I’ve lived in the Bay Area for what, 30 years? My wife and I met on a six-week silent retreat at Spirit Rock, that’s up in Marin. We were Buddhists then. She might still practice, though I strongly doubt it. Anything’s possible.
I’ve always wanted to teach, but it never panned out because of my allergies — I’m allergic to getting up in the morning and going to work! Never graduated university. I’m self-taught, a bit of a pedant. A few people have called me that, more or less. I’m a perfect example of an autodidact. Isn’t that the most horrid word? If I had matriculated, I suppose my specialty would have been medieval literature but that’s never going to happen. It’s pretentious though I’m prone to use it as an icebreaker — I’m even using it with you! Playing the ol’ medieval literature specialty card. The truth is, I’ve always gravitated toward the spiritual. So what happened was, I renounced my fantasy tenure to become a roving ambassador for my own brand of Zen. If the Buddhists call sitting meditation “zazen,” I call my theosophy “vanzen” because I live in my van. I can’t conceive of a life without the ol’ Greater Vehicle.
My van is my Higher Power, as the alcoholics like to say, and my lower companion too. (Not as big as your SUV but I’ll bet it’s got a tighter turning radius.) I’ve actually converted it to a library because any self-respecting auto-mobile-didact needs his moveable feast. The bookshelves are Brosimum paraense—that’s bloodwood — embellished by ornamental carvings commissioned from local artists along the way. I’d hunker down in whatever community, hand over a plank to the right artisan when he came along, and say: Have at it. I’ve got the handiwork of a monk from Tassajara, a skater from Morro Bay, and a docent at the Charles Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa. Cherished volumes are held in place by color-coded bungee cords: red for Bio, blue for Fic, orange for Relig, and so on. Honestly, I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t a reader. Books have always been there for me in my darkest hours. I’ll admit my collection’s a little biased. I have an estimable selection of San Francisco authors, oh yes I do. And a lot of the Beats. A lot.
You see, everyone knows Jack London was born in San Francisco and went to school in Berkeley but did you know his mother channeled spirits? Oh yes she did. Went nuts too. Shot herself and lived to tell the tale. Dante wrote about the suicides but there’s a hell right here on Earth for those who botch the act. I believe the professionals put them in the “attempters” versus “completers” camp — like rescue versus recovery. She was so bonkers that the authorities gave him a foster mom, who just happened to be a former slave. Make a pretty good movie, wouldn’t it? It’s got the whole deaclass="underline" genius kid, daydreamer dad, whacko mom, and ex-slave foster. Like one of those movies Leonardo DiCaprio used to star in when he was young. Leonardo’d make a pretty good Jack. Now that’s a film I’d go to see.
Mark Twain was a cub reporter up here, wrote for The Call. Legend has it he dreamed up his stories an hour before deadline. Rather Hunter S. Thompson of him! Did you know Kipling came to America just to find Mr. Clemens? Not to San Francisco — to Elmira, New York. I believe that momentous rendezvous took place sometime between the writing of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn but don’t hold me to it. Lord, but Kipling was a fan! Just in complete awe. Came all the way from India to see him, can you imagine? I’d love to have been a fly on that wall. Now there’s another movie… though this one might be better as a play. If I was a terrible playwright (which I would be if I ever tried my hand), that’d be one hell of a theatrical theme — Kipling and Twain in New York. There’s the title too: “Kipling and Twain in New York.” Readymade. Though maybe “Kipling and Twain in Elmira” would be better. Makes you a little more curious, draws you in.
I got all kinds of ideas today! Aren’t you happy you came back?
He abruptly yet politely excused himself, leaving the trailer for half-an-hour before we resumed.
Did you ever have a love like that? Like Kipling’s for Twain? Starts as an intellectual love, then becomes something else? Crosses over into something else? You read a book and wham—Cupid’s arrow goes right in. And suddenly you’re compelled? To make a pilgrimage. Love is what made Kipling travel all that way.
I had a love affair like that. Once is all you need! I must have been all of thirteen. He was a monk, a Trappist monk named Thomas Merton. You’ve heard of him? I think everyone’s heard of Merton. Though all they usually know is The Seven Storey Mountain. Or maybe about the terrible way he died. But I wasn’t as fortunate as Lord Kipling. By the time I got the idea, my beloved monk was already dead. He was in the Far East, if memory serves — was it Burma? or Thailand — taking a bath when a fan fell in and he was electrocuted. Right then and there he entered the pantheon of famously ignominious literary deaths. You know, Barthes and the bakery truck, Randall Jarrell and W. G. Sebald versus automobile, Tennessee and the frisky bottle cap… though some folks say it wasn’t a bottle cap that did him in at all, but rather what they call “acute Seconal intolerance.” Which is French for overdose.
Did you know that a lot of writers have been knifed? Beckett was stabbed on the street, almost killed him. And Sartre too, by a crazy man who was always asking him for money and tried to break down the door of his apartment. The door was chained but he nearly cut off Sartre’s thumb. Sartre never had any money! That comes as a surprise to most people. It worried him right to the end. A few days, maybe a few hours before he died, he was asking Simone de Beauvoir how they were going to find the money to have him cremated.
Anyway, I was crushed — I mean, about Merton. Death by fan… I guess we should feel lucky they don’t keep fans up there by the Esalen baths! And he was handsome too, like a movie star. At least I thought so. And a monk. And a poet. And a — oh! I was only however-old-I-was but boy that hit me hard. My first serious crush. And say what you will, but the root of crushed is crush. That’s the human comedy for you. I suppose it would have been more romantic if Merton had been knifed like the others. Or shot, like Rimbaud. Anything but death by fan!
Father Thom struggled with celibacy all his life. I really do believe God made us that way, with all our base instincts and perilous urges, and out of His mercy bestowed conscience and shame. I’m afraid I failed Him early on! I was too young to understand God knew I would fail and I was already forgiven. The older I get, the more I subscribe to Tolstoy’s views. You’ve read The Kreutzer Sonata? The later works? By that time in life, Tolstoy was opposed to sexual intercourse, he really thought the high road was to let the whole human race just die out. Life of the party, huh. Though I bet the folks at Esalen would give him a workshop! They’re pretty much open to anything. I’ve got some wonderful books on the topic in my van. Did you know celibacy was optional in the first thousand years of the Church? O yes. “And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison”—Revelation 20:7. Don’t get me started! Thom Merton was a Renaissance man, he had one of those far-reaching, magisterial intellects, good Lord. The man could toss off an essay on Zen just as quick as a raft of poems. He was a marvelous poet.