can make the most of the present with the training I've had on the road the past few years.

All of that considered, here are a few songs and literary samples which express both moods: a good day at work and a bad day at work.  We'll start with a bad day at work:

I've just noticed that the date this video was posted to Youtube was June 30, 2010, the day I returned home after seven months of getting away to find a better life.  But the same feeling consumes me from time to time, all these years down the line, having once again returned to New York subway commutes and unfulfilling fatigue, which is the opposite of the way I felt at the end of a good conversation or kindergarten lesson in Japan, or a twelve hour shift at the winery, or painting my parents' house or writing anything for a long time.

I read this Charles Bukowski poem a lot when I worked dull office jobs in the city 2006-09:

Spark

I always resented all the years, the hours, the
minutes I gave them as a working stiff, it
actually hurt my head, my insides, it made me
dizzy and a bit crazy—I couldn’t understand the
murdering of my years
yet my fellow workers gave no signs of
agony, many of them even seemed satisfied, and
seeing them that way drove me almost as crazy as
the dull and senseless work.

the workers submitted.

the work pounded them to nothingness, they were
scooped-out and thrown away.

I resented each minute, every minute as it was

mutilated
and nothing relieved the monotony.

I considered suicide.*
I drank^ away my few leisure hours.

I worked for decades.

I lived with the worst kind of women, they killed what
the job failed to kill.
I knew that I was dying.
something in me said, go ahead, die, sleep, become as
them, accept.
then something else in me said, no, save the tiniest
bit.

it needn’t be much, just a spark.
a spark can set a whole forest on
fire.
just a spark.
save it.

I think I did.
I’m glad I did.
what a lucky god damned
thing.

* I didn't consider that, but I did worry about where I was going and what it was all about

^ I preferred to smoke leaves of grass

Now I don't feel the same weight of drudgery I felt before, but there is still much frustration to be found in teaching:

But then there are the good days of work, and I'm not even talking about my dream work, which is telling stories.

When I taught conversations in Japan and one large class in San Francisco, the best days, the ones where I felt like I made a difference, went sort of like this:

(the first two minutes of the clip until she opens the note,
not the baboon part)

 

 The Prophet, by Khalil Gibran: 

            Then a ploughman said, Speak to us of Work.

            And he answered, saying:

            You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.

            For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.

            When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.

            Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?

            Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.

            But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,

            And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,

            And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.

            But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.

            You have been told also that life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.

            And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,

            And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,

            And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,

            And all work is empty save when there is love;

            And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.

            And what is it to work with love?

            It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.

            It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.

            It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.

            It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,

            And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.

            Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, “He who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is nobler than he who ploughs the soil.

            And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet.”

            But I say, not in sleep but in the over-wakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;

            And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.

            Work is love made visible.

            And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

I understand, Khalil, but there is truly something to be said for doing work that you love as opposed to doing work your whole life simply for the sake of doing work.  Follow your bliss, live the life you love!

So I guess I just have to remember something I wrote a long time ago: if I really want something, I just have to work hard and be patient, and it will come when it is supposed to.

Happy Birthdays

I am standing and reading Oh the Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss in a famous NYC bookstore near Union Square.  I have been listening to the great organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach, and the current song is “Joy of Man’s Desiring.”  I just walked out of the bathroom and saw these two books on the table outside the doors.  One of them was about loving New York and leaving it, and the other was The Alchemist, which I bought at this same bookstore during my first visit to NYC after the first time I left it.  The bathrooms are on the second floor, so I was immediately greeted by some children's classics, including Dr. Seuss.  Then the song kicked in as I picked up this book which I'm not sure I've ever read but I wish I had read before I set out on all of these journeys.  Even so, the words rang completely true.  In fact, I found the final lines of the book on a sign in Kings Canyon National Park last June one weekend when I was camping in California.

