FRIENDSHIP

We attempt to group the “Email to the Buffalo” postings by a central subject they address, yet some seem to follow no theme. In the following sequence Gene and I wander from writing, to politics, to humor, and to dirt and grit on the cosmic level. But what echoed for me throughout the sequence was the importance of mutual trust, respect and friendship, and how true friendship, someone believing in me regardless of my obvious limitations, motivates me to work diligently toward the fulfillment of my personal potentials, an impossible but singularly worthwhile effort.

I am fortunate to have several really good friends, both men and women. Some I have known all my life, most from thirty to fifty years. Some are from my genetic family, all are from my cosmic family. We share the same generation, have aged together, suffered and succeeded together. We remember what happened in the 60s and 70s, how those times effected our lives and shaped our future. It is upon the foundation of those tumultuous years that we know one another in these times – our elder (not elderly) years - and understand in our blood what we are now experiencing individually, and collectively. The support of this group of family and friends is everything to me in these “put up or shut up” years. Death is not so scary as one approaches the gate. What is truly scary is to not have lived, to have squandered this beautiful life, and to not have worked with all my effort to fulfill my own silent promise to myself. Friendship is my comforting companion in these efforts, my mirror, my validation, the impetus of my motivation.

Email to the buffalo
10/03/2008 9:44 AM Bersone:

Buffalo,
Re-read your latest piece on the blog (KITE) and it had a wonderful calm to it, sad but calm, like the sea can seem at times. This story of yours that is unfolding is going to be wonderful to behold. Publishers categorize these stories as "coming of age stories" and are often a writer's first book, such as James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. When I think of you when I met you, guarded and ready to strike, and yet with a great laugh and readiness to leap into positive joy on the subject of jazz, but full of Man this and Man that, as if warning the person that you were from the world of musicians, which we knew were akin to criminals, the world of beatniks, the world that gave the lie to the suburban fifties, and when I think of you now, how capable of love and encouragement to the soul you are, and having such beauty coming through you, I can only say that this book will be a real one, one earned because it is driven by an urge to climb out of the mud of lies that plague us when we're caught in a web of fear into the clear air where we can be seen for the wonderful animals we are, worthy of the wind that has been going in and out of us for years, not like a dusty accordion that somebody has been jumping up and down on in an attic but like the river that came through Clifford, who turned sound into sunlight, causing it, however briefly, to dawn in the heart of man.

I'll attach a couple of things (see the next two postings below), one a reworking of something I sent you, the other sort of a journal note. doing some good reading up here, but upset over the stock market; Larry and I watched the Biden/Palling debate last night. that Biden's a good man; she, on the other hand, should be hanging sheets on a line pulling clothespins out of her mouth as she gossips to a neighbor. Perhaps we should just cut to chase on this dummying down of America and let the homeless and insane take office. It reminds me, years ago when the trade show industry was looser, we dragged a wino off the street in San Jose, sat him down at a table, gave him a pizza, gave him a stack of labor orders and made him the guy exhibitors lined up to see to get their labor to build their booths. It was hilarious, watching this guy being approached, called Sir by a bunch of silicon valley people, taking a bite of pizza, rummaging through paperwork guided by a comment or two by us on the sidelines, hardly able to contain ourselves, as this guy dispatched the crew and got the show going.


10/03/2008 1:26 PM Buff:

Your words are eloquent and generous! That this eloquence and generosity should be directed toward me is indeed a blessing of the first order. We did our best, and as you have said, we did it our way. It was the only way we knew and trusted, the way of seeking truth. From the perspective of a tribal elder, those years of emergence are now a story that was told, a tribal history that must be repeated and embellished for deepest truth, the telling now being ritualized. The truth carries like a hawk in an air stream, sailing over the land of creatures and beasts. High in the air with eyes that see beyond horizons and glittering sun spots, eyes that are silent and wise. We speak into the quiet minds of children and mothers and workers with hoe and pick, nagging at the rocks and roots hidden beneath the crusty earth. The children and women and men singing as they work and then quiet as they listen to the stories told by the dark and patient elders. Nothing has changed in a million years and nothing ever will. The stories must be told. The truth carries like a bird.

