Big Surprises

Trauma is always a surprise. Personally and culturally there have been so many traumatic surprises in my lifetime that they become too frequent to enumerate. In my writing, I tend to avoid the big surprises in my life, the moments of catastrophic non-linearity that have caused me to invent and re-invent myself. Too personal, too painful to relate.

I wish I had a "safe place" in my memory where I could put these painful memories and having placed them there, lose them forever in plain sight until their meaning reveals itself to me in a way that I am more equipped to understand.

I'm "happy" today. All's well that ends well.

I have learned that what we think never should have happened should have happened, we just didn't think that it would. We didn't want it to happen. We didn't expect it.

Let's take one cultural shock for example.

Watching football one Moncday night, I heard Howard Cosell announce that John Lennon had been murdered in front of his Dakota apartment in New York City.

Remember that one?

Remember how long it took to believe that it really happened?

We didn't want it to happen.

It shouldn't have happened. Why did John pause to give Chapman his autograph?

It didn't make sense then.

We were surprised.

The reason he paused is because he had to pause and the reason Chapman was there in the first place was because he had to be there.

Nobody knew why or what for except maybe Chapman.

John didn't know.

JD Salinger didn't know that Chapman would be carrying Catcher in the Rye and that his book would enable John's murder.

Howard Cosell didn't know.

We were all still enjoying Double Fantasy.

John was back and then he wasn't.

What a surprise. How unexpected.

It couldn't happen but it did.

We would get over it.

We got over it sorta.

Yet every day, cars pause in front of the Dakota hotel and somebody points to it and tells an out of towner...."There, right there is where John got shot."

I know. I've been in one of those cars. Wild Bill was my driver. He did the pointing. In the rearview mirror I saw another driving starting to point and behind him I'm sure there was another and right now today someone is pointing and shaking there head about an event that nobody expected, nobody wanted and nobody could believe except for Chapman.

Strawberry Fields had to come to Central Park to serve as a reminder.

Live life while you may.

There's always somebody who believes the unbelievable and has the whole thing figured out.

A supernatural executive prepared to execute the eternal idea.

When my time comes, it won't be me.

It'll be a big surprise.