#leanander

Leanander Archive post from March 2012:

My Dad passed away on March 29th.  He was an amazing and complicated man, and as many know a well-known figure in the racing world. He had an incredible rebound last March after a months-long series of dramatic hospitalizations for heart, lung and neurological issues, in which he not only got fully back to work running his 50-year-old company Jenkins' Competition here in Malvern, living on his own, and driving his inimitable custom-built red GTO coupe, but also managed at the age of 80 to start working out at a gym 3 times a week (he liked the physical therapist there so much he would buy her coffee and a danish on his way in).  Things quickly became very hectic as we are organizing the arrangements and fielding calls from his hundreds of colleagues and supporters over the years. Thankfully I was able to practice with him for some time at the hospital after he died, so he might have a peaceful transition. 

If you're curious, this links to a number of articles about my Dad.  There will be something in the NY Times on Monday also. https://www.google.com/search?q=Bill+%22Grumpy%22+Jenkins&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Willow: Photo copyright Bebeta Matthews/Associated Press, in NY Times 9/15/11

(reposted from the Leanander Archive, see #leanander tag for everything.)

A week goes by, and the anniversary is "done."  The day was remembered for a week or so of media cycles, then we returned to the economy, the political races, and Willow the Wandering Cat.

I was engaged in distracting activity for the last several years, then the 10th tapped me on the shoulder.  I really have to go back into it and look.  Wouldn't it be better if instead of a week of media-savvy remembrance, the country engaged in a year of remembrance, reflection, and introspection?  This is contemplative practice not seen in this culture now...perhaps the series of Darwin events last year is a close example.

I am intrigued by the idea though, so I am going to try to do this myself, on my little part - spend a year revisiting all that I experienced around that event.  There is a lot to go back into - at the time, I was Studio Manager for the photographer Joel Meyerowitz, whose work in "Aftermath" (a book) is a selection of over 8,000 images he was able to make of the 9-month recovery as the only photographer with access to the site.  I was an emerging writer and like Joel, talked my way into the site so I could record stories for radio with the construction workers who were sifting through the pile for remains.    It was the most exhausting year of my life ten years ago, but I and the people around me were driven to see our projects through, lest the details be lost to what came after.

I'm not sure what form this year of remembrance and reflection will take, but for now, an idea is each week to post one very specific memory of that time.    Starting with: "House of Leaves."

Mark Danielewski's book "House of Leaves" came out in 2000.  Reviews raved about the remarkable lengths to which the publisher and author went to craft this very unusual and disturbing book. The story is about...among other things, a house that a couple moves into and soon discovers is odd...it seems to have more interior rooms than the outer frame of the house could possibly hold.  Also, there seem to be sounds coming from deep inside the house.  The guy in the couple begins a journey into the mysterious spaces through a door that appears one day and eventually becomes lost in a never-ending and ever-changing maze of dark creepy spaces that are endless and have the menace of pointless dreams and nightmares. The story is told by a troubled third person narrator who devolves toward insanity while telling the story.  The prose is itself an excavation project, as the narrator's comments are partly drawn from papers he possesses but did not author, and the text within a text within a text is mimicked by the printed book, with elaborate footnotes, type that goes up and around the edges of pages and does not follow normal paragraph forms, but often seems to reflect the experience being described in how it appears on the page. The book is much more complex than it sounds here - I am writing all this from memory having not touched it since the last week of September 2001.   The process of reading it began on September 10th...and continued in earnest two days later.  It stirred all in me that dislikes horror films, yet was so preferable to the mental replay of planes plowing into towers, towers collapsing, and all that accompanied that grim day.

(from the Leanander Archive - see tag #leanander for all)

I haven't been inspired to place anything here for quite a while...mostly there has been a lot of stuff not happening. I've been biding time. But in recent months, especially since July, there has been a fair amount going on and the inspiration was there but not much time to work with it.