I put down the book and continue to browse.  I usually love browsing bookstores, but today I’m having trouble finding what I’m looking for.  It’s both my sister’s and her husband’s birthday today, and in one week I will be seeing them both for the first time in two years.  We always get each other books, but I don’t know what she’s read lately, and I don’t want to impose my tastes on her.  I’m also thinking of getting something for myself because I haven’t read a book in a while, which is ironic since I’m writing a book, but I think that explains it.  If I’m going to read something I run the risk of having it interfere with my voice, and even if I take that risk, it better be a great book that is aligned with what I’m trying to express.  Too many books are simply depressing and tragic.  I’m writing about some depressing things, but also some beautiful amazing awesome experiences, and the purpose isn’t to bring people down but to pull them up.  I will be hard-pressed to do so if I’m letting a different author bring me down.  Which means I am very picky as I peruse the tables which I hope will one day soon contain some pages penned by my own person.

Eventually I see Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse.  I quoted that book in a post I wrote about my sister and her husband in June, because they’re all German-based.  I pick up the copy and notice that the introduction is by my favorite author, Tom Robbins!  Even stranger, the translation is by Susan Bernofsky, who was my sister’s adviser at Bard College.  We had dinner at her Brooklyn apartment a few years ago when my sister and her husband were visiting the city during their yearly vacation to the US.  But my sister isn’t really a Hesse fan, and I already have it, so I don’t buy it.  But Robbins' introduction is excellent, and I really need that right now.

Around the time of that same visit where we dined with a woman who would one day translate a new version of one of the most respected literary masterpieces about spiritual seeking which also happens to include an introduction by my literary hero, I received a very important book.  Folke, my sister’s husband, gave me the Walter Moers book The City of Dreaming Books, about a young dinosaur braving the dangerous publishing city to find the anonymous author of the greatest piece of writing his dying professor had ever received.  I sampled it Thursday, December 12, which is my mother's birthday.  At the time I originally received it I was working in publishing, and I actually read it half a year later after my first attempt at a book.  I read most of it while answering phones at some fashion magazine company, one of many temporary assignments that spring.

  

When I was in San Francisco I went to the Excelsior Library to check out my first books as a California resident and noticed that there was a new sequel called The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books.  I remember reading it in my empty room by the 101 freeway, completely devoid of furniture except for a small camping mat, sleeping bag, small travel-size pillow and a shoddy creaky wardrobe my roommate found on the street but couldn’t fit in his room after he asked two of us to help him carry it all the way down the hill and up the stairs, and thus ended up in my room.  I’d spent the week typing letters to friends and trudging back and forth to the post office to print them out and mail them the old-fashioned way.  I finished the Moers book on a Friday night with a candle burning.  It’s a cliff-hanger merely written to prepare the reader for the third book in the trilogy.  It ends with an author’s note concluding, “This is where the story begins.  Everything hitherto has been a prelude.”

The reason I was at this bookstore was actually a whim.  It had been snowing all day, and I had braved the elements in search of a pillow.  I’d left the travel-sized pillow--which I’d used that first month in San Francisco and while camping all over America--at home for Thanksgiving, and asked my mom to mail it to me, and it is currently still floating around in a box somewhere in America, weeks later.  After two weeks of sleeping with rolled up shirts under my head and a pillow case draped on top, I have decided I deserve a pillow.  On the way to get the pillow I completely wiped out on the sidewalk because I misjudged the curb, and hilariously fell on my side.  I bounced back up and was able to laugh at myself, as I hadn’t wiped out in the snow in who knows how long, since I haven’t been around snow in two years (not counting the top of Pyramid Peak in Washington a year ago).

After purchasing the pillow I was steps from my friend’s apartment when I saw two people shoveling the front steps, and I realized they must be the landlords who my friend warned me to never enter the apartment with my copied keys in front of, because they don’t know I’m here.  So I kept walking with my pillow in a plastic bag that said Fantasy on the side, because that’s the store where I purchased it.  I’d been thinking of heading downtown to do a little shopping anyway, so I figured I might as well just go then and bring the pillow with me and the landlords would be gone when I got back.

