Allowing resonance

A gift from Pete, a gift for Pete, November 2008

Richard Ford is in my dreams now. I wake up and find myself describing something as if I was reading it from the one of his novels. Like this:

"We've now made it as far as the Toms River western outskirts. Motels are all full here. Used-car lots are Given' 'em Away. A bonsai nursery has already moved its tortured little shrubs to the back, and employees are stacking in Christmas trees and wreaths. Flapping flags in many parking lots stand at half-staff -- for what reason, I don't know. Other signs shout Y2K MEMORABILIA SCULPTURE! INVEST IN REAL ESTATE NOT STOCKS! TIGHT BUTTS MAKE ME NUTS! WELCOME SUICIDE SURVIVORS. Yellow traffic cones and a giant blinking yellow arrow are making us merge right into one lane, alongside a deep gash in the freshly opened asphalt, beside which large hard-hatted white men stand staring at other men already down in the hole -- putting our tax dollars to work."

There's nothing profound in this passage, but when I read it, when I dream something like it, I'm in the back seat behind Ford looking at the same landscape. The heat is too high in his 1995 Suburban, I'm starting to feel nauseated, burping and tasting my morning coffee again, so I crack my window a half inch, like a lifeline of fresh air. Scents of deisel, wet clay, and unleaded exhaust drift in but the coolness of that half-inch stream of air is worth the irritation and the risk of inhaling carcinogens, which I'm sure I'll clean out later when I do my half-hour of stair running at the Butterdome.

Boundaries fade and I see, hear, touch, smell, and taste what Ford's protagonist, Frank Bascombe, does. My ego-created walls dissolve, the ones that I believe make me unique, and I am Frank (who is Richard).

This kind of resonance is easy with literature. We all have books that feel like they were written just for us. They resonate or harmonize and make it easy to step outside the self and become someone else. It can happen with other art forms also. Film and theater are naturals for me: I live in a Sam Shepard landscape and talk to his characters almost every day; I've never been to Sweden, but Bergman has made that country feel like my second home, her people my distant family; I love the juvenile and brilliant characters on The Big Bang Theory and would love to join them for Wii Bowling Night or a game of who is the smartest. I can find a resonance with music fairly easily and with visual art at times. Photography: easy; painting & sculpture: depends on the artist; garden design: easy; stadium architecture: not so easy. I have to test the theory, but I believe I'm able to get this sense of resonant synchronicity with with any medium. It feels like I'm lifting a lid off of my consciousness and leaving the shell of my body. (I clearly remember Spock talking about this in an ancient episode of Star Trek where his body is taken over by a body-less, alien life form. I was twelve and this was my first lesson in existentialism.)

Lately, I've asked myself, why stop with art? Why not allow myself to see through the eyes of anyone or anything? What is it like to be George, having made a deep wound on the entire planet and preparing to retire to his ranch in the lone star state? I've acted (unwisely) on my anger before. I've hated. I've let myself be guided by deluded ideals. I've most certainly been George. What was it like to be Angie or Kirsty, bodies damaged beyond repair, knowing they will die soon? Or what's it like to be Betty at the end of an eight-hour shift behind the belt and register at Safeway's. Asking an impossible line of people, "how are you?" over and over. Imagine her worn-out feet at the end of a day like that. What does she think about when she's asking empty questions or having 20-second conversations about whether Japanese oranges are better than the Chinese ones? Does she go home to seek silence or does she find someone to have an intense conversation with? Maybe she works for the Kids Help Line at night, guiding young souls when they have no one else to talk to. Maybe she smokes cigarettes and watches her soaps on Tivo and tries not to think at all. How happy would my family be if I relaxed my grip on paternal dominance and let them bring a puppy home? Would it be that bad? How would my seven year-old look at me differently if I gave in to his pleading (prompted by his mother's genetics) and said, "sure, let's go down to the pound and see what they have."

Resonance happens naturally with many forms of art (film and literature especially) and it can become natural, through the power of compassion, if we let it happen with the people around us. It doesn't have to be profound, like receiving a key dharma teaching from a zen monk. It can be ordinary, (like receiving a key dharma teaching from a zen monk) or by putting yourself in the photographer's shoes when you look at a photo, seeing the world through his eyes, and realizing that they aren't so different from yours. The natural way of things is that there are no boundaries between us. We create those boundaries through well-meaning delusion (because that's what everyone does and we don't know better). We can let those delusions, those barriers, go, if we chose, and feel the freedom of being everyone, everywhere, everything, at every time.

Anyone can be our teacher if we allow ourselves to see the world through their eyes. They don't have to be teaching, giving us a lesson. All it takes is a willingness to ignore what we think and simply observe or be from another person's point of view. Accept whatever comes up and experience it. Don't judge, label, embrace, or reject. Simply let the waves of the infinite wash over you until you dissolve into the ocean of life that is us all.

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