An Ordinary Mystic

I was thinking about my previous simple pleasures post back on April 30 while I was in the shower this morning. Something about water. The beach is my natural habitat. The properties of water to heal and purify. All lead to more thoughts of simple pleasures.

Ancient voices by the Paul Winter Consort was playing and I thought of my friend J. J. We met at Michigan State during fall semester 1982, when he volunteered to be my personal assistant for the weekend in order to make it possible for me to attend a weekend religious retreat being sponsored by St. John's Student Parish in East Lansing.

I have the utmost respect for people who work as personal assistants (PA's) and do it well combining care and compassion with grace and humor. It's a job I can't imagine myself doing. I especially can't imagine myself volunteering to assist someone with their elimination processes.

Over the weekend Jage and I, that's what I call him, became best friends. I was 28 and still living at home and had shared with him that I was trying to figure out how to get out on my own and become independent. He suggested we move in together as suite mates in the Graduate Center and offered to work as my personal assistant.

It was a huge move. I was scared and confused most of the time for the first few weeks and Jage felt obligated to to spend pretty much every hour he wasn't in class, working, or asleep with me or nearby. Very early on the need to rely on more than one person became evident and Jim helped me train the first few additional PA's I hired. That was his final semester as a full-time graduate student and we moved from managing the tricky business of being both friends and employer/employee to being lifelong best friends.

The next year was a tough one for both of us. Jage's first full-time professional gig postgraduate school wasn't going well nor was his relationship with his fiancee. I was working as a graduate advisor in Wilson Hall for 1200 predominantly sophomores and juniors and my mother was dying of cancer. One afternoon after I had been on-call the night before and had not slept Jage came by. He gave me a copy of Ancient Voices and we played it on my new Sony linear tracking turntable. He noticed that I hadn't had an opportunity to get my hair washed that morning, I don't remember if my personal assistant had not shown up or if I just skipped it that morning out of fatigue or depression. Out of nowhere he asked if I would like my hair washed and offered to assist me.

This morning as Gary washed my hair and I listened to Paul Winter that moment came back to me and I felt as blessed as I did that day in Wilson Hall.