Notes From A Burning House

Oh.  Oh.  Aaaauuuurggggghhh.  Gaaaaaaaaaauuuhh!!!   

Ah.

Mmm. ???  Oh.  RRrrrrrrrr.  Auuuuugggghhh!!!!!

Last week, I got a pretty harsh sunburn.  Usually I take more care, but last week I was foolishly unprepared and soon turned a shade hotter than pink.  The pain was exquisite, but it was just an opening act for the miracle of healing.

Hold on a second.  Mmmm.  Hrrrrrr. RRraaaaaAAAAAAHHH!!!

Yes, it’s the itching time.  The sensation is so intense, I get the shivers. 

It recalls a memory from seven years ago, an itching sensation that was even more severe, with the added onus of doctor’s orders not to scratch, no matter what. 

In 1998, at age 27, I got chicken pox.  Procrastination really does make things worse.  My doctor warned me of fatal complications that can arise from adult cases of chicken pox – including pneumonia and encephalitis (a swelled head? Great, two strikes against me already). 

He ordered me to bed for a month.  It was an enforced vacation from grad school – I was in the Conservatory at the time.  I lived in an apartment on Candace Street, in the Smith Hill neighborhood of Providence, Rhode Island.  Rebecca was wonderful, coming by every day, helping me with tasks or just keeping me company.  When the sores began to dry it felt like a tickling fire that consumed me utterly. 

Kind of like this.  Rrrrr.  Hhhhhaaahhhhhhh.  Baaaaaaahhh!!!

But the pox was worse.  My body would involuntary twitch and shake, just to rub against my clothing.  Even a breeze would provide a teasing hint of relief.  I could bathe, I could soak in oatmeal tisanes, if it pleased me, until my skin puckered; but as I dried, the fire would return. 

It’s hard, this skin business.  We are wrapped up in this organ, with 20 square feet of tissue exposed to all elements and subject to irritation.  Itching can alert us to potential harm, such as a visit from a thirsty mosquito, or some irritant to the dermis – a pinprick from a hair, a piece of grit.  As far as alert devices goes, this is a smart one.  Itching is hard to ignore.  I don’t even try, this week.  I just examine, with fascination, all of the moving sensations that slither, leap, and rattle from my toes to my brain.  A really powerful itch can be felt all over the body.  The Itch.  Iiiiiiiiitching.  Gaaaaaarrrrrr. 

Formal Zen meditation is done in a sitting position, and it is important to be very still while remaining relaxed and open. We also bring our attention to a single point and decline to hop on the trains of thought that normally pull us through our days. It is a simple yet very challenging practice, and all practitioners deal with resistance.  Even if one is highly motivated to do this, there can arise methods of distraction that are subconscious. 

Many meditators have experienced “phantom fatigue,” the sensation of being exhausted and sleepy during a meditation period that suddenly lifts when the bell is rung and the sitting period is over – one goes from falling over asleep to feeling energized, alert, and ready to put on their dancing shoes and set the night on fire. 

Another subconscious resistance is The Itch.  It often chooses the nose.  Nothing has landed on your nose (except, for now, your focused attention) yet there is an itching sensation so powerful it feels like a tiny dentist is drilling straight through the tip of your schnozz, aiming for the stem of your brain. 

A monk giving retreat orientation said to some newcomers, “Nobody ever died of an itchy nose,” and one of them replied, “How do you know?” 

One can, however, die to an itch.  Encountering a barrier, already one has split into two; becoming the barrier, the fire burns clean and releases energy.  The Itch – a mundane and comical variant of the Zen analogy of choking on a ball of hot iron.  If the whole universe is on fire, Ko Bong asked, how do you avoid getting burned? 

Ko Bong had a ferocious itch. 

Build a man a campfire, and he’ll be warm for a couple of hours.

Set him on fire, and he’ll be warm the rest of his life.

-old joke

Poi la svegliava, e d’esto core ardendo lei paventosa umilmente pascea: appresso gir lo ne vedea piangendo.

-Dante

My friend P’arang sometimes seasons her dharma talks with lists she has maintained of extreme acts committed for love.  Dramatic breakups, serial phone calls, depression, heart palpitations, euphoria, shining headlights into the bedroom of one’s ex.  I myself once kneeled in a puddle in a rainstorm, begging my girlfriend at the time not to leave me, and refused to budge until our relationship got a reprieve.  How romantic.  Ah-CHOO. 

