The man asks me how I come up with ideas and I shrug my shoulders and say I am not sure. I just see things and go with them.
In a post I wrote a year ago I share the tale of what is meant to be, or at least what occurred to me then.
Couldn’t decide if I should give you the clip about the Tango first and talk about about I would tango with a cougar because scary men do such things or share the excerpt from the post I mentioned.
*****
What Is Meant To Be
It is one hundred and fucking five or something like that with the heat index and I am walking outside for business purposes when the man next to me asks if I always sweat like this.
“Only during tantric sex, cougar hunts and fraternity parties.”
It is a ridiculous response and I can’t tell you where it came from but then again I can’t tell you where many of my stories come from.
They magically appear inside my head and sometimes I share them with you or others.
“How many cougars have you caught?”
Sometimes I forget how many hunters I interact with but I don’t miss a beat and say several.
“When did you start hunting them?”
“Somewhere around 2003 or so, but truth is that is hard to say. Sometimes you think you are hunting the cougar not realizing that she is already hunting you.”
“That is why you need to be careful, show them who is boss.”
It is a ridiculous remark to me, but I don’t tell him that. Instead I feed him another ridiculous remark, “I only let them think they are the boss.”
Somewhere in between nonsense and foolishness I can almost feel my dad shaking his head at me because this would be a waste of time to him but I just don’t care.
“What is the biggest one you caught?”
“About 5’7, 120 pounds or so. Slippery little devil, got away from me.”
“Dude, I hope you didn’t let a wounded cougar wander off. That is bad hunting and mean.”
“It wasn’t intentional. It just happened but I figured it’d make for a Moby Dick like story, call me Ishmael.”
“Don’t you mean Ahab?”
“No, Moby Dick killed Ahab and I am not ready to die.”
“Oh.”
*****
Por una Cabeza – Carlos Gardel
The name of the Tango from Scent of a Woman is Por Una Cabeza but the link here is to Itzhak Perlman playing it, give it a second and it will start.
And if you want the lyrics I have them for you, both the Spanish and the English, even though the English isn’t quite perfect.
I could give you another link to watch the dancers or tell you about what I see in my head, but I think I am going to go a different direction for a moment.
Last night I received another email from another relative in Israel, another Wilner, the grandson of my Zaide’s younger brother.
He is a few years younger than Dad, but still the same generation and if I follow the chronology correctly left England long ago for Israel.
And in the midst of this reconnection I wonder about our relatives that didn’t leave Lithuania and I hear this violin inside my head.
Logic says those that didn’t get out before the Nazis came are gone and that there will be no happy stories. There will be no discoveries and that whatever and whomever they were is simply gone.
Who knows, maybe I am wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time.
In this email my cousin asked if I have heard stories about our being related to the Vilna Gaon and from the brief research I did it appears there is a connection but it not clear yet how close.
That is pretty cool for all sorts of reasons but part of me feels a little bit sad because of those we have lost who might have known the answer.
And because none of us know who they could have become. Maybe greater than the Vilna Gaon or maybe nothing close.
Greater is a funny kind of phrase because it is subjective and there are so many possibilities. Maybe an uncle, aunt or cousin would have become the doctor that cured pancreatic cancer.
Or maybe they would have been the teacher that motivated the student who became the doctor.
Who knows.
Can’t afford to get lost in such thoughts because nothing comes of that. Our best tribute to them is to live now and do the best we can to live a life that has meaning, if not to many than to some.
Why some?
Because some is more than one and our lives are like ripples in a pond.
I had the dream I was back in Jerusalem walking down streets I haven’t been on in too many years but this time I was there on a long term basis.
Maybe it was because I finally made aliyah or maybe it was because I owned property in Israel and was there for other reasons.
Got that song inside my head again and echoes of a colleague asking me if I recognize how intense I can be.
I laughed and said I am a freight train of intensity and added some people can handle it and others can’t.
Don’t really know why I said it, guess it was more of an absent minded thought than anything else.
Thought about those who aren’t put off by the intensity and replayed a few conversations and muttered “the conversations we’ll have” even though the person I had in mind wasn’t anywhere close.
“You heard me, I know you did because of that Wichita Linemen thing, I hear it through the wires.”
Stopped, looked right and left and then up and behind but didn’t see anyone there.
Snorted and kept going, “yeah, you heard me.”
Didn’t care if I looked like the crazy man or not.
Just deleted 500 words that would have taken this post in a different direction and decided I didn’t want them here,
So off they went.
Sometimes you dance with a partner and sometimes you dance alone.
And sometimes you take the space you create when you dance alone and create opportunity for someone to come fill it or so I have heard.
But what do I know, I am just a guy that blogs about dancing with cougars and punching wolves in the mouth.
