“When I got home I
mixed a stiff one and stood by the open window in the living room and sipped it
and listened to the groundswell of traffic on Laurel Canyon Boulevard and
looked at the glare of the big angry city hanging over the shoulder of the
hills through which the boulevard had been cut. Far off the banshee wail of
police or fire sirens rose and fell, never for very long completely silent. Out
there in the night of a thousand crimes, people were dying, being maimed, cut
by flying glass, crushed against steering wheels or under heavy tires. People
were being beaten, robbed, strangled, raped, and murdered. People were hungry,
sick; bored, desperate with loneliness or remorse or fear; angry, cruel,
feverish, shaken by sobs. A city no worse than others, a city rich and vigorous
and full of pride, a city lost and beaten and full of emptiness. It all depends
on where you sit and what your private score is.” ~ Excerpt from Raymond
Chandler’s The Long Goodbye
If I was told there was a bomb in my building and I had five minutes to evacuate my apartment I’d grab a grocery bag and quickly toss these items into it: 1. A photo of my grandparents, Mom and Pop and me, when I was 15 years old. I learned what love is made of from them. I learned what it is to be kissed on and hugged in arms so tender they felt like God’s arms. I discovered self worth from those two angels in human flesh. Of all the people in my life, they were the ones who made me feel I counted. Honestly, whatever capacity I have to love others came from them. 2. A sentimental, dog-eared, stars in the margin copy of Pat Conroy’s, “The Prince of Tides.” It is a book I have read three times and often return to for its wisdom. It is a harsh, profoundly tragic novel, the story of a family so broken and tortured by such flawed and wounded people that it is sometimes difficult to turn the next page. And yet it is the story of such Herculean courage and endurance that you want...
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