An emergency prompted I sit in a lawn chair on the Gulf of Mexico with my family this weekend, slathering layers of pink pigment from the Sun’s demand on to my shoulders and chest. I wore a shirt in four days the same amount I stood under the shower faucet — once total, to the agreement of my self and my what would seem the inner interlocution concerning my life’s direction, which is not as large and complex as I once thought it to be.

Ask a year ago — or to another extreme — two years ago, what I ought to be doing with my life, and surely some insecure pretense would say “I know exactly what!” though no actions embodied seem to provide a paralell verdict. Of course, much of that’s been discussed here and rather than repeating motions of awareness I only wish to build upon them and show some forward movement.

My family continues to be a strong source of scaffolding for my existence — not only a reassurance of who I am, but moreover a reinforcement of who I ought to be. My sister especially, for in our adult years all the shared experiences of she and I with our parents, whom I love deeply and understand more and more deeply that who I am is because of who they consistently have been for no less than some two decades and more than a half, her understanding of unintelligibly long sentences if this is an example.

I love them much that I find more and more my placement here is a man of Family — a man who understands his household is what best embodies who humans in general ought to be: the mutual selflessness, giving, benevolence, and well, ability to laugh at each other.  And with burned shoulders and the curliest hair my mother framed on my face and the dimpled grin my father placed in my cheekbones, I’m sitting in bed, back in Dallas, hoping for so much, after years of what seems like missing out on it all.

Some things from this weekend have stayed, where as some were meant to stay with the weekend. And specifically how it ought to apply in my life. What ismost valuable?

I’ve spent the better part of the last decade resolving I was a single man, fit for the work of the Kingdom and what extra time singleness allows for study and for service. I searched deep and wide for whether or not it was that precise calling or my own anti-calling (that of selfishness and to control my own time, effort, and finances). I’m coming closer to the understanding that it’s indeed not the former.

These newfound (though not sudden) discoveries have also shed intense light on how I ought to live. I told my parents only a few months ago (on their extravagant back porch, somewhere aloof my memories of that very same space growing up though it occupies the same; lawnmower sounds and allergy attacks), that the next roommate I have will be my wife, to further solidify earlier statements.

Probably the best thing I have done in years is move in to this house — Maté — benefiting from and hopefully benefiting others by sharing this communal space to musicians, scribes, searchers, the depressed, the most burnt and bitter to the most reverent and rejoicing. If ever I have grown socially in such a compressed amount of time, it’s surely these past six month. And even after a few months living here I might have had the thought, “I am never living alone again.”

After all, I am quick to say things far too soon.

Tonight I spent a drive to Whole Foods in Lakewood, an equal distance from both Ellsworth and from Vickery as is Maté, and purchased a plot of goods I might dine on the steps of either/and. I had accumulated much in my silence on the beach this weekend, and when I returned to Dallas proper after the four days away, I wanted nothing more than to revisit past nights of unpacking I have hardly known but one night a week or less since moving here.

In so doing, I lead west up Abrams to Richmond, took a left and went on through Skillman, making a left at Matilda. A few minutes later I was at the stoop of Vickery in which so much clarification internally was reached about my time in New York — so much was spent with one I love — and so much searching was exercised in light of, well, what seemed to be the entire world staring. I sat with an Avery Seventeen and looked to You, great God, and thought how I had missed trusting you like I once did, and that thankful that I am now again learning more sincerely and truly than ever.

I spent a good thirty on those steps, before I knew the next stop was ultimately to take a right from Mockingbird and on down to the Williamson trail-mast swingsets. I didn’t swing, though at those picnic tables we know I sat and stared at the inertia above the gravel pit, the question “why would you tell me that?” & a smile I have not felt as genuinely since.

Though I ultimately decided that not moving was in my best interest (while for years I thought the opposite) one interesting way I have remained connected (and was initially connected) to the idea of New York is my Uncle Mark, my mom’s brother who lived in the Lower East Side of Manhattan for upwards of 20 years.

I didn’t know much of Mark growing up. After all, he was the brother of my mom who’d moved to New York City immediately after graduating college, years before my birth, on to an exotic life of a bohemian artist and carpenter living in the then dangerous and quite dark downtown portion of the Island.

