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sublingua | |||||
| The heart with a mind of its own.(Be present.) | The mind with a heart of its own.(It's past.) | The dream that is your waking life.(Go there now.) | |||
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The Demon Who Sees
Understand This After sushi dinner, Max and I were going to try to make a showing of Supersize Me, but didn't leave the restaurant in time to make it to the 7:40 showing. Instead, I changed clothes and went to the studio. Fu's piece had resolved itself and I wanted to get to work on it as soon as possible. Please Say Yes, Please Say No I was waiting. I was waiting for some clarity about my relationship to Fu to evolve from the collected moments that I've spent with him. I gathered them up and still there was no clarity. I looked at his art (and this morning, I went out and bought frames for the photographs of his pieces that he gave me and framed them and hung them in my apartment) and still there was no clarity. I went to his house and looked at where he lived, looked at the chocolate ice cream and octopus tentacles in his freezer, at the kitty litter box placed carefully on the Japanese newspaper, at where he works on his art, at the ceramic cats and dogs that decorate almost every square inch of his apartment, met his ancient and beloved cat Cha-cha. And still there was no clarity. I heard about his gambling habits, a bit about his life in Japan, about his life in America. And still there was no clarity. I couldn't figure out how I fit into the dream that is Fu's waking life. But tonight, sitting in his station, watching him work, watching him watch me, I could see that he was not just looking at me, but that he was actually seeing me. (And it might be useless to say that most people are only ever looking at you, almost no one is ever really able to see you.) I saw that he could see very clearly into the dream that is my waking life, and then I knew. "Oh, Fu-san! I understand now... I went to the studio and made a piece, "Please Say Yes, Please Say No." It is very simple, just a box with his face in the upper half. On the face, I wrote about the experience of having him see me with compassion and about how this was a direct result of his own experiences with gambling, with gambling his heart. I realized, just as I began to make the piece, that what he's doing when he gambles his money is not simply substituting money for more important things, but that he is a gambler at heart and has gambled his life, his art, his heart. I realized that his ability to see me with compassion is the direct result, the payoff, of these gambles, and that money is what he has decided that he has left to gamble. Though he has retreated to the safety of money, he has done what I thought he was unable to do, and that is what made him able to see me. "Please say no" was the part about how I wanted him to say to me that I am still going to be able to gamble what is important, that, no, I am not yet done gambling my life, my art, my heart--that these things are not spent and gone. I wrote too about how a generous spirit is a beautiful curse, and about how my witnessing his seeing me through eyes of compassion taught me more in the collected moments I've spent with him than I've ever learned from any man I wasn't related to. I wrote about how I had never before tried to relinquish control over the dream that is my waking life, but that I would give Fu my heart to gamble with because I trust him with it. I trust that, whether he wins or loses, that the lessons that are the payoffs of those gambles will always teach me things I need to know. I know that they will simply by seeing that he was and is able to see me. "Please say yes" was the plea I made to the universe that Fu and I will continue to be friends, that I will not lose sight of the lessons that he has to teach me, that despite whatever happens, I will continue to be able to collect Fu moments. Be Grateful, Sublingua I am grateful for Fu, whose dream I have been allowed to take part in, whose dream overlapped mine and took control, whose dream has taught me more in a few collected moments than I could have learned on my own in a few collected years. Oh, Fu-san, thank you. I understand a little bit more now what it is that your gambling is about.
More lies:
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