2001-06-10 - 10:07 p.m.

(minus the pomp and circumstance)

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Yes, you can fly up at the end of your tether like a kite, you can stare down from the top of the mountain. You can meander from point to point without ever stopping, but sooner or later, something pulls you down. You start to feel lightheaded, ghostlike; you start drifting into the ether as an idea incarnate that could never be translated into flesh, and you realize that this isn�t what you wanted, after all. You�re not an idea that will live in abstraction forever, you�re a human being who will one day soon get old and lonely and die. You have to face that fact, submit to this life, let it pull you into its inescapable reality, because that�s the only thing that makes life worth living.

I want it, I know, but I�m also afraid of it. It�s been the tug of the project all along, but somehow I�ve managed to dance around it, stay in the abstract sphere while avoiding the struggle of real life. But now I feel it coming on, I want to feel it coming on�

We�re rolling along the highways of Michigan now, Andy and I, plunging back into our destinies, having stepped back once again and gazed down upon it all. Andy took over the driving back near Detroit. We have plenty of time to hash out the trajectory of our lives � it�s nearly a ten-hour drive from Buffalo to Chicago when you take the long way through Canada.

We�re a couple of ghosts struggling to become real, Andy and I. Andy is blazing the trail � he used to drift through life invisibly, making grand claims and projecting abstract ideals. Now he�s in the thick of things with Laura, struggling to build something out of this life, to make things work. He knows how it can hurt, how it can get messy, when you let yourself be vulnerable. You can�t chuckle at the foibles of humanity, because you�re one of them, and you realize why people do the things that they do, why they hurt each other and get afraid. It�s because they�re in there, amking things happen, feeling the joy and pain of life.

Even this, this pondering of the dilemmas of the human condition, is part of the ethereal, ghost-like existence. It isn�t living; it�s reflecting on living. And it seems so beautiful when you talk about it on a long trip with a great friend, as you stare out over the vast open spaces of this great continent of possibility. But you have to leave your words behind, your reflections, and travel blindly back into the muck. We�ve popped out of it for a brief three-day weekend, and now we�re headed back to where all these grand reflections become meaningless, all your grand ideals don�t help you live your life.

But I�m getting ahead of myself. It�s been a week since I was last unemployed. I�m feeling the pull of this job, which ties down my life and my hours, giving me precious little time to reflect. It�s been a struggle, wondering if I should remain aloof or let it tie me down. It�s all part of the same thing, a many-headed monster which is at once awesome and terrible. I�m afraid of the machine deadening my senses, letting it rob me of my time and make me forget who I am. Yet being a part of the machine is the same as being a part of life, because the machine is simply a function of civilization, and civilization is a part of humanity and you can never separate them out.

There are people at my job. Good people, who are struggling just like me, not wanting their jobs to take over their lives. They may not all love their jobs, but they feel, at least subconsciously I can tell, like they are part of something, part of a team; they are struggling together and that makes it okay. They are living their lives, getting married, seeing the beat of time march on, living their lives instinctually, while I cannot do it if I try. I am still one of the ghosts. I am a temp. I have not made the commitment to this company that they have, and thus I am not entitled to the same friendships that they develop over a long period. I could be gone at any time, drifting off into something else. But now I want to get involved and be their friends. Perhaps we can commiserate together in the struggles of life, break through our shells and see what�s on the other side.

When you�re down in it, working and living your life, time moves more quickly. This week has blown by, and I feel that I am missing my May. The initial luster of the life-project has worn off as its potential becomes realized in concrete steps, as paths are taken, leaving other possible paths forever unexplored. This is the hard part.

But it�s been a good break, another step outside of life to celebrate life, to commemorate the arrival of a new entrant, my brother Mark, into this blind treasure-hunt of life. I�ve been out here three years now, and I�m only now unlocking some of the mysteries of life, learning what it means to live. It�s been a weekend of reflecting on the trajectory of life, wondering where we will end up on this journey that I have barely begun. I think back on it on the car ride home and wonder what it�s meant to me.

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We stare off at Niagara Falls, feeling the rumble of water over stone as the Earth beneath it slowly wears away. It�s still a thing of cosmic beauty, this waterfall, as much as we corrupt it with the bells and whistles of capitalism all around. We can sense that it will still be here long after we are gone, developments and civilization will come and go and still the water will continue to fall. The water leaps off the cliffs into the abyss, dashing up on the rocks, a great force against a great object, and the water slowly winning, slowly chipping away at the rock over centuries. It moves the water until it flows over stone that was once untouched, and the great static force that seems unchanged over the course of our lifetime is actually ever changing, over the course of eons, and on the scale of the Earth the rock is like clay being molded by the streaming waters; this little jumble of humanity that has congregated around it is just a blink of the eye.