In the mid-90′s, my mother’s side of the family began to arrange family reunions — mostly in the Hill Country of Texas, as that was a fairly central location for those of us dispersed spread about Houston and Dallas. I couldn’t know why we started having the reunions when I was 8 years old — in fact I was a bit too young to have understood that this was a suddenly new ritual without precedent.

It is natural that the terrible things which happen and wonderful things that happen remain more explicit in memory than other than the mundane of course. However, there is a particular ilk of memories which adhere to the seat of emotion so securely and the purpose for their continued presence is hardly identifiable until, well, sometimes decades later.

I grew up riding in Chevrolet Astro vans. When you’re a kid, your reality is tiny and your language for describing reality is extremely specific to the personal experiences you’ve been able to acquire, so it was easy for me to assume that all kids grew up riding in Astro vans. It’s all I knew. Well, that and Amy Grant. It wasn’t until we pulled into Terminal E of the Dallas/Fort Worth airport in July of 1995 that the significance of our van was altered, and my understanding of my family was suddenly widened.

He had a spotty black beard and tinted glasses, a cocky posture and a cigarette woven between his fingers. Only a few little bags. I could tell he was a simple man. When we pulled in to the gate my mom quickly exited the driver’s side door after stopping. I watched them embrace. I could tell that he loved my mother deeply, and that she cared similarly for him — she had begun crying a bit.I didn’t know who the man was other than his perfunctory title “uncle,” but I did begin begin to understand at that moment his importance.

When Mark got in the car, my mom introduced me to my uncle. I’d heard of Mark in some stories from time to time, but it was always a detached description of the guy who lives in New York that my mom knows. And plus, it’s hard to think that conversation is fun when you’re a kid, and listening isn’t always the the highest on the list of Value.

Mark ducked into the van, moving past my sister’s seat which, and plopped into the seat in front of me.  He lit a cigarette, following it with the question, “It’s okay if I smoke in here, right?”

After a peak-hour van ride of careful observation of the quirky and quite eccentric foreigner in the seat in front of me, we arrived home. I remember Mark taking a special interest in me, asking me questions about the things I spent my time drawing and imagining, and commenting on how well done the model airplanes were I built and had strung from the ceiling of my bedroom. He told me he too was an artist, and that that’s what he did “for a living.”

Of course I had my suspicions that this could not possibly be true — an Artist for a living? Another vocabulary confusion. I thought that “for a living” meant either a Home Child Care Provider (my mother’s occupation) or an Insurance Salesman (my dad’s job at the time). I had no idea that one could make money doing the things I loved — drawing, exploring, creating.

Perceiving my doubt, Mark pulled out a piece of construction paper, grabbed for some crayons, and quickly drew a beautiful image of the sunset over the ocean. It was stunning. When Mark left I put it immediately in my top drawer among other important items — a box of pins I was collecting, two books of airplanes my grandfather had bought me, a few pieces of smooth printer paper, and the mechanical pencil I’d used to sketch.

When Mark came to Texas that trip, I felt a stronger connection with him than I had felt with many people, which I can say from hindsight. Of course at that point in my life, I didn’t understand the significance of his presence, nor did I realize the urgency of his timing for coming. I didn’t know why suddenly we were having family reunions.

I didn’t know Mark was about to die.

Mark rode with us down to Foxfire that summer. I could sense my mom was feeling every moment of our time together deeply, and it was curious.  At one point on the trip south our Astro had overheated, forcing us to stop on the side of the road and wait for some sort of help. It was before any of us had cell phones of course. We had been standing out in the Texas sun for a bit, and I was growing bored and sweaty while we waited for someone to come along and help. I remember what Mark suggested, making eye contact with me and pulling the sides of his mouth into a grin. “Let’s go see what’s past those trees!”

Following Mark’s lead, we hurried on down through the pines on a hill, and found a stream. There was a complex community of fire ants whose territory this obviously was, and my mom warned us from getting any closer. We stood there for a little while without moving, studying the water which trickled over smooth stones and ran on down the valley.  It felt like an important few minutes — the kind of minutes that seem to last for days.

When we finally found the car in good repair, we headed on down to the cabin we’d reserved. Mark walked into the bathroom, quickly unpacking a bag before anything else. I walked in curious to see what the urgency was for, and saw the orange bottles. There were over twenty of them, all different sizes and labels.

