Edition #123 - Funeral, Church & New Music

It feels like a whole lot of significant elements happened since I last published a few insights on my A View From Within community… The absence of the almost daily emails you were used to receiving from me must have left you wondering what I was up to, or it might have given you a bit of a breather from your friend and brother Alex’s excessive (and probably compulsive) writings…! I guess there are several reasons that could explain the slower cadence of my correspondence as of late… and they’re all mostly positive!

First, every occasion I have to spend a few days in Virginia comes as a refreshing blessing for me. It gives me perspective and helps me contemplate where I am and what that “here” of mine is truly made of, my life being an ever-faster journey that could too often be defined by its raging high velocity. Being able to engulf myself in the serene force of the mountains’ immensity offers me a perspective I rarely, if ever, have the possibility to dwell on otherwise, as I’m usually left entirely submerged by the incapacitating noises of my chaotic environment. Inner peace is sadly, or cruelly, a sort of distant luxury I have lost myself in for far too long to even believe in its benevolence whenever it comes my way once in a while, a total contrast — almost the perfect opposite — of when I manage to come home to get away from the circus I have not only created but fiercely keep alive. Quite the irony, or the reflection, of my ever-growing madness… Well, it’s probably both.

I went to church last Saturday. I honestly don’t remember the last time I ever set foot anywhere close to the premises of any organized religion. I have grown immensely disillusioned by the church community’s inconsequential status quo, as well as some of its political weaponization, as my vision of the church is about welcoming everyone, comforting the helpless, empowering the powerless, and being an active, solacing presence in the community… Compassion, healing, and serving. It doesn’t have anything to do with dogmas, religiosity, and proselytism. I believe in an altruism that inspires tangible self-deprived actions, such as true gatherings and communion based on dignity and humanity. That’s my personal take about it. It’s not a judgmental positional mantra: love shouldn’t be selective.

Anyway, all that to say that it was important for me to offer my respect to my friend and neighbors’ widow, regardless of my torn sentiments before the institution itself. I sat in the back, quiet, but nonetheless reverent and respectful. I had never attented to an Episcopal service before, never been too attracted to structural format… But it didn’t prevent me from finding it peaceful. I was initially confused by the whole hymnal procession but found the organ player crazy good. He clearly wasn’t following the program — he got me right there!

What I found particularly moving was all the people assembled to say a last goodbye to that one-of-a-kind individual, all coming from different spheres of life: New Yorkers, geologists, cavers, naturalists, Virginians, parishioners… The testimonies were rich in funny anecdotes and poignant testimonies. My friend had lived several lives over the course of his journey… I can relate to that, especially the fact that what truly mattered to him was the people and how he could make some sort of positive impact around him and beyond. Being at the service of others ain’t nowadays’ saveur du jour, that’s for sure… I couldn’t stop laughing hearing all those stories. “Oh, God!” like he used to say in some sort of exasperation… I thought I was the only one to be what I called “oh godded” by him, but it looks like I wasn’t! Everyone in the large crowd laughed about it. The pastor later brought it on: “How many of you have been graced with an ‘Oh, God!’ here?” Everyone, without any exception, raised their hand!

One of the stories that particularly touched me was the moment my friend, newly ordained as an Episcopalian minister, was walking in the city with other pastors and a woman started screaming his name, all happy to see him. She was half naked, and nothing was left to the imagination when she started to run towards them. While some people could have been uncomfortable, my friend was super happy to see her. She told the others that my friend helped her to kick several addictions and to find an apartment and a job. When she left, the other ministers asked my friend what had happened and what he had done to support her in such a defining way. He simply said, “I looked at her with the same high value I give to everyone.” That was it, end of the story. I believe it sums up the character of my friend: a person who decided to be intentional and consequential.

Once the service came to an end, leaving me still confused about the singing parts and odd sequencing of the hymns everybody seemed to know by heart, we gathered in the community room where I had the privilege to interact with others for an hour or two, learning a whole lot more about my friend’s life and realizing that most of the attendees knew me already. My friend had made sure to share every single element of the nonsense he had witnessed daily by simply stopping over my house for a few minutes. It was surreal to hear strangers recollecting parts of my infamous mountaineering fails one by one! They all insisted that my friend had grown very fond of me, that he kept on saying, “That guy is too brilliant for his own sake, and he knows it, so it makes him a smartass!” Sounds like me alright! Or at least it would sound pretty familiar to anyone just close enough to me to know he was right… Oh, God!!!

I left the church happy… Happy I was there to honor my friend and to support his wife and family. Happy that I didn’t let my profound disappointment (for lack of better words) with the religious institutional establishment get in the way of the real, joyful, and benevolent community agape moment with the people. I wouldn’t go as far as affirming that it produced a sort of inner reconciliation with the whole church “structure”, but I managed to be honest enough with myself to differentiate my past nightmarish experiences and the beautiful display of care and affection I had witnessed during those few hours. It gave me some solace, that’s for sure.