One thing is the job, passing seven years this week now, and how just when I thought I could not be more bored with it, I became so unbelievably bored and uninterested and impatient for change this year. Since March, when we get a fairly nice chunk related to our performance over the past year. Nothing like a banker's but still something that can advance one's plans significantly if shrewdly manipulated. What happens after that is kind of a let down, even if you're paid well. Because of all the anticipation, when it's over you have a post-partem of realizing it's another 12 months before you'll get another one of these.  Life seems to become still, because whatever it was you had in the back of your mind that you hoped that check would somehow make happen Now is still at some point in the distance.

In-between Marches, a lot can happen. I went on a planned group intensive retreat with others in my practice lineage in Colorado in July. It was a closed retreat, so we practiced together without any connecting to the world at large for 12 days. It was brilliant material we were studying and a potent environment. When I returned to Denver airport, I discovered 10 messages from my Dad's wife and one from my Aunt filling the screen of my phone. I figured out that I had forgotten to change my voicemail. I was with a friend, waiting for a couple more to get through security, and we were about to get lunch. I listened to a few messages, expecting the worst.

Dad had a Grand Mal seizure about 3 days after I had entered retreat. He nearly died. Then he slowly recovered. There were complications. There was a brain surgery in September. A very, very long recovery with a lot of ups and downs. He's going to need care for a while. There is a complicated family situation as well, which adds to the worry. I can't really talk about that, other than to say there has been a decades-long estrangement and a lot of mistrust ensues. And then, miraculously, he is in rehab, then assisted living, then back in his apartment in December.  Tired, but showing up at his shop every day, paying the bills, working on carburators, advising his staff...until January when he has a heart incident.  This time, it really seems like there will be no come-back.  Another 4 weeks in hospital followed by rehab, and then, a couple of weeks ago, I get a phone call that he's invited a friend from California to come stay with him at the apartment while he gets back on his feet.  Amazing.

Also, when I came back from Colorado, I walked into my apartment, which had been vacant during this trip. It was dark when I got home, so nothing seemed out of the ordinary until I went into the bedroom and flicked on the light. Hanging from the window was a tree branch, and a spray of shattered glass covered the area below the window, which included my practice table and cushions where I sit in the mornings and do my meditation practice. Very ominous indeed.  This maple outside my windows had found a way in with some violence - a quick search of the internet turned up news and pictures of a tornado that had come down my street in the Bronx a week earlier. Outside across the street was a 20 year old sports car a friend (who was still in Colorado) had parked for safe-keeping while he was away...except the tree next to the parking space was now missing several branches and the entire roof of the car, windshield, and hood were now resting on the drivers console.

It all makes me think that this retreat, which was the beginning of a very closely-held practice in my tradition, has ripened some intense karma and this is going to be a rough year.  So for now, I'll take the boredom.

(from Leanander Archive): 

I saw a squirrel today, twisting, flying suppleness It flipped back and forth, springing up from the ground and landing, on its back, rolling, twisting, and springing again. On foot, I stopped in the street. A pale winter sky glimmered.

A car had just passed, this narrow stretch of Arlington otherwise quiet. The squirrel was now silent; the whole world stilled. Then, the dance continued, odd, startling. I gasped - and finally grasped. He'd been hit. His taut dance a last discharge of life.

He came to rest on his belly, face turned to the side. He twitched once more as I approached, then stilled. His grey fur was silken over soft heart-shaped hips, the curled question mark of tail. And the red eye, a drop of blood falling over his cheek.

Houses watched mutely from their yards. I stared around scene at my feet, action strokes fading on bleached asphalt. Such spirit--surrounds us always. Vajrasattva's blessing crosses my lips. A daring, wild essence forms a squirrel, choiceless joy emits What life!

(from Leanander Archives)

This morning, desolate, dawn of pink cotton candy. Mind is suffused with the aftertaste of a dream: A burly office mate dumps a small coi fish from our moving train window Aims for the concurrent river, but misses. We are carried away. The flash of orange writhing on white stone recedes Like a dirty thought. The rest of the dream I’m walking through myriad urban obstacles to save the creature.

