My Bucket List and Leonard Cohen

MY BUCKET LIST & LEONARD COHEN

Several weeks ago I told my sisters that foremost on my bucket list would be to hang with Leonard Cohen; writing poetry, waxing life, and looking out at the sand meeting the sea, just as he might have been doing on the island of Hydra in the 1960s. In this scenario I would be the one walking with him, happy, like other lovers “before us in cities and in forests.” How romantic and sentimental am I. But who can blame me. He was handsome, elegant, funny, dark, kind, charming and brilliant.

Not long after I conjured that fantasy Leonard died. I knew he was ill, but I was deeply saddened. The results of our nation’s elections compounded my dysthymia, and compounding that were the horror stories coming out of Syria and the Middle East, white nationalism worldwide, and shifty hackers in Russia. On top of that, illness has permeated my closest and dearest. At Thanksgiving, six out of 18, a full one-third of the combined friends and family has had, or is currently being treated for, cancer.

Of late, I have found myself blundering in and out of rooms, conversations, and dreams.

Seeking asylum from my fears, I wanted to escape to a far away place. But that wouldn’t help. Being away from the quotidian of my life (dogs, house, mother, sisters, writing) would only enhance the blues. Putting aside distractions of daily life does not erase one’s own fears of loss and mortality, or a case of World War III heebie jeebies.

But Leonard knew all this, and he told us about it so well. You Want It Darker, his final album released concurrent to his passing, addresses his and our own mortality. Equally poignant and with typical Cohen wisdom this writer/poet/musician/Buddhist monk also points to another favorite theme of his– the paradox of humanity. Despite the perfection that which a higher power has in store for us, humankind will continue to viciously act out towards itself, murderously and without pause finding empty reasons to kill one another.

Leonard Cohen’s music took hold of my soul about twenty years ago. I first knew his songs because other people sang them, like Judy Collins who introduced Suzanne to me in the 1970’s. For many years Cohen’s voice, and often times the deliberate crawling pace with which he chose to sing some of his songs, got in the way of his music for me. In truth it was my immaturity getting in the way of my hearing. But when I was ready, I went deeper. By then I had acquired a taste for Cohen’s philosophical lyrics, for his dark satire, for the simple melodies sometimes reminiscent of Jewish music, for his unaffected delivery.

I was in an art class struggling with the imperfections of my own simple line drawings. While trying to master the ellipse, but merely producing one wobbly oval overlapping another, I tasked away at the exercise shading each in charcoal tones ranging from pale grey to deep black. Even though I threw my body into the ovals as instructed by my teacher, I couldn’t get them just right, and I judged them hating the amateurness of my work. We were listening to Cohen’s “Anthem” and all at once I got it: “There’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”

Leonard’s musical gestalt spoke to me, anointing my heart with inner and outer forgiveness. There it was, the revelation that perfection is not attainable, not to expect it, and that which really matters is to be true to myself, especially my imperfect self wherein true possibilities reside. (NOTE: In my imperfection I do not remember to do this all the time).

I am grateful for the one time I saw Cohen in concert. He sang alongside his perfectly balanced choir of female angels, their graceful harmony contrasting with his ever more gravelly, aging voice. He was respectful of the gift the ladies brought to his cannon and bowed to them in response to the reassurances of their chorus. His public self appeared peaceful and patient, and despite the slackening posture, thinning lips and the appearance of arthritis in his hands, Cohen’s inner demeanor pulsed with the thrill of living, and the sacred knowledge of a very wise man.

A bucket list is supposed to encompass experiences or achievements one hopes to meet. I am ready to leave my romantic fantasy of Cohen for my muse, and get serious for the real bucket list.