The very fact that I am still acting is worthy of such a list.  I have no career aspirations to speak of anymore.  In fact, I have a weird, knee-jerk resistance to it that I can’t explain.  Yet there is something about doing plays that constitutes an irresistible, God’s will, super-magnetic pull.  Jo Jo Dancer, Your Daemon Is Calling. 

I love theatre.  I really do.  I love gathering people together into a space, turning down the lights, and presenting a story.  The theatre may die.  It has been debased and neglected enough that sometimes I think it should die – call it a fatal case of Creeping Mediocrity Meningitis.  But still, for the power it has to assemble people, I love it; and want it to exist.  I want the theatre to summon people to an intense experience of what it is to be human.  I want the theatre to show them things they never imagined, to remind them of what they have forgotten, to plunge them into intellectual confusion, to piss them off, to get them hard or wet, to make them feel creative, to damn them to hell and to reclaim them. 

Looking at it closely, I suppose this means that I love people.  This is a notion that makes me laugh very hard. 

Cintra Wilson’s unpublished play, XXX Love Act, also tells the story of extreme acts carried out in the name of love.  The play is suggested by the story of the Mitchell Brothers, who conceived and built an El Dorado of porn in San Francisco. Their partnership ended in gunfire in 1991.  In her play, Wilson portrays that burst of gunfire as one more extreme act of love.

Our production of XXX Love Act opens in two weeks at Company of Angels.  That’s me at left, in a scene with Amy Lewis and Tricia Allen.  For more photos and information, see the beautiful website Amy designed to promote the show.

Still acting.  And yes, still getting up to bow at 4:45.  Sometimes love is indefensible and inscrutable.  Sometimes we are left to offer it in the cold, cold rain. 

Surprise!  I brought you a cup of coffee.  Just the way you like it.

Wow!  Thank you so much. 

I used soy milk because you don’t like dairy.

I don’t?

So I put in soy milk for you.

Well, thanks for the coffee.  That’s great.  You know, I usually put dairy milk in my coffee.

But I’ve seen you put soy milk in your coffee before.

Sure, it’s happened – I don’t mind soy, I use it if there’s no dairy milk around, but if I have a choice I actually drink dairy milk. 

That sounds really confusing.  What’s bothering you, really?

Nothing is bothering me.  Thanks for the coffee. 

No, clearly you’re upset about the soy milk.  Look, I’m sorry.  I was just doing my best.

Thank you, really.  You were very kind to bring me some coffee.  It’s delicious, you mixed it perfectly.

Well, no.  No, I didn’t, Al.  Because I put soy milk in it and you don’t like soy milk.

I like soy milk fine.  I’m sorry I brought it up.  Let’s drink our coffee.

No, don’t shut me out.  Don’t cut me off.  See, I knew you were angry.

I’m not feeling angry.

Denial isn’t going to help us communicate.  We need to get through this together.  Let me ask you, when did you go back to dairy milk?

I never stopped drinking dairy milk. 

Can you put down your resistance for just one moment and see my act of generosity for what it is? 

I do see it.  Thank you for getting this cup of coffee for me.  It really is delicious, soy milk and all!

You don’t have to pretend you like the soy milk.

I’m not pretending-

You’re arguing.  God, you really are full of fight, aren’t you? 

I’m not fighting-

Heh heh heh.  Do you hear yourself?  “I’m not arguing!”  Ha ha ha ha!

Okay, hold on.  You did something very generous, and I have expressed my appreciation – and I am enjoying the coffee, by the way.  There seems to have been an assumption that I am unhappy with how you prepared it.  I want to communicate with you, in all sincerity, that the coffee is very much to my taste, just as you prepared it.  I also want to communicate to you that, in fact, I enjoy the coffee perfectly with soy milk instead of dairy. 

You’re being inconsistent.  You told me you prefer dairy, when it’s available.

Um.  Okay.

And see what you did?  You turned it all around and put the whole problem on me? 

Is that what I did? 

Wow.  You don’t see me at all.  Can you see me?  Can you just let it go right now?  Are you afraid you might cry?  Let it go.  It’s just soy milk, Al. 

I have to go to work, I’m late.

You can’t run away from yourself all your life, Al!  Get help!  Can you hear me??  Get help!    Boy, I hope that guy gets what he needs.

"A zendo is not a peaceful haven, but a furnace room for the combustion of our delusions."
– Eido Roshi

My father called to me from outside the house.  He said, “You have got to come out.  Can’t you feel the heat blistering your skin?  Don’t you wonder where your cough comes from?  Haven’t you noticed the smoke has completely blacked out any light?  Come out of there, you nut!”  But I couldn’t hear. 

