The Oldest Storyteller in Pompei

The oldest storyteller appeared when I opened my eyes in some bedroom room in Pompei. I feel that tight feeling sometimes every time I stretch a thought forward, toward a new horizon — it’s all going to happen for me, eyes a little wet, another round of moving, suitcases. So happy to leave. In the morning light, Death beamed. I would never accept to live like this again, he thought. I had to raise my standards once again, and keep raising them.

I got to a place of beginning to feel wealthy, which last night, in speaking to Death about this, means so much more than money. I got that brass ring, imagine? I am working on my first movie right now — a Turkish production studio is asking me to write a bible, a synopsis, so he can potentially sell it. I did that from Istanbul, Turkey. No one knows, well, because there’s nothing to say yet.

But wealth, embodying that produces a feeling of plenty as in time, space, and he draws the wisdom out of me as that seems to be his function as the oldest storyteller, looking at me always — since the very beginning like I am so much more than I think I am…that’s the regard of Death. I got up, looked at the packed suitcases, wondered what was next…

I am here. I got here. He couldn’t change that he exists in every moment, no matter where, so he never judged where I was, only that from here to there much was possible. In his eyes I saw a vision beyond my wildest dreams, I did, a few years ago, that’s it, but it continues to feel like a lifetime ago…he led me through a kind of death…to arrive here…I have no idea what’s next, but these days these glorious days, step by step in step with death, I feel myself closer to realizing my dreams. Even knowing what they are. He said that life is about fulfillment, nothing divine would stand in the way of that. That’s manmade, also divine, but why would God even want to do that? Death, you know, he plays a role — he’s a sacred concept that is universally respected. What it means is another question. “I am just a door.” He led me through many. He didn’t even bat an eye at all the darkness. 

So I got up, took my time, what if I had everything I wanted here and now. How would I operate— forget the decor in the moment. We’re learning from here — and so, I took a breath. I took my time getting ready, the light is so beautiful today like the newest day dawned once again.

And down a street in Pompei, I danced again, because I’m writing a movie! No one knows. I mean, it’s just a first step, but that’s how it begins, Death assured me…like that first step had meaning. In step with death, the ultimate guide, he exists, that’s it, and so I feel like crying every day because I thought, maybe I really wanted that all along, and then, I went to a wine bar, and the next day — I was on my way to this production office…a totally new person…getting ready to give this story away…for good…

Love, Death thought, love, taking Angelita’s passionate word to heart, the woman who took me out of my house for four years, love love love, he wondered about all that, what it was, standing in her bedroom too, in my mind, in a holy light. What is love, looking at all of us, and in his eyes, that’s all that there was. The force. Love, the type — walking down the street, unafraid of big ideas Death — that never dies, in fact. “We’re going to the nice place. Maria.” I laughed. 

This is the new exercise. 

I took stock of my fears about money, how scarcity works in my case, stretching every day into this new me — I’m writing a movie — isn’t that, not yet, but I’m at step one, and it begins at step one — he said it again. I can’t really tell anyone because I get…I just wanted to enjoy this moment for me, sitting there because my friend started snatching my life when one person one person just read some pages. “As your manager,” Death reminded me. Sitting there, “oh,” he said, as him, “I thought I would play Death…and oh, a woman can’t play him,” and I hadn’t even published a book yet. Frightening, but Death, at every step of the way, looked back — at me — and saw nothing but the value in this journey. What I learned, what I would communicate.

I breathed into a space: I am exactly where I want to be and thank you.

So I’ve been meditating on wealth this week.

“Maybe it’s time,” Death looked at me, “to get a blow dryer…diffuser…” it’s true, we laugh. We do, at the mundane, at the exercise of being here. “You have to become who you want to be.” And step by step, he walks with me, a steadfast guide, unable to change he exists, but wondering what does it means to come alive, keep growing, keep stretching, keep reaching beyond this.

So, I’m still in it, I’m still changing what I expect inside of this vehicle called a story, and I imagine newer vehicles, enjoying the view, not accepting the mistake coffee they just brought me but telling them exactly what it is that I want. I wanted the large coffee, of course. Taking stock, Death said that “you have a new standard” and now, it’s time to meet it. I laughed. But then, you know, I didn’t say it properly, who cares? It doesn’t matter.

In his eyes many years ago, “a few,” he reminds me, I saw a vision beyond my wildest dreams — there is probability, he said, and I saw that long ago, in fact, as a child. There are ways it could go to arrive at one inevitable door— and looking a man directly in the eye is what he does. He couldn’t change he exists, he always has to say it, but from here to there is much beyond what people think is possible is - indeed possible - even probable - and I saw a vision beyond my wildest dreams.

So, we moved through a world shift, a fundamental shift in perspective, that’s what he called it, and I came to unearth the ideas locked into a marble floor even if flowers fell from the sky once upon a time in a courtyard I could barely cross in a palace in Morocco. The oldest storyteller led me up the hill to get food. He sat as I cried I didn’t know why - just my past - my family - what I experienced - and he said take your time. Just eat. I could barely do it. Cancel that phone call. And I ate, very slowly, every bite.

Round an exquisite fountain of ivory, he led me through panics, states — you are safe, no one is that psychic, okay? Just because people told me all sorts of things —you are NOT an antenna— shut it down — the rules of reality, first and foremost: you have a choice, you should not take someone’s choice away from them, no. I had to clear a lot up, we’re trying to get to goals here, which I know, and just like everyone else, if you can do it, teach, no? That’s a common expression. You keep moving through. Hunger was a battle, digesting. Now, no more panics.

