nmah6413.xml

nmah6413.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2004-01-21

I feel compelled to write more.
Do you know what? I forwarded this site on to everyone on my list, and I got a caustic response from Bruce Springsteen's webmaster, begging me to "Please, PLEASE" move his address from my email list. I put it on there, even though long letters I wrote Bruce, post-9/11, regarding his recording, "The Rising," and other issues, were deleted when fans harassed me, not believing what I wrote of how hard my life has been and so on. Even stuff about Mumia Abu-Jamal--and it was all true, too! So you never know about people. I have since donated the two copies of the album to charity, as I don't listen to them anymore--I got one to replace the other, when my letters were deleted on-line--all of them, as if I never existed!
I wanted to write more, but I don't feel "so motivated," now. Things like how I don't feel like the "child" Amma says we all are--her "children," that is--even old people, much older than her, at 50, are. Well, sometimes I do, but not always.
I wanted to write of Max Swanger, a Zen priest student at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center, near where I live. I met him the spring before the attacks, "by chance," and over time, we developed a type of relationship I thought was beginning to blossom into something else, though at the time, he was 26 and I was turning 40.
We went to his parents' house a few days before Christmas in Santa Cruz, with a friend, Flor, who has since "left" me, too--she and I were just going to go down to sight-see, but Max needed a ride to his parents for Christmas, and he asked if he could go along--this was after I let on that I think he "likes" me, which was true, if instinct served me right.
Then, later that winter, he admonished me, one day, in the fields, where he worked, though he was training to be a priest, to choose a more devotional life--either to be there with him and study to be a priest, too, or become more of an "Amma student," but to choose. I thought this was rather bizarre, since it wasn't an option for me to study for the priesthood at Green Gulch, nor was I really willing to. I'd just been rejected that past fall from the practice period, because of PTSD, which I think is a weird reason, since meditation calms the mind.
I did end up becoming more of an Amma devotee, actually, over time--every weekend that January, for instance, I spent the night on the puja room floor after Saturday satsang, and stayed for the Sunday meditation program, trying out "new" positions and so on.
Max ended up "storming" out on me, one day, when I asked him why his lovely mother doesn't come more often, as she'd just visited with his father at Green Gulch, and I mistook her for his student's mother! We never really "made up," as I found out that day from our lunch companion, Alex White, that as a priest, he is to be celibate his first five years. He hadn't even been ordained, yet, nor do I think he is, still, actually.
We did "make up," conditionally, but later in the year, say in fall, I asked him on-line why he didn't tell me he's supposed to be celibate his first five years of priesthood, and he was furious. He stormed off and said not to come near him if I like this community. That was about the last time he ever spoke to me for more than 2 seconds, so I hope he wasn't ordained, as his behavior is bizarre. I "gave up" on us ever reconciling only recently, though I stopped going to Green Gulch not to long ago, as his teacher, Reb Anderson, was obnoxious. The 5-year celibacy rule was his doing, too, not Suzuki Roshi's, who was the founder of the Zen Center and his mentor, I believe.
Max was "cute," too, dressing in drag as a cheerleader, with others for the Buddha's Birthday pagaent that spring and so on. I laughed for week afterward, thinking of that. I still do.
Last summer, I went to LA with Amma, and Leonardo DiCaprio stood up us all--including his mother, who was on the board and brought his grandmother from Germany--for his fundraiser with Gale Anne Hurd for Reef Check. There, I had a "revealing dream," that Max was like Leonardo, in that they are about the same age to the month, and they even look a bit alike in form, and act similarly toward their mothers--and me. They "shut us out." My "joke" is that if a film was made of my life during this time, they could play each other, as Max wouldn't show up for that fundraiser, either, to the best of my knowledge. :) I have since "discovered" other things about Leo I'd rather keep secret.
So that's that story in a nutshell, too. Any questions? You have my address. :)
Love,
Vivian Taube