So my father tried another line: “Hey, I’ve got these really cool carts out here…”  Maybe you know how this story goes.  My brothers and I came running out with the promises of carts: a cart pulled by a goat, a cart pulled by a deer, and a cart pulled by an ox.  It worked as far as getting out of the house, but when there were no carts, no goats, or anything else he promised, father had a problem. 

He produced a cart that was much, much more wonderful than anything he had described to us when luring us out of the house. A magnificent cart.  But as soon as was gazed on it, the cart caught fire.  Then we looked at father, and he caught fire.  We looked to each other in horror, and we all caught fire, too. 

Now I address myself to you, but you may already have learned to tune out the burning flesh smell.  It is the human way.  Say – do you hear someone calling us? 

*   *   *   *

Diary, July 10:

Unhealthy concepts about ‘spiritual life.’  Goes back to Siddhartha’s early yogic explorations, clearing the body (which was thought to be base and chained to appetite and desire) from ‘the spirit.’  No way of responding with the unity of one’s being.

The image of the mosquito biting the iron bull.  Zen can be a lovely intention; but an intention remains ‘inside.’  Even Zen Master Seung Sahn divided ‘inside job’ and ‘outside job.’  Mosquito bites into the iron bull with complete unity of being, intention and body functioning as one event.

One’s entire being, the whole of one’s life, must become the path.  Our livelihood and activities must support and express our unity or there may be a feeling that there is a ‘spiritual life’ and that we are falling short; feelings of dishonesty, confusion, doubting one’s capability or our true nature, rebelling against ourselves – all distractions.  Yet: we cannot contrive to express Tao.

We jettison ‘the spiritual life,’ jettison ‘enlightenment,’ and we certainly jettison any idea of ‘clarifying one’s intention.’ 

First become whole (completely and honestly unified with one’s being, even if therapy is required); our being is one event. 

I wrote this and my diary caught fire.  The path collapsed, Siddhartha was exposed as a scarecrow, and Seung Sahn exploded across the galaxy. 

The mosquito knows: it takes a lot of effort to penetrate all the bull. 

*   *   *   *

There is a dream I had years ago that I have never forgotten.  I am following my father as he walks through a parking lot at night.  It is unmistakably him: his walk, his voice, his manner of speaking.  He is charging forward, talking to me almost over his shoulder.  He says, “We are a quarter of the way to the goal, and halfway through the hour!”

*   *   *   *

"Because we think we know something, we can’t believe ourselves." — Zen Master Su Bong

At Ross (“Dress For Less!”), men demonstrate an interesting shopping technique.  They like to test apparel by flinging it across the room to see how far it travels.  One walks between rows of dress shirts treading on a path of belts, ties, and underwear.

Combing through packages of dress shirts at Ross to find something my size is an occasional sport, on a level with playing “scratch” lottery cards.  When I get tired of that, I vary the routine by looking for underwear my size.  I don’t know what happens in that aisle, folks, but the remains are savage indeed.  It looks as though savage apes used the underwear section to settle a turf dispute – and that might be close to the truth.  At any rate, excavating the destruction wrought, I rarely find anything but XXL panties for guys.  34 years old, and I am still being pushed aside by larger males.

Back to the shirts.  The choice of one style over another is not a consideration; not here.  The first consideration is, “Is anything my size?  Anything at all?”  There are 14 ½, 15 ½, but nothing landing squarely on 15.  The rare 15’s have sleeves that are too long.

In my head, I start drafting a letter: “To the General Manager, I have a proposal for you.  Give me a call when you receive a shipment of size 15 32/33 shirts, let me come in before the store opens, and I will guarantee you a certain number of purchases per year.  Not only that, I’ll wash your windows.  They need it.” 

*   *   *

A few blocks away from the ceremony where Los Angeles inaugurated our new alcalde, I sit in the county courthouse, ready for jury service.  For some reason I am not selected for a trial.  Maybe it is because I am dressed in full military camouflage and periodically shout, “DUCK!” 

Eventually, I am ejected from the courthouse; but on Hill Street, I am greeted by every stranger as a hero.  They clear a path for me straight back to my car, parked near the hideous Disney Concert Hall, from where you can faintly hear the applause from the inaugural speech by the new Mayor, who invokes the image of the Watts Towers to describe what he finds inspirational about L.A.

It is an interesting image for me, too.  A body that seems solid that is actually made from shards, a cohesion of shattered things.