It's Showtime
Carole Anne and I attempt to establish the defining quality that makes us fully human.
It’s day two of Karen Week: The Official Bondo Launch.
After months of research, thought, and conversation, Carole Anne and I were ready for showtime. We practiced our 78-slide deck three times over Zoom, and then last night, after the birthday guests left, we moved furniture, set up the AV, and checked the videos.
The next morning, Carole Anne was nervous. “Just stay connected in the Bondo place,” I reassured. “All that matters is for folks to experience the Bondo connection — to be recognized.”
“Okay, just don’t be stepping on me,” Carole Anne pressed. “Let me present my own way.”
“Deal,” I promised. Carole Anne knew I suffered from Bondo Interruptus — the guy thing where I constantly interrupt women (I’m working on this).
I launched my Bondo playlist starting with Sri Argala Stotram, the Krishna Das chant to the Goddess Durga, which segued into Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is.”
I wanna know what love is
I want you to show me
I wanna feel what love is
I know you can show me
I snapped out of my reverie to glance at the time. Shit, five minutes and only two people here! What’s going on? Then, I got a text:
“Sorry to report so late. I am just not feeling it today for this Bondo workshop.”
Not feeling it? This is all about feeling!!!
A string of messages hit the same note:
“I am rethinking my idea to participate in your birthday/Bondo/Karen activities… As much as I would like to be there, it feels like I shouldn’t go.”
Shouldn’t? Come on, feel the love!
Another: “I’d like to sign up for all of it, but need to arrange transportation.”
And: “Unfortunately, won’t be able to attend. The program sounds lovely…”
Then the ailments: “I have a cold. I’m sad I won’t be joining you today.”
Sad? Get your mom to write you a note.
“Sorry about missing today’s event, feeling under the weather.”
“Woke up this morning with a bit of a sore throat…”
“Regrets, mate, the dreaded cold is Covid.”
“I don’t want to be ‘Covid Amy’ spreading joy and viruses…”
And from my beloved psychotherapist friend:
“For me, the topic would be like a busman’s holiday.”
Come on, even bus drivers can use a little Bondo!
If Karen were here, she’d vouch for all of them: “Bruce, things come up; people are busy.”
“Yeah,” I’d grumble, “but twelve apostles managed to get to the dinner party.”
Karen would roll her eyes, but I’d push it further, “Even Judas scored a ride without getting Covid!”
“Okay, Mr. Chicago humor,” Karen would push back.
Then, I’d hammer it home: “James Baldwin had it right: ‘Love has never been a popular movement, and no one’s ever wanted really to be free.’”
And that was that. Karen would casually dismiss, “I’m going to start the chai.”
I checked the time — seven minutes past the hour. Showtime.
I welcomed the two guests. One was a hypnotherapist curious about my offering, so I reminded everyone, “There’s nothing new under the Sun. Bondo goes back to Mister Rogers:”
It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood
A beautiful day for a neighbor
Would you be mine?
What was new was for an adult to rediscover the primal innocence of a four-year-old — aka Bondo. Even NASA got it:
NASA gave a creativity test to 1,600 four-year-olds and discovered that 98 percent fell into the genius category of imagination. At 15 years old, creativity dropped to 12 percent, and by adulthood, the number dwindled to 2 percent. They further ascertained that modern education was the key factor in stifling innate creativity.1
What does Bondo have to do with creativity?
“Man has by nature access to the cosmic energy of creativity, and this energy makes it possible for him to act…It means that the creative power can enter into the instruments associated with his body, as in sex.” ~ J.G. Bennett
Our second guest, Fred, was my age and was writing a book, Winning at Love: The Manual. I cautioned Fred, “I haven’t been winning at love this year, so don’t get your hopes up.”
Up came the first slide:
A naughty dog sits in shame amid ransacked garbage. Churchill proclaims: “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”
Why this slide? When you see chicken bones and greasy wrappers across the kitchen floor, you scream, “Oh my god! Honey, quick, get a dustpan! Bad dog, bad dog!!!” Whatever you think of the dog, the trash can released an explosion of energy. That’s how I felt when I was ripped open by Karen’s passing. Reshad explained it with three words: Energy is neutral.
The question with energy: what to do with it?
