Barry Manilow is a GENIUS
I don't know if I ever told you my Barry Manilow philisophy of life - I tell everyone every chance I get because it's a concept that I believe in - and I want to live it... and I haven't quite made it there yet.
Anyway - it all started with this conversation that I had with my dad and brother (in-laws) and I always have these kinds of conversations because it is who I am and I'm trying to figure out the answers to life and what safer place then with people who can't run away... hahahaha. We were going back and forth discussing whether or not peace, and those kinds of promises and commitments from each other were possible - in family, in marriage, in anything. And my brother, he says something like how it's not possible - because if everything were perfect, if everything were wonderful, what the hell else would you do? You would have nothing to talk about, nothing to discuss, nothing to challenge you or fill your life, nothing to do, basically. Relationships had to be filled with the good, the bad, and the ugly - or you wouldn't be alive, it wouldn't be life. There is nothing else, he said.
And while that sounded true - it didn't feel right. Not that I know what it's like to live there - I know most of my relationships throughout my entire life - were all based on that kind of good, bad, ugly drama. "You take the good, you take the bad, you take them all and there you have... the facts of life... " hahaha. The songs that occur in my head, sometimes, I swear is so flippin' random. Anyway - I didn't have an answer to that. I knew it didn't feel right - but I didn't know have an answer. Because I haven't lived there either. At least not at that point.
So, of course, I put the question out to the universe. I started perusing that idea over and over again. Trying to figure out the answer. Journaling. Reading. Questioning. Thinking. Thinking. Thinking. I am such a thinker... I figure if I give it enough time - I'll get the answer. And I did. In the form of Barry Manilow. I dig that guy. Ok... anyway - there was an interview late one Saturday night, on Bravo. A music show and I swear to Peter, I've never seen this show again - but the interviewer guy is there - and off to the side, there's a piano - and every once in a while throughout the interview the musician will go off and sing a song or something - that is pertinent to the question or whatever. Ok... so the guy asks Barry (I call him Barry - we're close like that) what was it about the Bronx in the 60s. All these great songwriters came out of the Bronx at the same time -- him, Neil Sedaka, Carole King, etc... And Barry answers (and I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember verbatim what he said), "I don't know about them. But as for me, I knew I was loved. My mom and my aunts loved me so much that I could go out in the world and do anything. I could go and fail - and I wouldn't even think it was failure because there was always a place I could go - where I was loved. I knew I was loved. So I could do anything. I could try anything. And I wanted to write music."
And that's it. That's the answer. And I've written about it before - circled around the truth of it before - but essentially - there it is all explained.
What I do know - what I believe, what I have been looking for, what I hope for is this - if I had love like that in my home, people equally committed to being whole, authentic for themselves and of service to others - I know my life would still be filled with stuff, it just wouldn't be in my own home. Myself, my island, my sanctuary would be bigger.
In the practical sense - the rest of the world at large, I know, is not filled with only the good, the great, the delicious. I know that I would still have to swallow some bitter pills out in the world - but at home, in my family, in my life - in the things that we decide to let in - our world would be so great. So peaceful. So satisfied.
And that's the answer - my brother - because of his beliefs - he doesn't even let family in that way - he can't. Because he can only count on himself - he can only count on the judgement of others, not the love, not the understanding, not the acceptance - so it makes sense to keep himself safe and secure and expect discord in his immediate life, because what else would it be? Gil has also done that. Of course, it's not supposed to be great all the time - so it won't be. Of course, it's not supposed to be easy - so it isn't. Of course, it can't be fun, hopeful, exciting, passionate, and wonderful - so let's just accept the crap and get on with our day. Practical. Realistic. Hopeless. And small. So small.
And I can do that too, if I have to. But it sucks.
I would rather choose to build my castles in the sky and then build the foundation up to meet them. To be what I need to be and to have what I want to have.
My sister (inlaw) and I have talked about this over and over again. I choose, she chooses, our lives to be different. Because our lives have to be bigger than this tiny, immediate little circle of one, grounded, here, in Fontana, with no hope of a bigger possibility. And, it's so hard when you've got to do it alone - but it isn't impossible. It's so hard when you have to fight the attitude of the world in your own home... but it's not impossible.
