Two faces have I

June 24, 2019

I don’t want the world to know, I don’t want my heart to show…Two faces have I, one to laugh and one to cry… Excerpt from Lou Christie’s 1963 hit song, Two Faces Have I

I thought of this song for some reason today as I learned of the death ten days ago of a long time acquaintance and pondered the possible approaching death of a dear friend.

I’ve known Jonathon and Kay since we were teenage Buddhists, though they may not have known each other since they practiced in different parts of the Bay Area. Kay and I hit it off immediately (see my March 24, 2019 blog post about her), and we are still close friends. I met Jonathon maybe a year after I met Kay, and while we were briefly friends, we were never close. So while his death a few days ago surprised me, I felt no real loss at his demise.

I don’t know what lessons Jonathon’s soul was working on in this incarnation or between lives, so I can’t judge his evolutionary progress. I just know that when I was around him, he did me the favor of being a good example of the kind of negativity that I don’t want to emulate.

In contrast, Kay’s courage and cheerfulness in the face of her cancer is an inspiration to me. We went hiking a week ago at the Marin Headlands near the Golden Gate, and as usual we shared candid observations about our lives and the state of the planet while laughing a lot. When we parted, I fell into a brief depression at the thought that I might not see her again in this lifetime. Maybe I was being overly sentimental at the possible imminent loss of our 50 year friendship. Maybe I was allowing myself to be too attached to someone in a world where impermanence is the nature of reality. But to hell with all that Buddhist philosophical crap – I felt sad, goddammit. And she’s not even dead yet. And maybe she’ll outlive me – who knows? But even though I believe that she and I will meet again on the other side of the veil, I want to keep having fun with her on THIS side for as long as possible.

It has occurred to me that Kay and Jonathon are two sides of my own nature; two aspects of myself with very different lessons to share. We all have the ability to choose our focus, to decide between an optimistic or pessimistic approach to our lives. I don’t know whether Jonathon outgrew his cynicism, but I do know that sometimes such cynicism is alive and well in me. And I also know that Kay’s joyful outlook is something that she and I share.

One face to laugh and one face to cry. But why be a moth when you can be a butterfly?