With my childhood spent during WW2 and my adolescence during the Cold War of the 1950s, living with The Bomb when people took it seriously, I was programmed to expect that the end was, in fact, coming.
This feeling reached a climax during the Cuban Missile
Crisis of 1962.
I remember vividly that most dangerous October day, slight
crispness in the air, brilliant blue sky, the walk from my lower Sullivan Street apartment to the nearest local subway stop . . .
. . . to take the train up to Columbia University where I worked in the library of the School of Journalism. I still can remember a sudden euphoria, an acceptance of doom, a great lifting of weight from my heart. There was this moment. This instance. There was no more.
That day in the library I watched a young woman suddenly
burst into tears and rush from the room. I wanted tosay,“It’s all right.” But there was no way to explain my own sense of joy.
Now this euphoria had a serious downside: for years to come I could only live in the present instant. There might not be another. There was no future, and there was no need to plan for one. Hedonism raised its pleasant head.
burst into tears and rush from the room. I wanted tosay,“It’s all right.” But there was no way to explain my own sense of joy.
Now this euphoria had a serious downside: for years to come I could only live in the present instant. There might not be another. There was no future, and there was no need to plan for one. Hedonism raised its pleasant head.
A year or so later I became interested in ballet, particularly
the New York City Ballet, when a co-worker invited me to accompany her to a performance of George Balanchine's “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at City Center.
When the company moved to the (then) New York State Theater, I followed, first to see “Dream” again, then to sample programs of shorter yet thrilling works. Talk about brilliant and breathtaking instants! And thanks to Balanchine, I began to see how instants melted together in time could become something more. I began to think of the possibility of a future.
Now in my later years, and particularly this day and this week, I am starting to feel that old 1962 euphoria again. Where is my Balanchine?
(It may be Terrence Malick, but I’m not sure yet.)
But I guess the euphoria is preferable to fear and dread.
Isn’t it?
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