"Ninety percent of the boats I've missed in my life are lying on the bottom"
 
 

JORDY -
I was coming down the block toward the apartment, I had been uptown at GMHC and was late to get back to let the dogs out, and I saw him, peering into the sidewalk window of my apartment - At first I thought he was some bum, or someone looking in to see what was inside, that happens a lot, and as I walked to the door to unlock it, I saw his face, all dirty - street dirty like someone who’d lived for a month on the sidewalk and without a bath. His clothes were filthy and nondescript, I could only tell that they were intended to hide the human inside. The face was dark, like a coal miner’s and he had a sad, begging smile, kind and warm, as though he recognized me, and yet I hadn’t registered that it was Jordy yet. It was his eyes which I saw at first - they held my gaze, as though they were asking me for something, It was asking me for something, it was pathetic, and while recognition was dawning, I rushed away, fled inside to get the dogs, offering them as an excuse.

He had once cooked for The Black Sheep, lost his lover to AIDS, and hadn’t ever got over it. His drinking had kept him from keeping any job long, and he must have long ago lost his apartment, and whatever else he had

Later I trembled, I had let him down. I fled from the poor wretch, still an alcoholic, still on the skids, still coming back to wherever there was once a friendly hand, me. Only this time I wasn’t there - and I felt horrible for that. For being unable, unwilling to do anything for him. I thought at that second that I was his last resort, and I hadn’t extended a hand to a drowning man. I am haunted by the memory of his sad yet forgiving smile.

Was it a moment of Karma,
did I let my own Karma down?
No worry about Karma --
I am haunted by myself.
 
 

other things now follow:
ABOUT MY NOSE: from a letter to Rayme about quagmires:
You must have been thinking of my nose, dearest. You know I always hated my nose, it wasn't like all those waspy turned up ones my childhood friends had, I was always pushing mine up, in hopes that one day it would 'train' to grow that way. One night a very handsome guy, a date I was really wanting to bed down with, told me what a wonderful nose I had, and that it had so much character, and that its size was wonderful etc, and from that moment till now, I just LOVE my nose! Never did get to Paradise with the guy, he's moved to Austria, but I will always cherish what he did for me.
 

EYE SURGERY - Side effects November 17, 1999 -
I had an operation on my eye this month. There was a hole in the retina, and I had a missing spot in my field of vision. My friends hated the way I would drive the car, and I couldn’t pour wine without spilling it, and never could thread a needle. You could either laugh at it, or suffer, which I didn’t choose to do. So when I was told it might be fixable. It was risky, there was always the chance of failure, but I’d been dancing on a minefield for years. I went for it.. There was patching of the retina and a new (bionic!) lens installed. They placed a gas bubble inside the eye to assure proper healing. The bubble has created some wonderful effects: and a hazard:
The patch is off, and I can see somewhat, but it’s all soft focus and no real shapes - I can count fingers, and see light sources. Also, thanks to the bubble, I can see sharply an inch away from my eye. My Left eye is probably pissed off because it has to do all the real work, while Right has all the fun and gets all the attention.
Rings of flickering lights are surrounding my field of vision. It’s almost like living in a Fu-Manchu world of smoke and lights, except it is very peaceful and beautiful. I feel safe of course, because I know it‘s all inside my own brain. There’s a kidney shaped ring of the brightest gold, brighter than the sun, and it’s the rim of a very black hole, behind which is an even more black very far away sky with billions of tiny dots, like stars. No paint nor painter could replicate this. I know that I saw these, it wasn’t even a dream. The brain has such enormous power. I confess, dear friend, I’ve used psychedelics, and they weren’t nuthin’ to what happened here. Not even close!
Today the gold ringed black holes are gone, I want them back. I still see shapes as thru a frosted piece of glass, but the colors and the light sources are more intense than any thing I have ever seen. Some how colors are being amplified. I thought that if anyone could ever paint this then Rothko must have tried, and then I can see that he failed if it was this he was after. Any shiny reflective thing becomes a source of light -- of joy.

There are flashing lights in a ring around the bubble. They remind me of a marquee or a dressing room mirror. Three weeks later there are still hints of these effects, although somewhat diminishing. The installation of a bionic lens, the work on the retina, the effect on such a sensitive area being worked on, they all contribute to these happy effects, and all have an easy medical explanation.

I want to exist inside of this world a while longer, it’s so beautiful, and when I need to return to earth, I can always open my left eye.  And yet my doctors would doubtless be glad when this is over, so they can see the healing taking place. That might take a dozen weeks, - so no matter what happens, I'll be enjoying it. This is a moment which might have been awful, but loving every moment of life for what it is has given me the means to make the most out of this one. (Oh the hazard I mentioned, yes, well I have to remain at sea level till the bubble dissipates. Reduced pressure, like a plane, or a skyscraper, might cause unmentionable damage. The incredible exploding eye. Owch! )

What is the most learning part of this experience for me at least, is that no matter how hard I try, I have no way of sharing this experience with you, because it’s all inside my head. Even my own surgeon has no experience of what I’m talking about, though he’s heard it before. Take that one step further, none of us really has any way of sharing ANY experience we have. We can only grope in frustration for words, inept approximations we’ve invented to try to communicate what cannot be communicated.

We are always filled with the illusions of life, which are also true realities. When we are dancing in a disco floor, the mood, the love we feel, the freedom, the hyper-driven spirit we experience. We believe that we’re all sharing the same great energies which surge through our consciousness -- after all we’re all dancing together to the same music. Then we leave the club, and it’s morning and our eyes squint at the light, and we sadly and too often leave the spirits inside to haunt an empty club interior. How foolish! If only we realized that we can indeed take that love with us. It’s right there to be woven into our daily lives.

So each of us comes through life with separate and different experiences, different paths. Yet if we’re lucky, we somehow emerge with a commonly enjoyed union of similar conclusions. A happy and reassuring thought, that -- the final recognition of being separate and yet all arriving at the same place. I think that’s what we call Love.