Into the Mystic (Allen)
Toward the end of his life, in the little cottage behind his Lafayette, California house, Bob Birnbaum breathed heavily in his black leather easy chair, his tired eyes closed, as I counted the ways that he had appeared to me during our Wednesday at 4 p.m. blast-offs: Therapist, teacher, surrogate dad, mentor, spiritual master, fellow traveler, bodhisattva, friend, wise leader, beloved, will-bender, pilot. Those are the ones I remember. It was a long list. He shook his head violently at “teacher.” In fact, he scorned all but two – “friend” and “fellow traveler.” When I finished he repeated out loud and nodded vigorously, “That one. Fellow traveler.” Bob (whom I never knew as Swami Prem Amitabh) was raised in the Bronx tenements and projects of the 30s and 40s, so as a Jewish red diaper baby he was applauding the subversive Communist-inspired etymology tucked into the term “fellow traveler.” We were in on the same spiritual secret cabal, Bob and I! Seven years together, an...
Haha! Oh I love a good paradox--any word play or cleverness really gets to me. Puns too! A friend and I were recently singled out (doubled out?) and (lovingly, playfully) mocked for liking puns. I said, I still remember punny business names from a decade and a half ago that I loved: Avant Card (a stationary store in Berkeley that I saw in 2004!), Bearly Awake (a coffee shop up in Red River, a small ski area north of Taos), Life of Pie (pizza shop in Portland), Tequila Mockingbird (this one I only heard of, didn't encounter), The Notty Woodpecker (a hokey, charming artisan gifts and random little collectibles, antiques, etc. shop up in the Hudson River Valley)... the list goes on. Which is all to say, this delights me
ReplyDelete