Having just finished a slow re-reading of “Women In Love” (should have been called: “Men and Women in Love”) the final 10 pages resonate like an Asian gong. Gerald frozen in the white snow, Birkin defeated in his quest for the perfect friend. Looking at Gerald’s frozen body Birkin says: “He should have loved me. I offered him.” Perhaps in our own way, we have found what Birkin sought, the friendship founded on freedom of spirit, respect of spirit. The friendship free of question, doubt, condition, even free of love, for only then does love bloom in its truest glory, in peace. A friend is like a mirror, a validation, an image of life. Only our friend truly sees us, we cannot see ourselves. When we look into the eyes of a friend and see love, we are looking at ourselves. That is the nature of love, and how love engenders love.

Your words bring me to this thinking, they freshen my spirit and motivate my will. What more can one give?

“If humanity ran into a cul-de-sac, and expended itself, the timeless creative mystery would bring forth some other being, finer, more wonderful, some new, more lovely race, to carry on the embodiment of creation.” (“Women In Love”) I feel as though I am walking in space, striding in seven league boots through the stars, energized by the gravity of the future which pulls me, pulls me into the night toward the impending dawn, passing through limitless space and freedom. I am hearing an old teaching in my mind, “the truth will set you free”, and it takes on a grander meaning, becomes larger than ever I knew it to be. To speak the truth is perhaps our highest purpose – live the truth, speak the truth, be the truth.

Yes, Biden is a good man, perhaps too good for the job. I love your wino story and its deep truth. But instead of installing this clothes pin lady with the poufy hair, I would pick a 300 pound mama from the Fillmore with a bad attitude. Only she could really shake up Washington and the House of Non-representatives! Wouldn’t that be a sight!

Great thoughts you sent! I LOVE the guy eating the pepperoni pizza, flicking through the paperwork with greasy fingers, “What did you say your name was?” “Next!” Good stuff!
Buff

10/06/2008 7:07 AM Bersone:

My dear man!
A fresh cup of coffee, a new dawn in a promising October. I feel as wiry as a deer springing up a hill. To what do I owe this alive feeling? The complete collapse of the stock market! Thank God! May it rot like a silent log in the wet forest, soft with fungi returning it to something useful -- mere dirt. The word mere has an old meaning. It doesn't just mean only; it used to mean pure. Pure dirt. Mulch, soil, loam, the vegetative detritus, fossil fuels, dirt, the thing into which one falls, sometimes lyrically, like a leaf, sometimes like a bowling ball hitting the lane frumped forward by an overweight housewife trying to get in the wind in, say, Everett, Wash. I have seen your teeth snapping, my friend, sharp and ready to tear like a wolf, tear the shit out of phonies, suffocating bullshit, deadening parades of put-ons and try-ons, I have seen you cross-legged at the second campsite wearing a purple bandana holding a cup of coffee, looking out at the world. And what is pure about dirt, since it contains everything? It is pure nutrition and pure poison. It is the earth, the terra-cotta, the adobe and adobo: it has passed through the mouths and bowels of men, animals and elves. It has the shit of starlight in it, the ring of gold, and it sings like the mother it is. It is, above all, a relief, a relief to pretense, lies, deception of all kinds and above all, Vanity. "Vanity, vanity, saith the preacher, all is vanity" Ecclesiastes. A handful of topsoil takes a million years to create, they say; our culture covers it with houses, in a world of homeless. The ironies are manifold. All is coming back to earth, to find what it truly valuable, since we have lost sight of value. What is valuable is a good laugh, an affectionate grin at the checkout stand, the ways we touch the world: "God bless the ground! I shall walk softly there / I learn by going where I have to go / she moves in circles and those circles move" - Roethke.

I say Bless the new Day! It has never been seen! You, whoever you are, have never seen it before. Let us watch it, eagerly, like inheritors, full of expectation. Rhythm depends on expectation! Eternity is in love with the inventions of Time. and so on . . .