So I waited at the 46^th street stop for about ten minutes for the train to come.  That gave me plenty of time to try to activate my imagination.  Three years ago I was in San Francisco, walking around and taking pictures, and preparing for my 3 am flight to Mexico City and the pyramids the next morning.  I was happy I had survived such a strange journey through the South and been helped by so many strangers through couch surfing and hitchhiking.

I stared ahead at the 46th Street station sign: 46 chromosomes in the human body, 4/6 was “Shine Your Light” writing… I looked to the left of me and saw a Santa Claus.  There were many out today.  Two years ago on this day I was teaching kindergarten in Japan and dressed up like Santa Claus, but the kids could see through my beard and called me “Ben Claus.”

I looked to my left and saw a sign that says Newtown Road.  One year ago today I was sitting in a room in San Francisco and writing all about American culture, trusting the strangest people as I hitchhiked to Las Vegas, hanging out with Japanese musicians and looking at pictures from risky travels around the world, seeing Hiromi play an excellent show in Tokyo, and teaching adults and kindergartners in Japan.  I thought I had the workings of my first novel/creative memoir.  50 pages on a whim after a few days weren’t bad at all.  I hadn’t been outside all day because I’d been writing.  Right before my walk I checked the New York Times and saw that there had been a school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, and not only that, but it was at an elementary school.  This reminded me of school stabbings by mentally insane adults in China which I had read about while teaching children in Japan, so I searched it online and it turned out there had been another one the same day.  A week or two ago there were reports saying that the American killer hadn’t left his room for weeks and was basically completely cut off from humanity, loving only his guns and his plan of putting them to what he considered to be good use.

Today’s not a day to expound on that though, because for 28 of my 29 years, it has been a glorious celebration of my only sister entering this world and spreading messages of understanding, tolerance, embracing differences and overcoming them to connect.  And for the past 8 years I’ve been able to celebrate her boyfriend/fiancé/husband’s coming into this world on the exact same day.  Besides, I think about Newtown a little bit every day.  Every morning I walk down Newtown Road to get to the 46^th Street subway, because it’s the most direct route.  Even if I arrive back on the N train at 30^th Avenue, you still see the sign where it intersects 33^rd Street.  They’re selling Christmas trees there now, with big inflatable Santa's and elves.  I love Christmas trees.  Sometime I hope the Christians get the right idea and replace the cross with a Christmas tree so that we can think about the beauty of life growing and blooming as opposed to being chopped down and employed as weapons to torture and murder beautiful people.  But I digress.

Anyway, I didn't buy anything at the bookstore but did buy some printer paper in Union Square so my students' can print lyrics to songs for next week's music story class, because it's the last week and we finished the book.  Now I'm writing this at home.  It’s been a good day off, walking through the snow, heating up my car so it doesn’t freeze, and buying necessities.  I have to work again tomorrow.  I used to have three day weekends in California, so I guess it would be hypocritical to complain, but one day off isn’t enough.  At least I have a pillow now.

That being said, it was actually a good week.  I had to observe other teachers for ten hours, a requirement that wasn’t fulfilled at the beginning because they saw I could teach and kept asking me to substitute for other teachers anyway.  But then they remembered it and reminded me, so I got it all out of the way this week.  I didn’t like coming in an hour early, but it was good to remember the perspective of watching the teacher from a chair so I could get a sense of what the students see when they’re watching me.

On Wednesday I stayed in the evening to watch four classes, which meant there was a two hour gap in the middle.  During the afternoon class we read a story about a king who worked in a nursing home.  There was an African king who ruled 300,000 people and came to the US to study, sponsored by the larger government which enclosed his kingdom, and then there was a revolt and he lost all of his financing and had to get a job.  So he became a nurse’s aide for 22 years, and nobody knew he was actually a king until he got invited back by a new government.  He’s using the compassion he learned as an aide to help his people, many of whom do not have running water or paved roads.

I used that story as inspiration to finally check out the nearest library, which is called Kingsbridge Library.  It’s a 40 minute walk, and I had two hours before my evening observations, so after eating a sandwich I walked along Valentine Road to Edgar Allen Poe Park which connected to East Kingsbridge Road.  I followed that to West Kingsbridge Road, and finally made it to the library only to realize I didn’t bring my proof of residence/employment with me and would need to go to a different branch some other time.  It was a nice walk though, and I got to explore the Bronx some more on a cold crisp sunny day.  I wouldn't have my December's any other way.

