A Pale View of Hills

My parents, Shari and Otto Klein, live life moment to moment.  Whether or not they notice it or feel it is irrelevant.  They exude a kind of joy over certain things that I rarely feel...  it is a combination of understanding a moment, feeling a moment, and loving a moment that, for me, comes only in the most extreme of times; my mother's exclamation that she's thrilled I found a job, my father's guiding my attention towards an almost impossible coincidence of seemingly different circumstances...  these things, for them,  demand not only an intense attention, but a kind of rejoicing moment, a moment of thankfulness and pride that we are alive, that I am alive because of them, and that, in some intangible way, they are alive because of me and my family.

I envy this.  For I feel so much adoration for them, so much pride in the fact that I love everyone in my family and that they all love me...  but I am always coated in a sort of confusion that constantly disables me...  it leads me to selfishness, to eternally deep questions about whether or not I'm worthy of them, whether or not I'm capable of making and staying with and cherishing my own family (someday), and whether or not I can find a peace with my life that they have both appeared to have found.  

The cherry on top of my confusion is the fact that my parents have such immense faith in me.  They seem to understand that I will do great things--great for myself, great for others, great in general--and yet I remain this lost soul, this confused son who treads deep swamp waters in New Orleans and knows almost nothing (after 23 years of experience) of himself.  

On my final night in Seattle we went out to a bar.  We drank and ate and my parents and one of my brothers (and his wonderful fiance, Jane) gave me advice about my life.  They told me such wonderful things, that I am capable of so much, and that I can achieve so much...  my father asked me what my dream job was, and there wasn't a glint in his eyes so much as there was a piece of his eyes that implied how confident he was that I could achieve this "life."   

At some point, I couldn't hold my tears any longer.  I was so overwhelmed by the prospects of my future that I began crying... and it wasn't because of my family: it was because I have no idea what my future might hold.  Acting, writing, teaching, hosting, talking, loving... these are all things I can do, and some of them quite well, I might add...  but I was feeling lost.  And I think this disorientation came from an idea that I just don't know... that I just can't think of my future because I'm so God Damned confused about my present.  

New Orleans is an astounding place...  it confuses me every day.  It thrills me every day.  It provokes me every day.  It inspires me every day.  And it depresses me every day.  

There is nothing I can do about the impulses I feel towards this city, and they are certainly many and sometimes seemingly crucial...  people here have a defeatism that dances with their optimism, a punishment that teams with their celebration...  and I find myself so utterly lost in the midst of it that I don't know about what I am hopeful, happy, alive, versus what makes me dread, despise, avoid... and perhaps this is a beautiful confusion.  

So why can't I just be?  Why can't I feel a sort of appreciation for my present as opposed to a dread or ecstasy towards my future?  Is it because I am too young?  Is it because I am too hopeful?  Is it because I am too defeatist?  

The final paragraph of "A Pale View of Hills" brought me so many memories and so many thoughts...  it is a woman saying goodbye to her child as she moves back to her home.  The child will travel back to London and the woman will remain in a small and simple house in Japan: 

"I would like to have seen her to the railway station -- it is only a few minutes walk -- but the idea seemed to embarrass her.  She left shortly after lunch with an oddly self-conscious air, as if she were leaving without my approval.  The afternoon had turned grey and windy, and I stood in the doorway as she walked down to the end of the drive.  She was dressed in the same tight-fitting clothes she had arrived in, and her suitcase made her drag her step a little.  When she reached the gate, Niki glanced back and seemed surprised to find me still standing at the door.  I smiled and waved to her." 

The main character, the mother, has (as other characters in the book have) seen such beauty in the youth, in her daughter, and has demonstrated a sort of deference towards the young...  but there is a tone throughout the book of a kind of missed opportunity...  it comes not from the passing of a distinguished prompt...  rather, it comes from a young person ignorant of the glory that is their present surroundings.  And I can't help but read it with the assumption that I have ignored my "present" surroundings.  

I remember those times waving goodbye to my parents as I drove away from home.  And I remember them standing, just as Etsuko does in "A Pale View of Hills," at the front of the house, waving goodbye to me.  Just the other week, as I entered SEA-TAC airport, both of my parents hugged me goodbye and waved as I entered whatever void it was I entered...

And I wonder to myself, am I appreciating these moments as my parents are?  We are always taught to live in the moment, to be aggressive (rather than passive) in the pursuit of our dreams, to make our lives happen rather than to live our lives... but how on Earth can I truly know that this is what I'm doing?  

There is a kind of understanding that comes with age that none of us can understand.  And our lack of understanding only aids in its beauty.  Of course I know that as I leave my parents at the airport something beautiful is happening; it is a reflection of love, a reflection of blood, a reflection of being.  But where am I as I step onto the plane?  Empty--longing--alone... 

When someone tells you to live "in the present" you assume a sort of responsibility on your part, and rightly so.  But we, for the most part, are wrong; we assume that to "live in the present" means to make things happen, to take risks, to bend our own boundaries...  and to an extent, these expectations are legitimate...  for often the most beautiful things in our lives are created through the most unexpected areas and times...

We have a tendency to turn our lives into a plethora of exchanges; we turn our actions and beliefs into currency that can be exchanged for something new or preserved for a future benefit.  I feel almost corrupted by this idea...  for why do we feel the need to excavate some meaning or beauty from every moment for the purpose of something to come?  When someone tells me to live my life to the fullest (as everyone is doing from pre-school on...) I feel a sort of requirement to meet an expectation, when perhaps the requirement doesn't exist.  

I'm not sure what compels me to do certain things here in New Orleans, and I'm not sure what compels everyone else to do what they do...  but I know that I tend to place too much importance on the future, on my own future, on my own future-life.  What if my "future-life" is my "present-life"?  What if I find just as much importance in my day to day encounters as my parents do in their encounters with me?  My parents have worked their entire lives to make my life something beautiful (and of course, the lives of my siblings, and their own lives).  But what if all of their children had become drug-addicted low-lives?  Would their lives have been failures?  Of course not.  

I'd love to change the saying "live life moment to moment" from an incentive to action to an incentive to just fucking relax...  to an incentive to appreciate the moment in which one lives rather than to waste time preparing for that eternally elusive moment in which one might live in the future.  

As we sometimes forget: we are all making decisions and making plans in a time in our lives where we all still feel, we all still hope, we all still regret...  when we die, is there some test we take to make sure we've made the right decisions, to ensure we've made all of ourselves that we could possibly have made?  Of course not.  

There is only the clear or tainted, neglected or appreciated understanding of what we have.