Move

Reading Oliver Sacks' memoir, written at the end of his long & illustrious life, inspires me on a whole host of levels. Just at the level of accomplishment, of course, but more deeply—& more interestingly—concerning his suffering & the setbacks he weathered & overcame. Growing up gay in a unforgiving, unseeing society, being deeply shy, working under the demands and pressures of two high achieving parents…I see him moving through it all, living it, & I take heart. Maybe it’s the vantage; that he’s looking back at the full span of his life. That he can see the overlying architecture & perceive the vast underground root network of his life. Maybe it’s this place—this stance—that allows him (& the reader) to place the down periods & the difficulties in perspective. Whole decades lost to drug abuse, to grief, to delusion; whole decades caught up in pursuits grand & small. A passionate journey, indeed. For passion is the main ingredient in evidence. Passion & curiosity. Fearlessness & persistence. Sacks quotes the poet Thom Gunn: "At worst one is in motion; & at best, / Reaching no absolute, in which to rest, / One is always nearer by not keeping still." I hear one of the classic blues tunes running in my head. “You gotta move.” Not motion to keep from drowning, not restless agitation, not even progress in our Western, scientific model. But the movement of a body finding a groove, in a line of poetry, in the brush’s path down the paper tracing the eye’s perception of the model’s body. Moving through the mundane day as if great adventure informs everything.