I explained my 12-month strategy to actively engage the shock through my grieving process. According to the Law of the Octave, a life-upending shock offers an opportunity to shift from one chapter of life to another.
Suppose you’re a body surfer. You don’t let a big breaker “go to waste.” If you face the wave and fail to act, the explosion of surf will smash your face toward the bottom. But if you catch the timing and swim full force, you can ride the wave toward the shore. I chose the latter — surfing the waves of grief to wherever they took me.
I also likened riding the waves to a one-act play. The director cues the lights, curtain, and ACTION. You hit your mark and perform in character for the next hour. If you flub a line, need some water, or a light crashes to the stage — tough luck. You keep on going and going.
In 2015, musician Nick Cave’s 15-year-old son, Arthur, died after falling from a cliff in England. Seven years later, right after Cave completed “Faith, Hope and Carnage,” a book about the grieving process, Cave’s oldest son, Jethro, died unexpectedly at age 31.
We listened to Cave describe the impact of his losses in an interview. He observed in his wife “an essential change in her condition of being of what life was to her,” and he shared how “the same thing happened to me. It was an enormous, defiant, creative energy… it’s not that there’s ever been any closure — but to this defiant, dynamic force that came out of that.”
From this enormous, defiant, creative energy, I discovered Bondo. The urgency of my approach was questioned by those who know that grieving takes time. But I stumbled into an unexpected wisdom: extracting a cup of Bondo from every human encounter accelerated my journey into wholeness.
[Nick Cave interview excerpt: “Loss, Yearning, Transcendence,” 11-22-23]2
More than intimacy, Bondo is a shared intense experience, a movement of feeling, a connection and openness, and the Third Force in action.
My first taste of Bondo as an active force was one night this summer when I intruded on a woman talking forever on her phone at the Pleasure Point cliff in Santa Cruz.
“Excuse me, I’m so sorry to interrupt you, but could you do me a huge favor?”
“Honey, hold for a second…” she said, turning from her phone. “How can I help?”
“This may sound weird,” I explained, “But forty years ago, my wife drove me to this spot on our first date — our first kiss. It was at night, just like this.”
I discovered she was talking to her husband on their anniversary.
“Honey, listen to this story,” she said, turning the phone toward me.
I shared my story of romance overlooking these breakers. She asked about our anniversary, and, holy shit, it was the next day! Before long, we were hugging and crying.
The richness of that encounter taught me to stop clinging for human connection — a learning from Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan, who counseled:
“What matters to a warrior is arriving at the totality of oneself.”
Paradoxically, the warrior path took me to a lonelier place. Even worse, the Sufi poet Hafiz wasn’t much help when he advised:
“Don’t surrender your loneliness so quickly. Let it cut more deep.
Let it ferment and season you as few human or even divine ingredients can.
~ Hafiz
I wanted to strangle Hafiz, but in time, I got it. Live from your center.
Carole Anne and I presented more slides, including the Seven Stages of Marriage as a journey to conscious love.
The only English word comparable to Bondo comes from Plato’s Eros – the defining quality that makes us fully human. Jacob Needleman explained:
Bondo, or Eros “is much more essential to our humanness than all the other intellectual or biological elements which we tend to identify ourselves with. When that energy, that striving, is covered over or suppressed, it is a far greater danger to our lives, our own personal self, and the life of our society and community than any other kind of repression.” ~Jacob Needleman
For a bit of fun, we explored otherness as an exercise.
I asked people to choose from the sexiest men alive who they wanted to hand them a cup of coffee in the morning.
The women chose Keanu Reeves, then quickly backtracked when they considered the reality.
I flipped it around. “Who do you think Bruce would choose?
And they guessed correctly: Susan Sarandon.
We dug deeper into the mystery of otherness. Why are we drawn to one astrological type over another?
Conversely, why do we wall ourselves apart from religions, races, and ideologies different from our own?
People are repelled by otherness, yet it powers the entire universe. In the core of the Sun, the hydrogen proton charges are powerfully repellent — until massive heat and gravity fuse them into helium and release the energy source for all life.
Otherness is also the source of Bondo.
Eroticism is first and foremost a thirst for otherness. And the supernatural is the supreme otherness. This is perhaps the most noble aim of poetry: to attach ourselves to the world around us, to turn desire into love, to embrace, finally, what always evades us, what is beyond, but what is always there – the unspoken, the spirit, the soul.
