The Empty Chair (3 page)

Kelly thought it was a good time to get married. Mom always said she wanted to dance at her wedding and I couldn't figure out if Kelly's proposal to me was a sentimental capitulation to Clara's wishes or a posthumous Fuck You. Anyway, it was done. Nothing fancy. A backyard affair with a dozen guests and a Buddhist monk presiding. Ryder walked her up the aisle between rent-a-chairs and was the ring-bearer as well. That was sweet. Kind of a funny fortieth birthday present for me. I think I was a pretty good husband though. Maybe it sounds nuts, but I was good husband material.

I thought that would chill Kelly out—not so much the marriage as her mother's death. The irony is that when she left her job at school things really began to unravel. Having both parties home at the same time is a game-changer. The house was small. We kept bumping into each other, literally underfoot. You begin paying hostile attention, like cellmates . . . you get weirdly focused on the annoying habits, shitty sights, sounds, smells and general disgusting lameness of the other party. You start judging them in your head and your heart. Everything gets poisoned, paranoid. Contempt is the order of the day—and night.

You know, I consider myself lucky. I “found” myself a long time ago. And I'm grateful for that. I truly am.

I didn't say I
liked
what I found but the finding's half the journey. Jesus, probably more than half. When you think that most people are out there still looking. What's the definition of finding yourself, anyway? It really just means being comfortable in your own skin. That's all enlightenment is, isn't it? The Buddhists can do their crazy calisthenics, their marathons of Silence and devotion and ritual bullshit but at the end of the day if someone's happy in their own skin, that's the Buddha. That's an enlightened being. People think they need that perfect job or perfect inspiration or perfect spiritual practice but all anyone wants or needs is peace of mind. And you don't need a Nobel Prize or a million dollars to have it. It
helps
but it ain't mandatory. I've got my books and my van—it's a wonderfully nomadic life I wouldn't trade for the world.
[sings, robustly]
“Well I've got a hammer, and I've got a bell, and I've got a song to sing, all over this land!”
Freedom's my landlord. The sky above and the mud below. I've got a mirror in my knapsack . . . sometimes I leave it there and sometimes I take it out and point it to the Lord Above!

By most standards I'm a wealthy man. I could buy a house tomorrow if I wanted. A
nice
house. Which surprises people. Not that I go around saying that because I don't. When you live the way I do, you can't be flashy. That's asking for trouble. You know, Bruce, I don't own a home or property by
choice.
Aside from the van and my books, I really don't have any personal possessions. Nothing to speak of. I'm unencumbered and I think that's what saved me. The one thing I sometimes yearn for is companionship. A human touch that isn't lurid. All and all, I'm at peace. I won't lie, there
are
days and nights when I feel alone, almost
insanely
alone—I don't think that's too strong a word—times when I feel abandoned by God and man.
Not
,
incidentally, such a wonderful feeling! I've had to face certain truths. I can whine about not having a partner to share my itinerant life but the simple truth is I don't think I'm capable emotionally,
maybe even spiritually, of a committed relationship. Not the happiest of insights but that's what hundreds of hours of therapy'll get you. (Most of it back in the '80s.) The last committed relationship I had and will ever have was with my son. Ryder. I'll never get resolution on that one, never have closure. After he died, a lot of friends told me I should return to therapy. But guess what—I already
know
the source of my supreme fucked-up-ness. It's called the Catholic Church. Whoop-dee friggin' doo.

Whenever I start to feel that
alone
thing, I look back over the last 24 hours to see what I've eaten because sometimes food'll make you crazy. I know I'm
really
in a bad place when I personify the Lord our God—play the blame game—because I happen to subscribe to the opinion of those Christian mystics, their elegant assertion being that God or the idea
of God is beyond our ability to grasp. To speak of “atheists” and “believers” in relation to God is roughly the same as believing you can convince an ant that it might enjoy a cartoon in
The New Yorker
. Or getting a rat to read an illuminated text—

“Who has known the mind of the Lord?”

That's Job . . .

He splashed water on his face at the kitchen sink, then sat down and rolled a joint.

I come here to get centered. I call it Herman's Hermitage. It's lovely, isn't it? People pass by on the highway completely unaware . . . bit of a secret treasure. I was going to say no one knows about it but apparently that fellow Pico stays here, though I've never had a sighting. (A marvelous writer and dear friend of the Dalai Lama—lives near Kyoto but I believe Mum makes her home in Santa Barbara.) The place has been here since the '50s—can you imagine what this property is worth now? Oh boy! The woodcarving monk from Tassajara clued me in about it. And
cheap
too. Well, relatively. The oblates
are Camaldolese Benedictine. St. Romuald, an 11th-century ascetic, founded the order. And here they are in Big Sur! Don't you just love “Camaldolese”? Like some kind of amazing candy or ice cream—“I'll have a scoop of
Camaldolese Benedictine
with my violet crumble
.
” The monks live according to their founder's “Brief Rule”
[he quickly finds a scrap of paper on the bureau, reads aloud]
:

Sit in your cell as in paradise. Put the whole world behind you—try to forget it. Watch your thoughts, like a fisherman watching fish. The path you must follow is in the Psalms. Never leave it. Realize above all else that you are in God's presence. Stand there as one who stands before an Emperor. Empty yourself. Sit and wait, at peace with the grace of God—like the chick who tastes nothing and eats nothing but what his mother gives him.