And my family, Mom, Dad, Kevin, Liz and Mark, we�re here for one last time, paying tribute to the falls once again, the march of time on which we are such a tiny blip. We are all carving out our niches in our own way, trying to do what makes us happy, each on our own path in the trajectory of life, unheeded by the falls.

There�s Mom and Dad, settling in for the great, long rest of their lives, reinventing themselves on their own after giving so much to their children, letting them march into life armed with the wisdom that they have been able to impart, each of their children individuals who will make their own unique contributions to life.

Kevin has pushed out ahead, plunged into the world, creating a home in a town outside Boston and preparing for marriage. He knows what he wants and has made that commitment, picked a patch of land and a life mate and will make it work, struggle though it may be. There�s me, whose story you know only too well.

Then there�s Mark, the man of the hour, who has completed his collegiate training in Buffalo and is preparing to face the unknown of the world outside. And there�s Liz, a child no more, whose selfhood is continually unfolding, who is slowly breaking free of the parental bonds and forging her own identity in the strange world of high school.

We make a good unit, the six of us, at moments like this, just letting ourselves wander and be, no special expectations, even the mighty falls becoming mere background for our simple interactions.

Liz and I are goofing around as usual, just having fun saying whatever comes out of our mouths, it doesn�t matter what. At the moment we�re making bets.

�How long do you think it will be before that waterfall moves over there?� she asks. Mark, the authority on these things, tells us that the waterfall is slowly shifting as it wears away the rock.

�I think, probably, a week,� I say.

�Oh? I was thinking more like, a month.�

We�ve been here together a couple times before, first when she was a baby and I was a child and we swung through upstate New York as a family. We returned when Mark was freshly arrived on the town and I was finishing college; we walked these same pathways and explored the carnival of trinket-shops that sprang up around it. Now, Mark is leaving Buffalo, and we�re not sure when will be at this random spot on the earth again.

Liz and I decide to bet on when we will be together here again. We ponder our predictions, sending out an imagined trajectory of our lives, part hope, part whimsy.

I imagine we will meet here again in 17 years, both of us with children in tow, in the midst of a cross-country trip. Liz imagines we will rejoin for Mark�s wedding in seven years, marrying a woman he met again at a high school reunion. We�ll have to wait and see who wins.

It�s such a wondrous, superstitious thing to imagine your future when it feels like your life hasn�t even begun. It feels like someone else�s life you�re projecting, so distant from the one you�ve been struggling blindly through, when you look down at it from above. Because your life passes without your noticing it, you can�t plan it out or predict it. It will take you where it will.

Fast-forward to the next day. Mark and I are circling the pond in the midst of the University of Buffalo campus. The family is on the highway now, winding back toward Boston, and Mark and I have a day to throw the frisbee around, wander through campus, cook a burger on the grill.

It�s graduation weekend, so there are people milling abour here and there, but mostly it�s quiet. The campus is separated off from the city, surrounded by its parking lots and then a major highway, like a moat that forbids one to come or go except by car. If he were looking at colleges today, he would see this as a major drawback; but it�s the kind of thing that doesn�t occur to you when college is just an idea, before you�ve lived through it and seen how your choices play out.

Now he�s got a whole new set of choices to make as he prepares for the rest of his life. I�ve been separated from the college womb for three years. I wonder what advice I could give.

Always ask yourself whether you�re happy, I say. Don�t be afraid to take a risk to change your situation if you�re not happy. Too many people stay in places too long when they�re miserable. Always be asking yourself if you�re happy where you are.

Ah, but that�s been my life lesson � continual change, bouncing here and there and never settling down. But my older brother Kevin�s learned completely different lessons � how to decide what you want and commit to it. He�s plunged right in, got engaged to a girl he didn�t know a year before, bought a house, planted a garden, set up shop in life. I�ve done everything I could to keep from laying down roots.

Mark will have to find his own way. He has to learn his own lessons, go into it blindly like we all do; even the well-meaning advice of his brother or father will count for little. But there will be unexpected successes and failures, just as he has found in Buffalo. Sure, the campus isn�t laid out ideally. But he�s built something here. He has built a group of friends over the years, people who likely would never have met if not for him. He has brought them together from different parts of the school, introduced them, and now they are all chums, playing softball, barbecuing, just hanging out together. He has made his mark on this school, and now he will see what he can do with the world.

I�m not one to be giving lessons; I�m just making it up as I go along like everyone else, trying something out and seeing if it works, then trying something else. It�s the trying of things that makes life rewarding, being willing to put yourself on the line and see what happens, willing to suffer. So far, my life has been a long run of fits and starts, I now see with hindsight. But the time comes in a life when one must meet his destiny, not a destiny that has been waiting for me all my life, but one that is a destiny simply because I mark it as such and invest it with all the meaning I can muster. I am itching to get back to Chicago and make that destiny.

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