Especially If

Well, I finally got to see Karly and Steven and the new baby, Mira, for about 10 minutes on Friday night just as they were about to leave town the next morning. Frustrating gone-wrong communications, conflicting schedules and a "I felt as if I'd been out head-banging to PIL all day rather than working" headache on Friday evening kept me from hanging out with them for any substantial period of time. Serves me right for not taking my glasses w/ me to the "office".

Precious Mira at 5 mos. is, well, divine (sorry - she is.) Holding her for a few moments was potent tonic, indeed. I can't help but love a kid in a peace sign snuggly who lit up everytime I let out my rather boisterous laugh. She's got some spunk, that one. With her parents, it was inevitable. Can't help but be a little disappointed that I missed out on more time with those three and the rest of the old crew but it was what it was. They'll be back around or I'll make it to Philly eventually.

Watched "Six Degrees of Separation" yet again last night. I love that movie -- I've never read it as a play or seen it staged, so it's a movie to me. It's very multi-layered (i.e. smart and well-written.) At the end of it I take away the same thing (where's my better word brain today?) as always -- that when we allow ourselves to be affected by the suffering of others (or just one other) and truly respond that, we are the ones in the end who stand a damn good chance of being are transformed for the better. Maybe I'm talking out of my proverbial arsh here but I don't think so. Some people need to fully experience their own suffering before they can be affected by anyone else's. Others do it the other way around. Some never do it at all. In the flick, a good number of that third group may have remained sitting at the dinner party. Hard to tell on the surface with anyone. Especially if that surface is the one dimensional celluloid -smile.

Phew, am I philosophical today.

That dream I wrote about - the one in which I died - wow! The more I get into The Book of Job and other investigations into the nature of reality (god bless you, William Carlos Williams) - the more grateful I am for even the smallest of things. Hey, haven't I addressed that recently in a small poem about small prayers?

Got reminded of Albert Ellis this morning! What a trip those old films of RET were. Damn.