“What are those for Uncle Mark?”

“These help me get better,” Mark said gently and with a bit of a grin. He patted me on the shoulder.

Later in the trip my mom let me know that this was maybe the last time I would ever see my Uncle Mark. I couldn’t understand. It was only the first time I’d ever seen him, and I had instantly felt a deep connection with him. Maybe because I saw how deeply my mom experienced those moments — maybe it was something else.

When I graduated college and had finally decided to move to New York, my curiosity began to grow about my Uncle Mark and his time in Manhattan, since Manhattan and the type life lived within yields extremely specific experiences which only those who share the space are able to understand. I began to wish I could have known him growing up. I longed to know him as an adult.

When I first moved, some of my time was spent searching for Mark. He had been gone some 10 years before I moved, and so while I knew a lot has changed about Manhattan in that decade, I felt as if at least part of my purpose for being there was to discover who Mark was, and how I might be able to carry out some of the things that he wasn’t able before his passing.

As my curiosity grew and I had a increased capacity to handle emotionally complex situations, I decided to talk to my mom a little more about it. I felt very attached to Mark. I felt like I was quite similar to him in a lot of ways as well. I felt as if he was one person who might be able to understand me — especially at this volatile “becoming” part of my life — which I felt like very few people could. I wouldn’t say I was trying to communicate with him directly, but in some ways I was so intrigued by his search for meaning and for understanding and the simple way in which he lived his life in Manhattan that I began to find ways to connect with his past. Which was, in a way, my coming to know him increasingly so.

Mark’s best friend, Hali, still lives in Manhattan. Mom was exuberant when she made the realization and had the idea to connect us. Mom told me how special it would be if she and I could connect and hear from Hali first hand stories about my uncle, who I had begun to love very deeply as I discovered more about his life and understand the significance of our short time together in person.

When I lived there in 2006 unfortunately I wasn’t able to connect with Hali. I was simply too busy, of course a bit insecure, and honestly a little intimidated by the image of meeting with a woman who was the best friend of a man I didn’t know. A bit of maturity was necessary for that to happen, and of course years and the experiences for which they allow would assist in that.

After I moved back to Texas from Manhattan in early 2007, the years which followed where characterized by quite a mix of confusion, a confusion of emotions, and an inability to understand whether or not I’d actually fulfilled my purpose there or if I’d given up and simply lost my chance to live the life I dreamed there. Of course I realized through those years the immaturity tied up in that belief — in my inability to accept circumstances outside of my specific ideals, and the way in which it affected my Presence among those with whom I lived and actually shared life here in Texas.

However, through those years, my interest in the life of my Uncle Mark increased, and on one of my visits back, having known the East Village to a more nuanced level than when I first moved, I decided to make one last trip through the streets just west of Tompkins Square Park to find where Mark lived, and tried to imagine his life there.

I couldn’t find it.  I didn’t have an address, and all the brownstones look exactly the same save the color of their brick the brass numbers hung over the doorpost. It was August in New York, when the heat is trapped beneath the skyscrapers and made stolid and thick with humidity from the Hudson. I looked quickly for a coffee shop, and ducked into Think, a little place at the bottom of a brownstone on the Bowery.

I opened my laptop and started a letter, using the email address my mom had sent me three years ago.

“Hali, I am the son of Karen Simpson, Mark’s younger sister…”

Since August of this year we have been writing letters back and forth. Hali is in her 60′s, splitting her time between her Manhattan City Hall apartment and her house in the Hamptons. She is a part of a wealthy Jewish family — the very family which became Mark’s when he moved away from his own and found New York City to be his bohemian reaction against the establishment in the 1970s.

My Uncle Mark passed away from HIV/AIDS in 1996, and while I never quite knew him like I now wish I did, Hali and I exchange letters, and in ways I never thought, I am able to know and to love and to cherish Mark. And in some ways I too feel as if he understands me and appreciates me and supports me.

Hali usually will write me letters on occasions during each year that were important to her and Mark as a whole. In September, she wrote to tell me about a plant that she waters regularly. She calls it her “Mark Plant.” She says that when she waters it she cultivates the memories of one of the greatest men she’s known.