Walking commute. Descending Riverdale’s hill, Fingers of cypress reach for a tickle, unanswered. In my bag, things I keep forgetting to put in the mail. Inner qi is tired and wants a vacation. Then, in my path A collage plastered by fall and rain – junk mail, newspapers and empty envelopes – 20 feet of inanity fused in asphalt. The magic display never leaves me alone.

(From Leanander archives)  I have been reflecting on what I should really be planning...it seemed clear earlier this year - I had an epiphany while on my umpteenth visit to Karme Choling (a residential dharma center in Vermont) that I should move there for a couple of years. But since then, I've been practicing a lot and newer practices as well, and been engaged in my life, and engaging with dharma practice in the real world, and feeling torn between the potential rich thoroughness of dharma center life and the existing rich thoroughness all around me here in New York.

I'm craving the opportunity to go back to school and study art - to have a studio and the chance to explore. It's been my dream to be in a situation where I am actually expected to be creating things, but where my eating and having a bed to sleep in are not dependent on it. Because of various aspects of my karma, it has eluded me. My insight into spending 2 years or so becoming very grounded in meditation practice and with a small community was that I would also have more time to practice art-making, and creating a portfolio that could be submitted to MFA programs. Then once a degree was completed, there would be the option of teaching art for a living, or finding work as a commercial artist.

But I started questioning these premises recently, and asked a friend who knows me well and has some perspective on the dharma/career thing what he thought about my plan. It created a lot of open space in my thought process which is good. My main takeaway is the practicality and seeing a bigger picture. I'm 40. I have $60,000 in student loan debt from my BA in Art History 8 years ago. I don't own a place to live, and have little saved for old age. I'm unmarried, live alone, and have non-existent family support. His view is that I should have a home, some land, some basics and extend out from there - go back to school, take time off for a dharma year or two. It's such an appealing idea - all my life besides wanting to make art I've just wanted a home, a place that I can extend out from. But that has eluded me as well. Everything is so much more complex and interdependent - certainly in the New York area, where no one can afford to buy anything. Where my student loan debt is itself a mortgage.

My attachment to my dream seems like an obstacle I need to dispell. My friend said he could see me with a Public Health degree, applying my creativity in a related field. On another occasion when we were talking about the election campaigns, he saw my analytical brain working in politics. Neither has much appeal but maybe it's my own stubbornness that keeps me from letting go of art and trying to be curious about these alternatives. Certainly, being a secretary in an Investment Bank is limited in making use of my abilities.

I have no idea where these contemplations are headed, but I'm going to ask a few more people the basic question: what do you think about my plan?

(from Leanander Archives) I went to pick up a large frame today that was being scrapped by a friend P's architecture office, which would have been a good basis for the suiban element of this ikebana installation I'm planning for Synthetic Zero. It was a last minute adventure, materializing late on a Saturday morning. Wasn't sure if I could get a car - but A from next door was willing to embark on this escapade. After a longish bout with Union Square traffic (it was a gourgeous fall day, the market was bursting) we double parked & I ran upstairs. The building houses Beyer Blinder Belle, it's an old marbled-stair-and-iron railing pre-war commercial building in the NYU area, with tall tropical plants nearly ceiling height on the lobby and mezzanie levels. P had sent pictures and dimensions, which didn't seem to reconcile with each other but it was FREE and close to what I was planning to use so optimism prevailed. Indeed it was a full foot wider than we thought - at 3' x 6' instead of 2' x 6', having it hang out the side window would be out of the question. We carried it downstairs to A waiting in the car and proceeded to attempt any number of seat adjustments & trunk-accessing manuevers to no avail. I was kind of amused by the whole thing but the others were wearing varying shades of disappointment. FYI: 1995 Beamer sedans' back seats DO NOT fold down. Brilliant idea abandoned. A is not sorry, but intrigued.

Let's go Come on Let's go Empty out our pockets and disappear. Missing all our appointments and turning up unshaven years later old cigarette papers stuck to our pants leaves in our hair. Let us not worry about the payments anymore. Let them come and take it away whatever it was we were paying for. And us with it.

--from "Junkman's Obbligato" (1st stanza) by Lawrence Ferlinghetti Published in "A Coney Island of the Mind"