Books
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been writing in margins. And I always enjoyed writing in rhyme. I also deeply enjoyed the rhythm of the words. I’m so old, we weren’t allowed to eat candy in school. Of course the poem wasn’t completely true. I was learning at least to write little bits in margins. This “got” on the inside cover of my ninth grade Social Studies text.
Here I sit look like learning
And in my mouth some candy yearning
to be chewed But when I looked
my teacher’s head’s not in his book
But in my eyes,
not looking at the other guys’
And in my eye’s some tears appear
‘cause in my mouth I can hear
My candy yearning
And I’m not learning
I probably was twenty something the first time I was asked “What do you do?” and answered, “I’m a writer.”
“Oh? What have you written?”
“Not much but I’m getting ready.”
Everybody thought I should write my story. From 17-year-old convicted hippy acid dealer to retired lawyer-on–the–beach now in Manhattan jail, then finally washed up back on the BC coast… I started but I quickly got bored writing sentences that started with I and ended with me.
Instead I decided to write sentences that start with we and end with us – the story of us all, who we are, our place in both the Universe and in time, whom we have, and have not yet, become.
And so, in 2016 I wrote All’s Well – Where Thou Art Earth And Why about our species, what we “mean” if anything, and how profoundly more precious our experience becomes with every bit more we awaken to our reality. Vessels of the Universe’s conscious, we are this very moment at the absolute pinnacle of being, of experiencing, in the Universe. It dawns on all of us but usually not until we are about to die. And all of us will.
Yet, constantly distracted by our acquisitiveness, our expectations, and the anticipation of them, we squander the very essence of wealth and fulfilment. Being. We are that part of the Universe by which the Universe experiences itself. But here we stand, and rather than filled with proper astonishment, frustrated by lacking change for the parking meter or that our smart phone has no reception. What we don’t think about in those moments is soon we will be dead.
But when we do think of that, and we all will be forced to, the most wonderful thing in the Universe happens. Consciousness.
Eventually, I had a change of heart about “my story” but decided to ask Kerry Gold, a music and business journalist and freelance writer, to take the lead roll. Kerry, in 10 years covering music for the Vancouver Sun, has interviewed an amazing number of performers, most notable to me, Ray Charles. She has heard it all and is not amazed by much so I thought that would make a good start to write my story with neither too much gilding nor Kool-Aid. The result was Good With Money – A Rich Guy’s Guide to Gaining Everything By Losing It All. It is Kerry’s take on the story everybody else imagined was so amazing.
My idea of growing older is not shedding the younger but adding the older – the spirit of youth is much too valuable to abandon. Were I to summon that spirit again now, it might look something like this.
I got lots of money which I only kept some o’
gave lots to Suzuki and to Dalai Lama
hardly kept enough to look after me
and, who gave me her heart, my Hilary
Don’t know how much time I may still have left, hear.
And will be 69 now as I’m ending this weird year
Will 2021 be the dawn of the Age
Of Aquarius or be my last bow on this stage?
Or maybe both. But here is my troth.
“Love, love all” and this, Love, Thou may quoth.
By John Lefebvre
All’s Well
BOOK
Good With Money
BOOK
Initial
ALBUM
Psalngs
ALBUM