~ Octavio Paz
Mary Oliver likens otherness to a remedy for the human condition:
The world’s otherness is antidote to confusion, that standing within this otherness — the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books — can re-dignify the worst-stung heart. ~ Mary Oliver, Blue Pastures
Carole Anne introduced the Seven Seas of Bondo:
1. CONNECTION
A shared, energetic vibration deepens through face-to-face proximity over time.
2. CONVERSATION
Call and response is a creative force that builds the substance of intimacy.
3. CARING
Beyond simple acts of love, caring is the recognition of otherness — where the light of the soul is seen to shine through another.
4. CURIOSITY
Our partner may carry a hidden story of pain and adversity we must learn to face without judgment.
5. CIRCULATION
Like bees bringing pollen to the hive, intimacy is energized by the food of impressions we bring into a relationship from the outside world.
6. COURAGE
Bridging the gulf of misunderstanding involves risk. It takes courage to extend the warmth that opens the heart.
7. CONSTANCY
A commitment made outside of time transcends the walls of despair that divide us.
If this is getting maudlin, dance to Iggy Pop. That’s what we did.
We finished the workshop with 12 practical ways to build Bondo:
1. Lean heart-first.
This sounds slight, but turning your chair face-to-face creates an opportunity for Bondo. If there was a Church of Bondo, a chair would hang over the pulpit to remind us that God is found in the Otherness.
2. Activate Bondo with self-remembering.
George Gurdjieff explained that “Man can only become conscious of himself in relation to other people” — what he called “self-remembering.” To self-remember Bondo in everyday life, you have to make it a value. This is my resolution.
3. Bondo begins with self-love
“Self-love” has become a meaningless meme, but I include it anyway. Bottom line: Don’t obsess about needing a partner for Bondo. The opportunity for connection is everywhere. I prefer this cartoon:
4. Become a Bondo spinner
Karen knew intuitively when one of her beloveds needed “checking in.” We likened her to the plate spinner on the Ed Sullivan Show. She knew which friend to call and when. Like tending a beating heart, Bondo relationships need an occasional spin.
5. Circulate the love
I spent 12 months saying yes to every invite — even the crazy ones — and was pleasantly surprised. Don’t prejudge what a Bondo opportunity should look like. Practice radical acceptance.
6. Create opportunities for Bondo.
A survey of 2,000 Brits found that 80% considered dinner parties to be passé. Okay – but we are all hungry for face-to-face connection. If you can’t pull off a dinner party, how about a hike, dog walk, or museum visit? You will have to take the initiative on this one.
7. Hold your beloveds in your heart
Energetic intimacy transcends time and space – without leaving your chair. Extend some warmth and caring to the people in your life. You might be surprised if the phone rings, “I was just thinking about you.”
8. Put your opinion on the shelf
Again, following Karen’s lead: “I have learned to put my strong opinion of the misunderstanding on the shelf for a minute, and go towards the person, towards the conflict, and see what I discover. It’s a conscious decision.”
9. Bondo Interruptus - Resist the urge.
The average American interrupts 12 times a day, and that includes me. It signals that what the other says is boring and wastes your time. The door to the soul opens when someone is completely heard.
10. It takes one to tango.
This little nugget was explosive because everyone assumes two people must engage in relational work for good results. But with Bondo, it only takes one good communicator to change the whole dynamic in the relationship. It’s the nature of call and response. When you put a hot potato in someone’s lap, they have no choice but to respond.
11. Weapons of mass distraction
Avoid letting your devices keep you from the depth of connection you seek. Yeah, yeah — you know this. Even more, one thousand Facebook friends do not equal one really good friend. Yikes.
12. Give the gift of attention
The gift of attention is possibly the greatest gift we can offer to another. If you threw out the other eleven, attention would do the job. It is a sacred energy. It says, “You are important to me.
When you give your deep attention to another human being, they flourish… Love is an act of giving what only human beings can give… Essential love is the love that only attention and conscious energy can bring… In order to sustain love, you have to bring intention into it and intentional love is work and great work, joyful work, but still work… You cannot sustain a relationship just by the force that made you fall in love.” ~ Jacob Needleman3
To my disappointment, our guests had to rush out the door. Anyway, Carole Anne and I were spent.