When I returned I watched a class taught by a teacher named Benjamin Franklin _____ (he always wrote his middle name on the board), which was Basic English and basically boring, even though he was energetic and friendly.  Then I met a teacher from Albania for whom I had substituted when his wife was in the hospital.  He was an older man who was very friendly.  We were sitting in the café before class when he said with a smile, “I don’t know you very well and you don’t know me, but take it from me, you’re an educated American, you should be considering this job as temporary.  It doesn’t pay well, and you can do something better.  I have something else on the side and I’m older, and I’ve only done this a few years but you don’t want to do this as long as I have.  I would look for other jobs if I were you.”  Then he taught a very enthusiastic and fun class, and gave the students advice on how learning English will help them have better opportunities for jobs in their lives, and to always move forward and never go back.  Those words hit home.

Culturally this job has been an expansion of my horizons and understanding of this world, because I am teaching many humans from countries and continents I had yet to encounter.  But intellectually I have taken many steps backward, and I’ve been feeling it in other aspects of my life, such as trying to write.  Even though it isn’t especially difficult, it drains a lot of energy to commute 70 minutes and then stand up in front of groups and explain things to non-native speakers and then walk around and try to help every single one of them write the correct grammatical sentences and point out their mistakes, with kindness and patience, utmost patience.  Especially when some of them haven’t the faintest clue about what I just taught everyone no matter what we do, whereas others wish I would go faster because they learned this already.  Everyone smiles and laughs, and I enjoy spreading knowledge and helping them, but I feel my energy slipping every single day.  On top of that, I recently began teaching a Sunday class two levels lower than the rest of my classes, for four hours straight, and I find myself restless and wanting to express so much more every minute I’m in there.

Luckily, I have a lead on an SAT tutoring job that begins next month.  I just have to retake the math portion to qualify, since they want absolute experts to teach these wealthy kids in the Connecticut and Westchester suburbs.  I aced the reading portion and easily did well enough on the writing portion (although I hate the idea of teaching “standardized writing”), but I need to bump up my math 50 points to my original score from when I took the test as a high school student thirteen years ago, which would have been good enough to qualify.  I interviewed a month ago and took the test which every student dreads for years, not having studied at all.  I was on four hours of sleep and came directly from teaching all morning and without eating lunch.  I’m amazed my brain didn’t explode during the math problems because I hadn’t done complicated math since I left high school eleven years ago.  I'm lucky I did as well I did.  If I want more money per hour and thus more flexibility in my schedule, I have to start studying math SAT questions again, which couldn’t be further from my intellectual purpose in this world.  But you gotta do what you gotta do, especially if you want to move off your friend’s couch and into an apartment, any kind of apartment, so long as it has a bed in a private room.

Anyway, that was Wednesday.  Thursday was my mother’s birthday, so I listened to Mozart all day, because he's her favorite, and it put a lift in my step.  Tomorrow is my great friend Brad’s birthday.  I'm not sure if he likes any classical composers, but I'll continue the trend anyway, as Chopin, Beethoven and Grieg have kept me in the spirit of the season.  I think it's because my mom always used to play classical music around the holidays, and it's been snowing so much lately, which I love, because it's been a long time.  The season of snow brings wonderful people into my world.  Today reminds me that the Earth is full of fantastic friends and family.

Northern Star Language

“The creative destiny of the Orm is immeasurable.  It’s a source of inspiration that never runs dry – as long as you know how to get there.”  He was speaking of the Orm as if it were a place he regularly frequented as a matter of course.

“But, even if you’re fortunate enough to attain the Orm,” he went on, “you’ll be a stranger there unless you’ve mastered the Alphabet of the Stars.”

“The Alphabet of the Stars?  Is that a script?”

