Life Lessons From 100-Year-Olds

Señor Alex & Grandparents

     Los Angeles, 07.05.2021                                                         

Day 5

     He's Mexican. 65 years old. Next year, 2022, he retires to Tijuana, or at least that's the plan. His daughter is named Anna and has studied criminal justice; entering the job market and very optimist about her chances to "become someone" which is the exact way he puts it. Señor Alex is a guard in a construction site at night; he feels lonely and isolated. Rent prices in this area goes for about $3,500 for a one bedroom so señor Alex lives far, which still puts his rent at $ 1,700 and his family out of reach for emotional support. 

 A rat goes by and I put a foot in my mouth: " it's just you and the rats, señor Alex."  and  he laughs; he laughs loudly and confesses to me that he talks to them sometimes and that one of them stopped walking the other day and looked at him and that freaked him out. " I'm being silly, I know, but it made think that he understood me." I ask him if he has watched my favorite animated feature "Ratatouille" and he has. " This was not a chef, but he was fat like a chef." he says.  So much for my sensitive preoccupations. 

     It is hard for people from South America to adjust to a political correct society; throughout our entire childhoods we had adults making fun of us, themselves, everything. Most of the things it is considered playful for señor Alex and I, would be frowned upon by today standards and we would be canceled for sure. Some of it with good reason, and some because when humans beings gain momentum they loose control; after all, if you have the power of cancelling, why would you not continue cancelling and looking for things to cancel. 

     We navigate ourselves to our initial conversation and he tells me: "I got a raise, but groceries went up, gas went up; it's like they know I got a bit more money and they take it." I ask him how will it be able leaving his daughter behind when he moves to Tijuana and he quiets down, thinking. I wait. "My daughter is an American and she likes the costumes here; I don't think she will miss us. She is ready to leave the nest and "become someone." 

     This is the second time he says that, so I mention it and ask him to clarify what he means. " In America... - he says- " ... people judge others  by what they have, by the car they drive. My daughter doesn't mind that; all her friends have nice cars and they treat those cars better than people. In my country, we get together around food and we talk and we tell stories and we make fun of each other and then it is back to work again. If someone is doing well we hear about it and we are happy for them but it doesn't come up around the table. Around a table with food only your embarrassing moments are shared." 

    That took me back a bit; it made me think of growing up in Brazil and how similar it was to his experiences, except that my family was the opposite of supportive, around our table, the brothers would put each other down and brag about their accomplishments and as child, I watched all of this and noticed that the women, their sisters, would say nothing. They would serve the food and listen and one by one they would display love to the most important women in my life: my grandmother. For that reason, in my family, I liked the sisters and thought the males fell far from the tree; my grandfather was so quiet. 

     I ask señor Alex. "Were you close to your grandparents?" He smile at me and I could see him traveling back in time and watching the memories of his childhood in his mind. " My grandparents were simple people: quiet, loving, and happy." he said describing my grandparents while he was at it. There is a reason I liked this man the moment i met him and I now stop by every night to say hi. Then I think of my children and his daughter and all the teenagers in the world and understand how much harder they have than us, older folks. 

     The secret for a pleasant life is the very definition of our grandparents; but you try to fit simplicity in the times we are living; try plugging quietness for the sake of quietness in a world where we are loosing connection with each other, afraid to say things, afraid to tell other our nightly ponderations, afraid that we will be cancelled. It is one thing to quiet down to understand the world; it is quite another to be silenced into compliance. 

     I once told my lovely Renée that scientists had identified the genes that makes one a homossexual, it was an article on the previous day on The New York times. We were at the the equipment room hall at New York University waiting for our 16mm cameras to be distributed; Renée got angry with me and refused to talk to me all night. I got angry with her and let her know. Finally, when I was walking back to Penn Station to go home, she appeared by my side. We were still very pissed at each other and walked in silence . After a bit she grab my arm and sat me down on  the curb. I loved Renée.

     " I don't think people should be changed Renée. Reversed engineering...I am not advocating that;  I am not a nazi." In my anger at her I left out the part where I thought we ought to have the conversation about the science of it all. She understood it and told me so. Then she spoke to me about her brother for the first time and we sat there for hours talking: about family, gays, theater, God and she told me something about my life that I knew; and when she didn't get the response she was waiting, she made a prediction so precise that I wish she was alive so that I could sit on a curb and tell her how right she was. She would've liked that.

     Renée was complex. I was the simple minded one. Wherever  she is now she is rolling her eyes at me. And if it is true the dead can hear us I take this opportunity to tell you that I have the last word because I am alive Renee and you are not. And another thing. I still dislike your roommate. She was a horrible influence on you. I guess we had that in common. I ask myself why I went from señor Alex to Renée and the answer came promptly: I liked them both the minute I met them. At night.