But I would rather have what Barry Manilow had. That would be fun. That would be great.
Anyway - it all started with this conversation that I had with my dad and brother (in-laws) and I always have these kinds of conversations because it is who I am and I'm trying to figure out the answers to life and what safer place then with people who can't run away... hahahaha. We were going back and forth discussing whether or not peace, and those kinds of promises and commitments from each other were possible - in family, in marriage, in anything. And my brother, he says something like how it's not possible - because if everything were perfect, if everything were wonderful, what the hell else would you do? You would have nothing to talk about, nothing to discuss, nothing to challenge you or fill your life, nothing to do, basically. Relationships had to be filled with the good, the bad, and the ugly - or you wouldn't be alive, it wouldn't be life. There is nothing else, he said.
And while that sounded true - it didn't feel right. Not that I know what it's like to live there - I know most of my relationships throughout my entire life - were all based on that kind of good, bad, ugly drama. "You take the good, you take the bad, you take them all and there you have... the facts of life... " hahaha. The songs that occur in my head, sometimes, I swear is so flippin' random. Anyway - I didn't have an answer to that. I knew it didn't feel right - but I didn't know have an answer. Because I haven't lived there either. At least not at that point.
So, of course, I put the question out to the universe. I started perusing that idea over and over again. Trying to figure out the answer. Journaling. Reading. Questioning. Thinking. Thinking. Thinking. I am such a thinker... I figure if I give it enough time - I'll get the answer. And I did. In the form of Barry Manilow. I dig that guy. Ok... anyway - there was an interview late one Saturday night, on Bravo. A music show and I swear to Peter, I've never seen this show again - but the interviewer guy is there - and off to the side, there's a piano - and every once in a while throughout the interview the musician will go off and sing a song or something - that is pertinent to the question or whatever. Ok... so the guy asks Barry (I call him Barry - we're close like that) what was it about the Bronx in the 60s. All these great songwriters came out of the Bronx at the same time -- him, Neil Sedaka, Carole King, etc... And Barry answers (and I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember verbatim what he said), "I don't know about them. But as for me, I knew I was loved. My mom and my aunts loved me so much that I could go out in the world and do anything. I could go and fail - and I wouldn't even think it was failure because there was always a place I could go - where I was loved. I knew I was loved. So I could do anything. I could try anything. And I wanted to write music."
And that's it. That's the answer. And I've written about it before - circled around the truth of it before - but essentially - there it is all explained.
What I do know - what I believe, what I have been looking for, what I hope for is this - if I had love like that in my home, people equally committed to being whole, authentic for themselves and of service to others - I know my life would still be filled with stuff, it just wouldn't be in my own home. Myself, my island, my sanctuary would be bigger.
In the practical sense - the rest of the world at large, I know, is not filled with only the good, the great, the delicious. I know that I would still have to swallow some bitter pills out in the world - but at home, in my family, in my life - in the things that we decide to let in - our world would be so great. So peaceful. So satisfied.
And that's the answer - my brother - because of his beliefs - he doesn't even let family in that way - he can't. Because he can only count on himself - he can only count on the judgement of others, not the love, not the understanding, not the acceptance - so it makes sense to keep himself safe and secure and expect discord in his immediate life, because what else would it be? Gil has also done that. Of course, it's not supposed to be great all the time - so it won't be. Of course, it's not supposed to be easy - so it isn't. Of course, it can't be fun, hopeful, exciting, passionate, and wonderful - so let's just accept the crap and get on with our day. Practical. Realistic. Hopeless. And small. So small.
And I can do that too, if I have to. But it sucks.
I would rather choose to build my castles in the sky and then build the foundation up to meet them. To be what I need to be and to have what I want to have.
My sister (inlaw) and I have talked about this over and over again. I choose, she chooses, our lives to be different. Because our lives have to be bigger than this tiny, immediate little circle of one, grounded, here, in Fontana, with no hope of a bigger possibility. And, it's so hard when you've got to do it alone - but it isn't impossible. It's so hard when you have to fight the attitude of the world in your own home... but it's not impossible.
But I would rather have what Barry Manilow had. That would be fun. That would be great.
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