“Yes and no.  It’s an alphabet, but it’s also a rhythm.  A form of music.  An emotion.”

“Can’t you be a bit vaguer?”  I sighed.  “Are you sure it isn’t a plum pudding as well?”

             He ignored this gibe.

             “Only a handful of true artists attain the Orm.  That’s a great privilege in itself, but very few of them know the Alphabet of the Stars.  They’re the elite.  Master it, and you can, if you’ve attained the Orm, communicate there with all the artistic forces in the universe.  You can learn things whose existence you would never have suspected in your wildest dreams.”

-The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers

Rising

"I have acknowledged that practical gains that come from being able to look at the world through others’ eyes are major.  They enable corporations to do business with China, and diplomats to stumble less often.  But the greatest gains need no tally.  To glimpse what belonging means to the Japanese; to sense with a Burmese grandmother what passes in life and what endures; to understand how Hindus can regard their personalities as masks that overlay the Infinite within; to crack the paradox of a Zen monk who assures you that everything is holy but scrupulously refrains from certain acts—to swing such things into view is to add dimensions to the glance of spirit.  It is to have another world to live in.  The only good thing that is good without qualification is not (as Kant argued) the good will, for a will can mean well in cramped quarters.  The only thing that is unqualifiedly good is extended vision, the enlargement of one’s understanding of the ultimate nature of things." 

Religion alive confronts the individual with the most momentous option life can present.  It calls the soul to the highest adventure it can undertake, a proposed journey across the jungles, peaks, and deserts of the human spirit.  The call is to confront reality, to master the self.  Those who dare to hear and follow that secret call soon learn the dangers and difficulties of its lonely journey.

A sharpened edge of a razor, hard to traverse,

A difficult path is this—the poets declare!

 -Huston Smith, The World's Religions

Tea is Good For You

"It ain't about hard to find

It's about the one inside

It's about the love you hide

That's waiting to be let outside

And it ain't about losing your mind

But if you happen to that's fine

But there's only one way to shine

And it's called trying to live freely...

You ever seen anything as kind

as the wind blowing by?

I've never seen anything as wise

as the sun rise that shines freely, freely...

-Devendra Banhart, "Freely"

Awe

"That’s a good luck omen,” the Englishmen said, after the Arab had gone out.  “If I could, I’d write a huge encyclopedia about the words luck and coincidence.  It’s with those words that the universal language is written.”

“There’s no such thing as coincidence,” said the Englishman.

The closer one gets to realizing his Personal Legend, the more that Personal Legend becomes his true reason for being, thought the boy.

But he was excited as his intuitive understanding of the camel driver’s comment: maybe he was also learning the universal language that deals with the past and the present of all people.  “Hunches,” his mother used to call them.  The boy was beginning to understand that intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and we are able to know everything, because it’s all written there.

“That’s the principle that governs all things,” he said.  “In alchemy, it’s called the Soul of the World.  When you want something with all your heart, that’s when you are closest to the Soul of the World.  It’s always a positive force.”

“Everything on earth is being continuously transformed, because the earth is alive…and it has a soul.  We are part of that soul, so we rarely recognize that it is working for us.  But in the crystal shop you probably realized that even the glasses were collaborating in your success.”

"If either of us had joined this caravan based only on personal courage, but without understanding that language, this journey would have been much more difficult.”

-The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo

YOU

 

TO YOU

by Walt Whitman

...There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied in you,

There is no virtue, no beauty in man or woman, but as good is in you,

No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you,

No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits for you.

As for me, I give nothing to any one except I give the like carefully to you,

I sing the songs of the glory of none, not God, sooner than I sing the songs of the glory of you.

Whoever you are! Claim your own at any hazard!”

These shows of the East and West are tame compared to you,

These immense meadows, these interminable rivers, you are immense and interminable as they,

These furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of apparent dissolution, you are he or she who is master or mistress over them

Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements, pain, passion, dissolution.

The hopples fall from your ankles, you find an unfailing sufficiency,

Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest, whatever you are promulges itself,

Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided, nothing is scanted,

Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you are picks its way.