Me and My Crazy World

We celebrated my grandfather's 100th birthday today. The family met at Katz' Deli on Houston Street and ordered all of his favorite food and had a massive feast where hot pastrami, corned beef, well done fries, celray soda, and some other unspellable Jewish delicacies abounded. We did it up in his honor. My grandfather died in August of 2000. He was 93. This was my dad's idea. My uncle came up from D.C. for it. The rest of us are pretty local but we cleared our schedules too. We didn't say anything in remembrance. We just hung out and ate.


I love Katz' but if the Second Avenue Deli was still open, we would have gone there and I would have loved that even more but I am of mixed minds about celebrating my grandfather's 100th birthday at all because he's dead. Remembrance is a good thing. But we didn't even talk about him. We just hung out. I know my feelings of confusion about the whole thing are tied in to how I am getting a taste of how mortality feels. I tried to have the death talk with my brother yesterday but it didn't go too well. I have had it with my sister, V., A., and AC so far with varying levels of success and stunningly different reactions.

K. says maybe I am not dying but living for the first time. D. said the same thing last night. She said being around me lately is inspiring. Not because I am sick and my spirit is prevailing or any corny bullshit like that but that I am living the way I want to be living. I am being honest with other people and with myself and letting my guard down and letting people in. And the writing. She is inspired that I am doing so much of it that I am finally in a position where my brain is free and open and I am going in there and digging and expressing and creating and I finally feel like I can stretch out in every direction, my world is no longer too small for me; it finally fits in that there's so much room to grow and it shows.


She was shocked when after dinner I asked her to, "put me into a cab," words that have never come out of my mouth. Never. I finally know that I not omnipotent or immortal and I had to go home and not to the party she was going to. As much as I wanted to hang out with her all night, I knew my physical limitations. Despite being a short subway ride from home and a long but beautiful walk home, we were in Tribeca, I asked her to put me in a cab. And she was impressed. And I was impressed too. Then when I got home, I was brushing my teeth when I heard my phone ring. Without even looking at the caller ID, I answered, "I'm okay, I'm home." That's my reality and it's alright. I normally wouldn't have answered, knowing it was her calling to see if I was okay would have been annoyed that she would even question that I wouldn't be okay. But it's cool. It's my reality. It always should have been. Even before this 'awakening' I haven't always been okay and it is okay if others know that and do things for me because of that. I do for them without thinking so I should be cool accepting it.

So back to my grandfather. He was a difficult man. It might be a good thing that there was no talk about him at his 'birthday' party today because it might have gotten ugly. We all had strong feelings about him some of which have become rosier since he's been gone, some of which remained the same. But, he was a man who wanted the best for his kids and despite maybe not knowing how to be a father in the modern sense, he was a provider who with his sixth grade education drove the M15 bus for a living and took every extra shift he could to put food on his family's table. He wanted to ensure his children were educated and would have a better life than he did. He succeeded.

So here I am maybe living for the first time; albeit in some kind of perverted Emerald City where my world is in color when it was always in black and white while physically who the hell knows what lies ahead. Either way, I am reminded of this quote from John Adams that I absolutely love, "Today we are politicians and statesmen so that our children can be doctors and lawyers so that their children may be artists and musicians." Of course, my bus-driving son of Eastern European immigrants grandfather was no statesman or politician. But he did everything he was capable of for his children to have more opportunity than he did which is why that quote speaks to me. And my father is a lawyer. Maybe this is really a rebirth for me and I am not going anywhere. Maybe I will finally be a writer, an artist, like the quote. Who knows. At this point, anything feels possible.