Lughnasa and the Herme Moon
Tuesday gratefuls: A great workout yesterday. Murdoch, the hooman. 15 days till Korea. Whoa. 11 days till the showcase. Whoa! Memorizing. Acting. Writing. My new idea for a novel. Desiderata day. Great Sol, our energy, our life. The Wild Neighbors. Han Shan. Chinese poetry. Chan Buddhism. Asian history. K-dramas. Korean literature. China. Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Monkey’s Journey to the West. The Dream of the Red Chamber. Outlaws of the Marsh.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Asia
One brief shining: Murdoch sat hind legs crouched, front legs straight on the leather bench next to my son, gazing across the table at another man in a blue US Airforce t-shirt as if ready to join the conversation and I got three pictures in quick succession from Seoah across the 9,000 miles that separate us something families do.
Closing in on being off book for The Trail to Cold Mountain. Maybe today, certainly this week. Good thing since the showcase is a week from Saturday. Remembered I have logs in the back already cut. Will try to lift one this evening. Still no cloak or boots. I’ve gone from being frustrated and tired of the whole thing back to energized.
When I work on things like this, I have them in my head as a priority task. All the time. You know, that nagging thing you need to finish. But can’t quite seem to get to. At least not enough to close it out. At some point with each of my novels I’ve reached that point. The energy drains out of them. The story is stale. It’ll never be any good. I want to chuck it, start over, or start something new.
Got there with the Trail to Cold Mountain last week. I had to perform last during the class. It was well past 8 and I was tired, my body beginning to wind down for sleep. I gave an unspirited, clunky version of my piece. Fell right into the writer/actor abyss. Why have I bothered with this? I’ll never act anyway. Maybe I’ll say I can’t make the showcase. Won’t matter. I’ve done what I wanted.
Except. I didn’t. I kept memorizing even though it felt like a waste. Then, a breakthrough. As I got close to having it all down, my excitement about Han Shan and even the work I’d written returned. I can do this. I’ll introduce Chinese Rivers and Mountains poetry to a new audience, blending my words and his. Donning the costume, using the gourd water bottle and the logs, the parchment paper filled with Cold Mountain’s poetry. Herme will have his night to shine.
And, it just occurred to me, that threshold will be crossed. In the months after Kate died I felt and lived like a hermit with benefits. Friends, that is. The notion of the Hooded Man from the Tarot Deck, so strong an archetype for me. I had him created in neon. Herme.
Now I’m bringing that archetype to life, blending it with the Asian pivot my whole family, save for me, has made. A fusion of life with family Mary, Mark, Seoah, my son, Murdoch, the Jangs, life with friends Tal, Alan, Joan, Deb, Rebecca, and life with CBE-classes held there, performance at the synagogue’s amphitheater, Tal my teacher, the Rabbi’s son.
To be clear. This does not constitute all I wanted to do with the threshold ceremony. I still want to do the mezuzah hanging ritual and a celebration of male aging. Pushing it off to next year, maybe my birthday. 77.
