All Souls
Last time I attended All Souls in Tucson, it was pre-pandemic, and I attended as a spectator. This time, the world has changed, we have changed, I have changed and will attend as a participant. I even have a flower crown. I’m not messing around.
What I didn’t really “get” the first time I attended All Souls, years ago, was that I am a soul. You are a soul, too, reader. More than clothes or jobs or these bodies we occupy, we are souls.
I’ve written before, I think, about the bonding between me and a student over Bruce Lee — specifically Lee’s quote about being “like water.” The full quote is here:
“You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.”
My student was already familiar with Bruce Lee when I introduced him to this quote, this idea of being “like water.” For my student, we used the analogy to apply to the classroom and various tasks students are asked to complete while inside the classroom. “Become like water,” I’d tell him. “If you are in a classroom, become the classroom. If you are in a group of students, become the group. Like Bruce Lee. Like water.”
And the water is the soul, right? If we are “like water” we become the role, the task, the love.
Sometimes, I’ll catch this student’s eye when he’s off task, when he’s up to something unwise, and he’ll put his hands into the prayer formation at his chest and say “sensei” and sometimes he’ll say “like water.” And in return I will put my hands in prayer form to my chest and say “sensei” or “like water.”
See, that student, that child I know understands something that most adults have forgotten: these moments, these spaces, these roles we must play, these obligations are transitory, but the soul, the innermost self is fluid, is forever. We are happier, even in the worst of circumstances, when we know we are fluid and forever.
Have I been in the west too long? Maybe.
I was just discussing with friends last night, all of us east-of-the-Mississippi grown, how the American West, as a place, has changed me. And they all agreed that the American West, as a place, had changed them, too. For the most part, we all spoke favorably of the ways this specific place has altered us. So that’s good.
I think, sometimes, of where I want to “conclude” this life, if I can have any say in the matter, and I don’t know anymore if the American Midwest will be a part of that conclusion.
When I first moved to Arizona, I mourned green (among other things). I mourned the loss of green — the green you can only find in the “old countries” and in the American Midwest. I complained about how “beige” everything was. Even in Flagstaff. Never “green enough” for me.
And then I moved to Tucson, and when I drove up to Flagstaff in May for graduation, as I rounded up the mountain in to Coconino National Forest, I gasped at the green. Oh my Christ it’s beautiful up here, I said in wonder. Like I’d never been there before. Like it was the first time I was seeing the area. But the fact was I had fuckin’ lived there for more than five years.
I was measuring Flagstaff Green along a rubric designed for Chicago Green, and that’s just not fair. As my students would say, “Gruber, that’s not fair.” Their new “not fair” is “I’m going to sue you.”
My new reply is “Good. Please do.”
Invariably, they laugh. One student recently asked me, “Why are you saying ‘good’ when I say ‘I’m gonna sue you,’ Gruber?”
And I explained that I have nothing. No-thing that they would want to sue me for.
After listening to me itemize some of my “best” possessions, my student agreed that I had nothing she would want.
Like water.
I’m going to paint my face for the procession tonight.
I plan to wear a flower crown.
I have a mask I bought with little Dachshunds that look like my sweet Bernie.
I will honor my grandmothers Terese and Jean, my friends, family, and students who had to leave this life too early in their “timelines”— Cicily, Brian, Diana, my dear, wild, beautiful Uncle Al . . .
I have changed. So have you, reader.
To quote one of my favorite films ever, Fargo, “Circumstances have changed, Jerry. Beyond the acts of God.”
Fargo is a great film about secrets and fear.
I have no secrets. First time in my life I can say this is true.
I live a truly Secret-Free life.
Have you ever tried this? You don’t even have to stop drinking (unless your drinking involves “secrets,” in which case you might want to consider considering your drinking). All you have to do is not do anything you might later have to “cover up.”
It’s not even a virtue thing, it’s a sanity and general wellness thing.
And I am not Christopher Columbusing this ideological territory — 12-steppers and psychologists have been treading in secrets for a long time before I ever started giving it much thought.
But talking about “laying my burden down.” When I quit drinking (which was all about secretiveness), when I quit punishing myself (which was all about secretiveness), when I started giving up on making everyone “love me” (an effort that involved hiding parts of myself, my truth) and decided that maybe who I am, as I am, is good enough — well, shit. I laid a big burden down.
No secrets.
Truth and honor. That’s what tonight’s procession will be about for me: truth and honor.
Last night, while out with friends on 4th Avenue, we passed a merry band of Hare Krishnas. There’s a healthy population of Krishnas in Tucson. Not sure why. Maybe because it’s warm and cheaper than California? Anyway, they were singing and dancing down 4th Ave and as they passed by, I made eye contact with one man who in response to my eye contact bobbed his head in deference and shyly smiled and it was a very sweet interaction and no, I am not going to join the Hare Krishnas so don’t worry about it.
I’m just talking about beauty, now, and human connection.
And warm nights in Tucson, gorgeous starry nights here on the borderland where the convergence of cultures illuminates the buildings and the streetlights and the air itself. Passing people at night, here in the borderlands, one has a real keen sense of being fixed, for that moment, in a very specific place and time. Almost Biblical. At least for me. I don’t know why.
When the Hare Krishnas passed me last night with their drums and cymbals and energy, it felt not unlike the night at Sarah’s parents when I dodged the Javelina, and could smell the sweat from its body as it snorted, berserk with terror, past me and off into the foothills. The Krishnas were blissed out. No terror I could sense from that crew. The overall sensation was the same — the feeling of something crucial passing past and through my soul. Like water.
