A Full Tub Can Become a Baby Tornado Roaring Down the Drain

Some thoughts you just can't share for fear of being locked in a room with no door handle. Like who is this woman cleaning my teeth really hooked up with? Or is my brother only a figment of my mind that people don't want to tell me about. How about why are they all watching me?  (Come on, we have all had this one.) These thoughts and others bring me to this: what is the line between madness and curiosity, between madness and genius, between madness and an ever loving zest for life?

There is an amazing new documentary called Bayou Maharajah about the incomparable New Orleans piano player, James Booker. If you thought my description of him unnecessary then you know exactly who and what I'm talking about. This man could do things with his fingers and mind that made both the jazz and classical world cringe with jealousy. He said that his gift was just the divine flowing though him.

The one flaw of the documentary was that they did not go deep enough into his heroin addiction, into the madness that exists within that world, into the loneliness that comes with being alone in a room filled with people. Would this divine outpouring of joy, this call to sail forth amidst the storm, this battle cry of ivory have been the same without the heroin? What about Ray Charles and Jerry Garcia and Hunter S. Thompson and Vincent Van Gogh and Edgar Allen Poe and Kerouac, and man could I go on and on.

There is something in a man (not unique to man, I'm sure, but I will speak for my gender) that causes him to question if what he is doing will garner respect or admiration or praise. Booker hit the nail on the head when he said that the divine poured through him, that that was all it was, that this did not belong to him. I wonder how often the divine sits in a tub plugged up with doubt and shame. I wonder where any of this comes from. I wonder about those that have died running from the divine.

I cannot stop thinking of James Booker, dead in the waiting room at Charity Hospital. I wonder who first noticed that this man with a star patch on his eye, waiting in the chair across the room or next to him was dead. I wonder if others in the room recognized him. I wonder if some realized that, hey, that's James Booker, tapped him on the shoulder to say hello, and then realized he was unresponsive and stiff.

I say all of that to say this, I guess, or maybe because I just like the saying: I say that to say this: Are there sacrifices? Are there times when it is necessary for a man to die in a waiting room at forty-three years old so that the world will forever have this divine gift bestowed upon them. Perhaps. Consider all those that have died dating the devil to court the divine.

Now consider a race raised without shame. A race trained to dance and Sing in the Rain, not to look like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire but because they're there and the rain is there and the joy of the moment does not care whether or not anyone is watching. Consider songs sung by those that should not sing songs. Consider Tom Waits and Bob Dylan. Consider the children.

There is not a map or a starter kit or any type of preparation manual that will cease identification with the mind and body, for we are mind and body, we are human, and I am not even sure I know what I believe happens when the breath stops in this body. Still I will search for a way towards the divine and I invite any that want to come along with me. I must admit that I don't know where I am going and that we will get lost and back track and fight and argue and step into ego suits.

I will start by asking people what was the last thing they experience which brought them joy. Or what have you been passionate about in the last week. People look at you strangely when you ask these questions. There is no box to put somebody in when he says, "My African Gray parrot said my son's name for the first time. Now I'm training him to sing happy birthday for when Charlie turns seven." rather than "I am a plumber," or "I am a student".

There is something to be considered in this unending quest for information, this interview style of meeting someone. I don't know what it means, what any of it means, really. I do think that this will be an interesting experience for me, leading with the questions about joy and passion. I think that their passions will influence my passions and together we will get that much closer to whatever divine is supposed to flow through us at that moment.