In her most recent letter a few days ago, she described her Christmas traditions in the City with Mark. It was one of her first years in a new apartment downtown, and she had recently met Mark. For her it was a natural and easy connection.

“Mark and I became fast friends and naturally I invited him to christmas with my mother and three siblings who were teenagers along other family members. It was my first year hosting at a new apartment I shared with my boyfriend.  Mark was pretty irresistible with his devilish grin and irreverent observations. He fit right into my psychological, dysfunctional, fashionable, fun loving family.  He sussed out the family dynamic and was teasing everyone before they knew what hit them. It was instant chemistry. Mark’s tales of his Baptist Texan family and childhood were so exotic to us, we couldn’t get enough. He had a gift for taking events that must have been very scary and painful to a small child and infusing them with drama and humor.”

I could see Mark sitting at the table, wearing the hat I inherited from him, the one sweater he owned from Banana Republic which I also inherited, a cage of birds in the background, weaving in to the conversation with a group of near-strangers perfect wit alongside reactionary expletive or two. The devilish grin arising out of what serious experiences he must have had as a child and his uncanny ability to use these for the good of conversation and the relationships he now experienced — which he must have lacked in his earlier years.

Last night my mom and I were sitting in the living room of my childhood home. My dad was on a flight back from Hawaii, and it’s actually quite rare that she and I have that sort of alone time, and, well, especially in that specific context. She knows how much interest I have in the life of her big brother, and that Hali and I have begun exchanging letters this last fall, and brought up the fact that she found a VHS of my Uncle Mark, but didn’t know what was on it.

We popped in the tape to the VCR, and after sitting through a few seconds of static, Mark appeared on the screen, sitting on his bed with a lit cigarette in an East Village apartment. I was immediately overcome with emotion, and wondered what measure more my mom must have felt in that moment.

“Hi. I’m Mark Simpson. It’s the summer of 1992, and I have had an idea for about 10 years now that I have HIV, but have been positive for over two now.”

It was obvious the film was some sort of documentary memoir to different types of people who were either victims or suffererers of some sort of disease living in Manhattan. In the video, Mark took us on a tour of his little Losaida apartment, replete with cats, a greyhound dog, and an entire room-full of birds. He took us on a tour of the drugstore where he picked up his medication, and ended the video a few moments later in a short interview about his last days on earth.

The video ended with a centered shot of Mark’s face in a very tight crop, and it slowly faded to black.

“PORTRAIT #4″ appeared in bold yellow letters across the center of the screen. “MARK SIMPSON.”

Hali ended her letter to me, describing her relationship with Mark and the special moment they shared during our current season.

“Mark loved christmas for the excuse to decorate to excess. When everyone else was doing tasteful minimal trees, his had color, blinking lights and endless beautiful ornaments.  Your uncle ronnie got the ornaments when Mark died so I hope you have or can get a few as mark would have loved for you to have them. It was a tradition that mark and i christmas shopped in the West and East Village each year then smoked a joint and went for coffee or a drink. When the light is gray and it’s damp and cold and almost seems like snow, I can feel those days of hunting for ornaments and treasure with Mark.”

So too when the light is gray and it’s damp and cold and almost seems like snow, maybe I too can remember. Mark would have turned 60 years old today.

In my mother’s living room hangs the yellowed construction paper drawing Mark made of the brilliant sun’s set over the ocean for me, that summer of my eleventh birthday. And I am the child who was, and I remain the child who wanted to be.

Another one day of shooting tomorrow, followed by a much-necessary retreat on the woodened patio of the parents, circling an iron firepit.  An old-fashioned sleepover and shabbat, and He saw that it was Good.

+

For the past twenty years this has been true.  Since I was a mere four year old I’ve been skiing at Christmas time with my family, and while much does change, of course, in an individual and among his or her group during such a wide range of years, Colorado [on our trips there] has always seemed like a place where Time was still, and at most, not a parameter.

There, I am no more a four year old than I ever have been — I am no more an eight year old than I ever have been — and I am no more a 21 year old than I ever have been.  Colorado functions as my family’s little time capsule, and a Vacational Vacuum where nothing at all is in flux save the amount of snow at base camp.  And each year we together dig up our treasure, and Real-ize where we’ve Come & Go.

This is among the larger purposes, I think.