All Those Moments

All those songs

“Most of us die with all our songs still inside us”

The moment I read that line in Allen Levi’s Theo of Golden, I thought Please don’t let that be me. To anyone reading this, please don’t let that be you.

It’s easy to tangle with hopelessness when we wake up to the news that what we thought was true of America, isn’t; that the U.S. Constitution, that which we thought was a magnificent rule book, one that at least directed an entire country toward decency, actually left us with no protection from the greed and cruelty and abject shamelessness of this collection of jackals we’ve allowed to take the reins. But this might be a good time to remember, we still have our lives to live; opportunities to commit small and large acts of kindness, and just as many opportunities to screw up.

The news offers us a look at “the big picture,” or rather someone’s version of the big picture; but most of us don’t operate in the big picture. We operate in that five-by-eight snapshot that is our personal life.

Recently I’ve been watching documentaries covering what we know about our universe. Most astrophysicists will tell you it’s not a lot, but one thing we do know is, relatively speaking it’s been around a long time - 13.8 billion years - and we have not - 300,000 years. If you place all that time into a 24 hour day, Earth itself makes an appearance around 4:06 in the afternoon; first life a couple hours after that. Homo Sapiens - that’s us - come in fashionably late at 11:59:58. Your life, my life...the lives of our friends, our enemies, our parents, our kids...no way I have time to punch in all the zeroes after that decimal point.

Here’s my ADHD point. In the overall span of energy, we’re...well, small, but in this millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a second that we’re here (I’m rounding up), we are BIG. Simply passing another human being on the street has an influence on that human being and vice-versa. Same with petting a cat or a dog or a bearded dragon; the influence goes both ways.

Most times we won’t know what that influence is, be it positive or negative; but if we keep in mind that the 13.8 billion years of cosmic fury leading to the formation of our planet, followed by the unspeakable destruction that has fueled human evolution, is our legacy, then we can be giants in the lives of those who wander into our sphere of impact; can create small sanctuaries where the toxicity of greed and cruelty is simply not allowed; sanctuaries where the only currency is acceptance, and all who enter are encouraged to celebrate the moment...and sing their songs.

A lifelong friend, nine days my senior, opened his sanctuary to me just this week. My first memory of Nak - Ron Nakatani - goes back to our first day in first grade back in 1952. We sat in the same classes all the way through high school, as seniors were co-captains of the football team (him because he was good, me because I was funny) spent our freshman year of college apart at different institutions, but came back together as sophomore roommates, spent a year traveling the country “Route 66” style, wondering if either of our college majors translated into meaningful employment, and returned to the same college to get certified as public school teachers (him because he was a natural teacher; I was buying time).

Between 1952 and 1970, Nak and I were apart for the span of one school year. A friendship like that just naturally works its way into a guy’s hard wiring.

It’s hard to imagine how we could have been more different, unless one of us had been female. Race aside, he was quiet, I was not. He was a natural athlete, I was a natural comedian. He could catch a 20-inch rainbow trout in a mud puddle, I couldn’t catch a perch in a hatchery. He almost never said anything without thinking first, I almost never thought about something until I’d already said it. Both our fathers fought in World War II, but while my mother was safe at home with her parents, his mother was incarcerated in an American-Japanese concentration camp.

And yet, through our adult lives, when years might pass between periods of face-to-face contact, our conversations commenced as if they were continuing from the day before.

And then, goddammit! as we approach our eightieth birthdays - his nine days ahead of mine - during which we had planned to rock the world; get together and stay up ‘til, maybe nine-thirty, Nak’s razor sharp mind has started to dull.

I fucking hate dementia; but it’s teaching me the value of the moment. Nak and I have hundreds of moments, and though he might not remember what we talked about five minutes ago, he can remember, in amazing detail, every one we travel back to. I know all those that cause him to shake his head in wonder at how we survived with any dignity, which we probably didn’t, and he laughs, shakes his head and laughs some more; and in every moment that he’s laughing, he’s not afraid of what’s happening to him.

And in every moment that he’s laughing, I’m laughing; feeling immense gratitude that we have this small sanctuary, this haven where we can sing our best “oldies.”

It’s never a bad idea, especially when the world seems to be coming unraveled, to celebrate our moments.