When I was about to leave, an elderly lady came to me and, with her bright blue eyes looking at me, told me:

Lady: “Alex, will we see you again?”
Me: “Probably not, at least not in such a context,” I answered, smiling and trying to charm my way out).
Lady: “I understand… The unknown can be frightening.”
Me: In my head, I was like WHAT?!? I’m not afraid!!! “That is true…”
Lady: “So what are you scared of?”
Me: I’m not scared at all, I insisted in my head. “Well, I had my fair share of church services, I guess…” I said, still in the charming mode.
Lady: “You know that sleeping at McDonald’s won’t turn you into a Big Mac in the morning, right?”
Me: I was a bit perplexed at that point and simply nodded.
Lady: “You didn’t get it, did you? It’s not about religion, or the walls, or the service. It’s what you want to give that changes everything.”
Me: At that point, I started looking around, first hoping someone would come and get her and second for an exit strategy if no one came to my rescue.
Lady: “You are an artist, we heard your music.”
Me: I became a little concerned at this point. “Oh, really?”
Lady: “It’s intense.”
Me: “Yes, it’s emotionally intense, you are right.” I was still looking around, wondering if someone had lost a beautiful elderly person, but no one seemed to be looking for her.
Lady: “I like it.”
Me: “Really…?”
Lady: “I used to sing in bands, doing Janis was the best!”
Me: “Janis Joplin?!?”
Lady: “Is there another Janis I didn’t hear of?”
Me: “You are right, there’s none,” I replied, while thinking she was cocky and also lost, and still hoping someone would come get her.
Lady: “Rock music is about being fearless, but faith is about knowing why,” she suddenly declared.
Me: I suddenly stopped fantasizing about someone coming to pick her up and apologizing for their grandma’s behavior.
Lady: “Oh, I got your attention now!”
Me: “Yes you did! And you are right, there’s a profound measure of spirituality in art, the honest one.”
Lady: “A measure? No, it’s all about that. Stop convincing yourself otherwise.”
Me: “True… The intangible is what turns something inanimate into growing life.”
Lady: “There you go! Come and play music with your band.”
Me: “It will be loud,” I said, playing the cocky game as well.
Lady: “Is it only loud or weighty?”
Me: I had never heard that expression, weighty, but I figured it was better than loud. “It will be for you to let me know…”
Lady: “Loud is easy. And when it’s only loud, here’s what I do. She showed me her earpiece like she would lower the volume. “Weighty is not easy.” And she pointed to my heart…
Me: “True…”

As I was about to ask her questions, a man arrived and asked her where she had been.

Lady: “I was talking with my friend Alex, who is afraid to connect his brain to his heart.”
Man: “Sorry, Alex. Mom, we need to go.”
Lady: “Goodbye, Alex, see you soon,” she said while pointing at her heart.
Me: “Yes, see you soon.”
Lady: “You said it… Better keep your word now!”
Me: I smiled. “Oh, God!!!”

Once I felt just emotionally detached enough from the otherwise galvanizing circus I’m usually engulfed in when I’m at the HQ, Ben and I sat in our impromptu avant-garde recording studio that no one in their right mind would want to work in — let alone create — to listen to the whole record from the start. As you know, or may know by now, for me, an album is a voyage within a voyage, with a streaming beginning leading to a transformative open door as to where it will transition before it morphs beyond the last echoing notes of a journey that never seems to end, that never feels truly over once we’ve reached a new affective shore after going through the passage of our own let go and transformation. That’s what a record is to me: an inner pilgrimage designed to be collectivized sometime after.

I was profoundly struck by just how significantly more introspective and spiritual the whole album had evolved at this point and how substantially more sonically dense and wide the whole voyage managed to elevate itself over its whole inceptive period, holding a sort of time suspension along with an intangible measure of ethereal impermanence entangled with fragments of human yet divine transfiguration. If it’s impossible for me to describe something that “sacred” in any specific terms, creative genres, or art form characterization — which for me is a blessing, considering it perfectly represents my vision of expressive creation — the record’s nature is a pure entity of its own…

The only way I can translate it would be in the likes of a heart standing in a fragile balance between blazing reborn lights and bleak despaired faithlessness. And even so, its essence might reside in the margins of everything I can barely feel or still remain totally blind to… True art is the magnificent incarnation of the divine and its elusive complexion.

That’s why, following my listening session, I told Ben that if I ever wanted to revisit what had already been recorded, he would have to hide it all from my subversive manic obsession to keep trying to shape the clay of what’s unknown for me to tame its free-spirited motion. What I sensed, even more than what I heard, was “it”, untainted by any megalomaniacal desires, untouched by controlling temptations, something that only ambition has the potential to pervert back to human level… What’s “it” is “it”. If you are reading this, Ben, save it all from me, brother!

And yet, the record isn’t totally completed, as there are two additional songs that kept on coming back to my mind, as if they were haunting their way into that initial act of the project I’ve been foreseeing for quite some time now…

I know, I’m a total tease, but what can I do? When it’s “it”, it’s totally “it” for me… So let’s see where it will lead us all and how it will keep growing from this point on…

Life creates life!

Your friend and brother

Alex