Sunday Times

Both my parents were avid consumers of information. My mother, a speed reader, read five library books a week for decades. When she was too frail to go to the library, her neighbor would deliver fresh books to her and take a sack of used ones to return. She read everything from physics to history to pulp fiction. Her mind was an encyclopedia. She did not need to leave the charms of her home, with its big trees and garden, to see the outer world. Books brought her adventures.

My father was engaged all his adult life with social matters and remaking America into a fairer and more just society. No wonder then that every day three newspapers arrived at my parents home in Santa Barbara, California: The New York times, the Santa Barbara News-Press, and the Los Angeles Times. When he passed away, his obituary and an article appeared in the same papers. (See my blog, I Always Loved Him)

I inherited some of my parents intellectualism. I am an artist, a designer, photographer, business owner, writer and world traveller. When I am at home I have a weekly ritual of going on Sunday morning to a well known local coffee bar and newsstand, called The Downtown Subscription. I buy a pastry, cup of coffee and the New York Times. Then I sit by myself and enjoy the ambience of art exhibits on the walls, music, and conversation all around. The Sunday paper is thick and full of timely and interesting content. I take it home and read it thoroughly, taking a week to finish—in time for another.

Eleven years ago I wrote a similar piece about going for the Sunday paper: (See- Sunday Times and Dried Leaves)

A Dazzling Celebration

Lately, when I wake in the morning, often I feel like I need help facing the day, so I say a prayer for assistance. Then, more often than not, little struggles ensue throughout the sunlight hours. It is not physical, since I almost never fall sick and I am in good health. But emotionally, when I face tasks, I am soon encumbered by disinterest. I wonder if I have been spoiled by my year of living dangerously, trekking with abandon across the globe on adventure after adventure. Also, the USA is not the same as when I left, and I feel life is collapsed inward. The economy is in shambles . . . and I have no income, so to speak. I am considering selling my possessions again, and moving to Asia, where I have friends and I can live for a fraction of the cost I am faced with now.
This morning I took a walk and flowers are in bloom everywhere. Flowers struggle too! First they must emerge from their dark, hard surroundings underground in their shell. Then they need sunlight, water and nutrients to feed their roots. They must not be stepped on or crushed. They are on a mission to grow to their full potential and create the flowers that make seeds that insure the survival of the species. They struggle against elemental opposition and when they succeed and bloom, a dazzling celebration ensues.
So too, must we as human beings, struggle against everything that would keep us from blooming, so that we may reach our potential and display to the world our own accomplishment of intelligence, talent, and virtue. The difference for us is that we can have a long life of blooming, and human blooming can occur under almost any circumstance. Sometimes, nobility is most pronounced under cruel circumstances. I think of my precious Naomi, when she was in pain and slowly dying. It drove me crazy with distress too watch, and although it was not my custom, sometimes I would leave her for a few moments and smoke a cigarette to relax and distract myself. I prayed all the time for her healing, but conditions worsened. Anyway, once, when I returned to Naomi’s side, she knew I had gone out to smoke, and she gently chided me, saying, “Dad, if you are anxious, just pray. We are stronger when we are happy.” In moments like those, I knew Naomi was so much more than her withering body . . . she was blooming like the fairest rose and nothing would fade its magnificent splendor.