And then, my phone rang:
“It’s Elizabeth… Hi Elizabeth.”
“There’s a party you’re invited to,” Elizabeth announced.
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“You’re inviting me to someone else’s party? Do I know these people?”
“It’s a Hanukkah party. These are very conscious people. Her husband wrote the book Doc Hollywood that was made into a film.”
“Okay.”
“And he died last month. You should have a lot in common.”
“Like I should write The Dead Spouses Society? Look, we just finished a workshop, and we’re exhausted. I’m required to say yes, but since I have guests, I think I have a legitimate out.”
“These are really wonderful people,” Elizabeth explained. “They would love to meet you.”
“Text me the details, and I will ask my team.”
I asked Sarah and she gave an immediate no. “I’m an introvert,” Sarah confessed. Everyone else looked to me, “Whatever you want, we will back you up.”
That put me on the spot. “I guess we’re going.”
Google Maps took us to an empty house – not a soul in the windows. Then the app suggested continuing another half block. Once there, Google changed its mind, so we U-turned back to the empty house. We parked, got out, and looked for life through the vacant windows. I was thinking “Twilight Zone.”
I studied the text from Elizabeth: “Arrive 5:30 to 6:00. She’ll be making latkes. Theme: Sacredness.”
It was 6:05, so we were fashionably late. The rest is a little fuzzy, so I phoned Carole Anne to share her recollection.
“Yes,” Carole Anne remembered. “We were on an adventure. We were going to enter this empty-looking house, not knowing a soul.”
“It felt like a 1970s TV show, The Bondo Squad,” I chuckled. The four of us walked shoulder to shoulder down the long driveway. I pressed the bell, and nothing — a long nothing. I was relieved that no one was home, then suddenly, the door opened.”
The teenage son opened the door,” Carole Anne recalled. “He was delightful, but peering in, I could see the hostess in the kitchen absolutely frantic.”
“I felt bad,” I said. “I’ve cooked for lots of parties, and she seemed forty minutes behind with no help.”
“That’s why I insisted you put on an apron,” Carole Anne teased.
“Even stranger, it was a latke party, and nobody knew how to make latkes. So, I stripped off the $70 satin shirt you convinced me to buy in Asheville.”
“The sex appeal shirt.”
“Yes, that one.”
“The Asheville party was proof of Bondo,” Carole Anne insisted.
“I knew we were in trouble when I saw the mountain of grated raw potatoes and a weeny electric skillet,” I remembered. “Karen would parboil the potatoes, but it was too late. So, I cranked up the gas stove, got half an inch of oil smoking in multiple pans, and splattered smoking hot grease for the next half hour. I filled their house with smoke.”
“Eventually, the guests began to arrive, but no one was interested or curious to know who we were,” Carole Anne sighed. “Being ignored after a Bondo workshop felt bizarre. There was one woman, a sound healer, and Daphne and I kept asking — in the spirit of recognition — about her work. It was strange – just one-word answers.
“Yes, it was strange,” I agreed. “But, it started to turn when Bill, the man of the house, stopped in the kitchen and asked who we were. I started to tell him about my Rumi journey…”
“And then he turned and left,” Carole Anne reminded. “Bondo interruptus. When they discovered you were a writer, they brought out copies of their writing.”
“Yes, we finally connected, and I began to like them both, but it was right as we were leaving.”
“The first C, Connection, takes time,” Carole Anne emphasized.
“Amazingly, the proof of Bondo came the next day.”
“The text from Elizabeth?”
“Yes.” I scrolled through my phone and read: They loved you and crew, and Bill said it turned it from a simple dinner party to a miraculous event!”
I chuckled, “Isn’t that the Hanukkah miracle? The Miracle of Bondo? As one candle lights another, one soul ignites another. L'chayim!”
“My hubby’s home. Gotta go.”
“And I have a Bondo appointment with my dog. Love you.”
https://www.ideatovalue.com/crea/nickskillicorn/2016/08/evidence-children-become-less-creative-time-fix
https://onbeing.org/programs/nick-cave-loss-yearning-transcendence/
That’s quite illuminating absorbing the whole, Bruce! Loved it, Bondo boy!