Have any of you ever noticed that life sometimes seems to go out of its Way to offer you reflections of the things you've been thinking about, and pondering? Pondering not in the sense of 'ponderous,' or heavy, just pondering in the sense of thinkin' about, comin' back to from time to time during the day like one comes back to a koan, touching upon it at different times of the day and from different points of view, like it was fun...a thing to "think through" or just try to get a kinda handle on, something to have fun with and explore? Today was one of those days for me.
It started kinda funky. I woke up and decided again that rather than go to a cafe and try to write, I'd go to a cafe and read someone else's writing. So I grabbed by newly- arrived-in-the-mail copy of the latest (and last) Harry Potter novel, and headed out the door with it. I got no further than my own doorstep when I was accosted by a stalker. He wasn't stalking me. He was stalking my next-door neighbor, the Famous Comic Artist. But because I live in an apartment in the artist's house, and the Artist Himself -- the one he'd been camped out on our doorsteps stalking -- hadn't appeared, he glommed onto me. On the surface, he was a fairly benign fan -- Belgian, clutching a gift basket for Robert, explaining to me (a total stranger, ferchrissakes) that he'd come all the way from Belgium on a kind of pilgrimage to meet The Artist. I did not for a moment doubt his sincerity or his fervor. This guy obviously had a fairly serious hero thang goin' down with my next-door neighbor. He explained that he'd come all this way just in the hope that he could meet him, just for a couple of minutes, just to thank him for his work and for how much it had inspired him. I explained to him that The Artist was more than a bit of a recluse, and that because he went away often to a rented place in the mountains to work on his latest project, he might not even be in town this week. But the guy said he was going to wait anyway, and sat down on a doorstep opposite our house. I wished him good luck and headed off to the cafe. But once there, after ordering my coffee but before opening my book, I called The Artist's wife and told them that they had another stalker on their hands. I explained to her that he had *seemed* benevolent, but definitely warned her that he was outside her door, waiting. She thanked me and I went back to my coffee, and started reading about Harry Potter. Harry's an interesting guy. He grew up thinking he was just an ordinary kid, and then he found out that he was special. In the world of magic that he grew up unaware of, he had been a legend since his infancy. When he arrived on the scene, most of the people he ran into had heard his legend (which he had been blissfully unaware of) long before they'd met him. So if you're an ordinary guy thrown suddenly into the role of being considered "special," whaddya do? Well, Harry finds a few close friends, kids who accept him for just who he is, not who he's "supposed" to be. And around them he can kick back and relax and just be himself, without having to think about being "special," and living up to it. I read for a couple of hours and then walked back home. Soon afterwards the phone rang, and it was The Artist's wife, calling to update me on my earlier phone call. It turns out that she went outside to see the guy, and thanked him for coming and all, but explained to him that Robert was medi- tating right now, and thus wasn't available to meet him. The guy started crying. Right there on the street, bawling like a baby, as distraught as my neighbor had ever seen a person. So she took pity on him and invited him into her parlor and left him there crying while she went to talk to her husband -- a painfully shy guy to start with -- and tell him what was goin' down. Well, The Artist, high on compassion from a nice, shiny meditation, said, "Why not?" and walked downstairs to meet this guy. And it starts out sweet, but within no less than the couple of minutes that the guy had told me he wanted with him, the fan turns aggressive, asking The Artist to draw something personal for him. When my friend, shocked, said that he didn't "do requests," the guy started demanding that The Artist give him -- for free -- copies of his artwork that he had lying around. The couple who lived in the house that they'd moved to to get *away* from such people finally had to call upon the help of houseguests to usher the guy out. She then went on to invite me to a gathering they were going to have that night in the garden that they own. It's a ways away from the house, very secluded behind stone walls, a really neat little place. I said OK, and showed up there a little after eight o'clock with a bottle of wine and an open mind. She'd described it as a "musical evening," and I love music, so I was up for whatever it might turn out to be. It turned out to be about 20 people -- some from Sauve, some just Passing Through -- eating good food and drinking a little wine and then playing music. The experience of the musicians ranged from done-it-all-their-lives-for-fun to professional. There were a few noted musicians from the folk and ethnic music scene there, and there was The Artist Himself, who has always loved -- and played -- music himself, and his family, who have all played music together, and a few of us who aren't really players but who love music. The music was acoustic and eclectic, ranging from blues to ragtime to Celtic. The instrumentation was equally eclectic; we're talkin' guitars, banjos, accordions, Uillean pipes, pennywhistles, mandolins, and fiddles. The crowd ranged in age from mine and The Artist's age (basically older than dirt) to young people in their twenties, tattooed and artistic friends of The Artist's daughter. And the food was great and the wine was great and the music was great and we all had a great time and no one there was in the least bit special. And I guess I'm writing this because I really think that the reason we all *had* such a good time is that no one there was special. The stalker guy had decided, at some point in his life, that The Artist was special. The Artist became *so* special in this fellow's mind that he began to imagine a kind of fantasy relationship with him. In that fantasy, The Artist would take one look at him and recognize him as some kind of kindred soul and just welcome him into His life, showering him with gifts of special drawings done only for him. Possibly *of* him. He "came to the table" with expectations. *Heavy* expectations. He'd projected "specialness" onto the object of his fixation so strongly and for so long that he'd begun to feel more than a little special himself. And his expectations didn't turn out exactly the way he thought they would. And then there was the little gathering in the garden. As far as I could tell, no one there came with any expectations except to spend an enjoyable evening with their friends and equals. No one there considered anyone else there "special," and as far as I can tell no one there considered *themselves* terribly "special." And everything turned out just dandy. We had a wonderful time. I don't know if there was really a point to these ramblings, but I thought that before I went to bed I'd try to put the odd juxtapositions of this day into words, just to see if I could, and to see how they'd "read" in the morning. I don't expect them to be great words, or this little tale to be great literature; I just felt like writing it. It's not special in any way, nor am I. But it sure was fun.