     Alex is becoming a friend and I can see myself heading to Tijuana to hang out with him and his wife and eat Mexican food; make fun of his mariachis. "Really? How many trumpet players a song needs? When señor Alex was describing his grandparents he was describing himself and Renee; although not exactly. Let me explain in another way: if they were both a coin, they would be the opposite sides of that coin. I could toss it up in the air and get señor Alex and head to Tijuana to simplicity, lovingness and happiness." 

    If I got Renee, there would be no way to tell what the night would bring except for lovingness. She once told me: " being your friend is difficult because I can never tell with you how you are gonna piss me off." and she would grab my arm while we walked the streets of New York City; streets we shared with rats much bigger than the Santa Monica kind. She had a way of looking at me as if I were a mirror; and then think she was seeing me.

     And it came to me why these two different human beings got entangled on my mind: it is in the toss of the coin one gets to experience the next moments of what life will bring; some will be pleasant and others wont; but they will not be the same and that is how we grow. The cancel culture has done away with the tossing of the coin and is determined to tell us all how to live, what are the topics we should chose and their most important trait, as it is with every dictatorship, the repercussion of not following their rules. Within their construct, there is no life, and we miss the importance of making mistakes: a chance to rediscovery and to start over. The homeless of Los Angeles are between a grandmother, accepting and loving, and the cancellation mob. 

     The problem of homelessness in Los Angeles might be one of those unique moments where no one is right and no one is wrong. All that matters is that we must find a way to engage these people back into society. Let me offer some pictures since it is being said over and over again that it is equal to a thousand words. And let me warn you that you might react like Renee did when I mentioned to her the New York Times article on the "homossexual gene."

     Yesterday, I wandered into this park that sits right in the middle of Downtown Los Angeles; which sidewalks are the dirtiest sidewalks of any city I have been, and I have travelled a lot. I love architecture and I love the care it was put into this garden, as a director, I can set my camera in any place and you will have a beautiful frame in every direction. After taking a bunch of pictures a security officer appeared to tell me that I was in a private property. I told her that I was just taking some pictures, to which came her reply:  " the owners don't like people taking pictures." she said. 

     Okay, let me confess that maybe, maybe Renee was a tiny percent correct and that I annoy people, but from where I stand; " Say that again?! Why design this beautiful garden if no one will enjoy it?" I asked her and I could not wait for the answer that would prove Renee correct: " I love you but you are difficult." The officer said: " it is their building and if they don't want anyone taking pictures than it is their right." That was not nearly enough for me. " it is a huge piece of land in the middle of the city; It is beautiful; it is empty. There should be parents here with children running around." She pointed out " This would be a liability because if they fell and got hurt, they would sue the building." I understood this before she told me. I also understood that it was their building and well, you've have read my blabbing.

     I watched her walk away; frame another shot and took the picture quick because i didn't want her to yell at me or worse get the LAPD involved. I could the see the scene on my mind: " 911 please there is a man here taking pictures of our garden at Union Bank." " Ma'am, remain calm. We will send officers right away."

     But as I languidly move away on my white horse I looked back one more time and imagined that place filled with shacks, tents and homeless people sleeping everywhere. I didn't like that new look one bit. 

     Even though I am an atheist, I am pretty sure it was God who planted that thought on my mind, to frame the complex issue of homeless around the world.  Because if God exists, sometimes he reminds me of Renee: complex, all love and one major pain.

The Children in Each of Us.

      I recognize myself on the face of lost children; sad children, with eyes that beg an answer to unanswerable questions: why am I here? Where are you, mother? Why did you leave me here so alone? I am two years old, four, five, ten, twelve, fifty-seven. The questions are still there reverberating through the years but now I am certain there isn't an answer; or maybe there is, but it is not what I expected. 

     There is no rhyme or reason for anything that happens to us except for the magical explanations we created to try to make this life bearable. Desperate to feel nothing disturbing, others of my kind invented positive thinking, and they tell me sometimes: " I like to deal with people who are positive." I just smile. "I know" I think, but say nothing in response. 

     It hurts feeling life to its fullest so they need all the help they can get: alcohol, drugs, sugar, bread, coffee, positivity, visualization, God. 

     I hear and see and read in comments throughout the fabric of social medias. The "hurting ones" professing God's power and benevolence as the Los Angeles streets fill with tents and trash and homeless people. We have so much in common with the children of the documentary " A House Made of Splinters trying to make sense of their place in the world while every wall surrounding you reminds one of how immense life is. A child needs to be socialized into the common magical narrative of the community he/she/they lives; but orphan children learn only about reality.  

     I sit in my office in Santa Monica and watch people come and go, so full and certain of themselves, creating their Shangri-las. Some young, some old. 

     I watch them and I ponder if they believe it will hold for a lifetime;  the thin, brittle magic veil of delusion they wear to keep life at bay.