Tough to adhere to but the world would definitely be a better place. The services are just superb
.
I was in the rotunda this morning before it began to storm, gathering strength for our time together today. A group of visitors, casually dressed
,
tourists I think, were in the pews waiting for the hermits to arrive, which of course they always do, on the hour. They wore simple white robes with bunched-up collars, like cats taking naps on their shoulders. Before chanting began, the oblates made time for praying aloud, in counterpoint.

The visitors began,
“Lord, hear our prayers!”

The monks said, “Let us pray for those in prison and for those who are hospitalized, and for those who are marginalized by our society.”

“Lord, hear our prayers!”

“Let us pray for the children who are lost, for they abide.”

“Lord, hear our prayers!”

Hildegard of Bingen is a rock star here, I think I mentioned that. I've always loved the woman myself. I went through a period of intense searching; it wasn't by accident that I was drawn
toward
the female mystics. I'd had enough of the men, thank you very much. I just adored the visions of Hildegard and the “showings” of Julian of Norwich—Julian was a woman—that's what they call them, “showings,” like a new collection from Chanel! How can you
not
love divas having visions? How can you
not
love a reclusive anchoress and medieval feminist? They even referred to God as “our Mother” and I really took to that. Julian had a vision of God putting a sphere in her hand no bigger than a hazelnut. She asked God what it was and He said—
She
said!—“It is everything that is made. It lasts and always will, because God loves it.” How
glorious
is that? And
“the Three Nothings” . . . I can't remember what they are just now, which somehow seems appropriate. But I
do
recall one
of these gals being of the mind that, when in the name of love, the soul becomes nothing—I'm not sure I understand exactly what that means—well,
that
was the moment it might at last rejoin She who made it. I'm telling you, Bruce, these gals would give
any
Buddhist a run for his money.

Nothingness . . .

For a while I was actually a bit obsessed with what they call negative theology. It's obvious only now what attracted me—I wanted to tear down the scaffolding of the macabre God Organization, I wanted to undecorate the “interior castle,” to raze the diabolical diocese that terrorized me so. I loved the concept of being separated from God by divine darkness, better yet by a
cloud of unknowing.
I thought “Cloud of Unknowing”—the name of a famous anonymous work—was intensely poetic, even
erotic . . .

Lead us up beyond unknowing and light to where His mysteries lie simple, absolute and unchangeable in the brilliant darkness of a hidden silence.

(I know I'm riffing, but hang in. Something's telling me to ride this out.)

During the time I speak of, my 20s and early 30s, I was more interested in the devil than I was angels,
with good reason. After all, the devil was
family
!
See, I really
believed
in Hildegard's visions,
had
to. She had, what, twenty-six of them? Twenty-six “showings”! Julian only had
sixteen
but who's counting! I was channeling the whole gang. I guess it was my way of staying loyal to the Church by becoming an avenging anchoress, a superhero in penitential drag. I had showings of my own, enhanced by mushrooms and speed. I too saw the devil as a black and bristly worm, trolling for souls at the farmers' market of
samsara.
“Some ran through without buying while others browsed at leisure, stopping to sell and to buy.” That's Hildegard. “And around its neck a chain is riveted, his hands bound like a thief who deserves to be hanged in Hell”—Walter Hilton,
The Scale of Perfection
. (I was born in the wrong time, that's all, my friend. O, to be middle-aged in the Middle Ages! Though
their
middle age was 18, 19 and 20, so better to be
old
—somewhere in your 40s.) Richard Rolle said the devil could put you in a cage whose bars were invisible, and it wasn't just the avaricious or the lustful that went to Hell, no ma'am. If you were an ascetic in the name of Christ but
flaunted
it, you know, arranged it so folks would get the tiniest peek
at you mortifying your own flesh—off to Hell you go! (The Buddhists say that too.) I was just reading a marvelous book called
Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand.
The rinpoche refers to the Eight Human or “worldly” Concerns. The toughest one of all to shake, even tougher than the desire for comfort or the acquisition of material things, is the craving for fame and reputation. The hermit who secretly yearns to be the most self-deprived, so that he may become legend . . . Do you know Francisco de Osuna? These aren't trick questions, I swear. Francisco de Osuna said the devil whispers in our ear while we pray or meditate. The longer the prayer, the greater the danger. He was a Carmelite—doesn't that sound like a diet candy? (I've got sugar on the brain.) Osuna warned that Hell slumbered in a too-avid gaze or too-attentive ear . . . in other words, anything touched by pride is insidious and if you aren't careful your heart will fly off like little boys after butterflies. He
actually
said
that, isn't that so awesome? “Like little boys after butterflies”! Very
Suddenly Last Summer. His heart followed his eyes . . .
that's Job again.

Our Miss Julian said that a person who doubts is like a storm-tossed sea and the only thing that tormented the devil was human tears. Then why can't the sea itself be made of tears? That's what
I'd
like to know.