We’ve come a long way, and still, I’m moving past old standards, never again, he said, never again. We closed another door. Here we go, another move, and I don’t know where to go yet, Death under trees along the ancient site of Pompei moving through shadow and light. We cannot look back in that way anymore. He stopped. It’s over. How you got here, why you’re here, all that, it’s over. You’re just here. You got here, and death celebrated the joy in my heart. We’re not looking back —

And I remembered these openings since the whole journey was, of taking off in a state of freedom through time and space, points in time ablaze as they were the afternoon I felt time bend. Some points in time — some of those were dreams, ideas I had, points in the past, and they blazed so bright that it blocked so many other options. We healed the places that burned, hurt, and then architecture began to turn, reorganize itself, and still, we still collapse into these cafe chairs, and I don’t know why…

Approaching the de Vivo counter - looking at the pastries as if that’s what they are - he really is in every moment, spacious. Time wasn’t running out, he thought I might think that, turning around to face me in the last original apartment in the Chelsea Hotel, now a memory, where our journey began, that year of magical healing that cast us off into a human drama to arrive at a new day. This day. Step one, I’m writing a movie, I’m in the step one, I gave him my pointer finger. He never belittled the first step. He never told me “ah you now you never know,” because maybe this is the start. I haven’t said anything so…he said to enjoy it, feel that first step, get what you need to make it to the next, and he was truly happy for me. That’s what I thought I wanted - to go in that direction - and it reached for me.

“In some foreign country.” 

I still get a little scared sometimes.

The light, sliding glass doors opening, what a light this morning - clean and bright. We thought admiring it, just a moment, nothing more, how some days feel like that…like nothing happened yet it’s not the same world from one day to the next.

He looked at me as he did a few years ago, no more characters rushing in to hold me back. “The forms take care of themselves.” And I keep moving past these edges, points of tension, “get hotter,” Death suggested it. I couldn’t help how old I was, he said it on day one almost, not that I was old but I wasn’t 20. That’s all. Some of the feelings invoked would be worldly in design. But that doesn’t exist in the absolute. Oh not possible, oh, you’re done at this age, then, that. Right? Looking at pastries.

“Desire.”

It’s so not my thing, me, yeah. No.

Love, that was a deep one, for many, he told me, but that’s the force that would never abandon me and wasn’t it something to learn that from Death in my little room in Morocco, when I couldn’t eat, that I was here, apart of something greater, in fact, we live in a state of “bonding…” It doesn’t matter where you go, love is still the force. Doesn’t matter. He kept on saying it. So he led me through a darkness through my heart. I don’t know what happened back there, my crazy childhood, Death still — sort of — he’s seen it all, but he was all about the teacup sets. 

On their pedestals trailing through my house. Death thought in another construction, in an Alice in Wonderland, how does she get out? She’s going to have to go through this door, that would be intelligent, don’t you think?

It was one of my first exercises as a storyteller, he told me, design these tea cup sets… let’s look some up. What’s the story? And I did, start gathering pictures of teacup sets, it’s not so much the thing itself, right, I think, Death pulling back to allow me to develop my own meaning, wisdom, perspective — as if there’s just one. It moved me, sometimes, so much, how he stood for integrity. How he wasn’t power hungry. It’s the feeling or the meaning of the ensemble, I thought. So I saw a dragon flying between city and sky, like I did, in this living room between the worlds of my parents…

It took time to emerge — that was an emergence “totale,” he said in French, structure a challenge. He sat there on a couch covered in sheets in the last original apartment in the Chelsea Hotel as the architecture of my life began to fall, it was going to fall, he assured me regardless of how strong I was, it was structurally not going to hold, so someone knocked out a column, didn’t understand that, I didn’t know I could say “I don’t know” or “stop,” and I also didn’t know I was devastated, so he couldn’t help as the columns shook since this was a step by step process that got real, chaos, I care? Yes. Quite simply. But I don’t. But it seems like you do. You were given away at four in a totally insane fashion, is it that, is it not that, can I say a sentence and simply follow up with another, but I hardly knew them… your parents? I couldn’t even feel for myself, why, in this flash of what he thought was self-destructive. 

So at this point, he sat forward and said “you can break down or you can emerge.” He couldn’t help what my life was, what it meant to me, the meaning can change, evolution is available. Chaos, what a day that was, so “it’s not okay,” you see, he said, of course, you were devastated through the chaos, and he moved across the universe in my mind because evidently, the body is a whole organism. I couldn’t even move, the sensations, just the care, I didn’t know what to do with it, the world just the world — the architecture, a living breathing thing with characters in it. 

He appeared at the top of the stairs of my old house as I lay down unable to breathe, but I had to keep breathing, and he said you’re going to make it up the stairs, my stairs, my house, and I couldn’t, and yes you could. The whole thing falling, in a sense, yes, the world as you knew it, and regardless if it was “bad,” it held you up regardless, it was going to fall anyway, just get up the stairs. It’s a new world. 

On antique couch sheets over it, just talking that out.

Um, someone punching a column out not even passing you a phone call, like, “the topic sentence is,” is it? What’s the topic sentence Maria? I was given away to a total stranger when I was four? Is it? All these years later, is not a goal, is not good enough. Care, I mean, expect more care. That was such a mess. It really was, totally amazing too, by the way. He meant it. In his eyes, he’s always there, he’s been a part of every story ever told, so what hasn’t he seen? He’s not exactly looking away, he’s not unaware of what happens here, so that’s first. Delusion, the space of delusion, sitting back, since he can play around with stature, a thing that appeals to man, okay, sitting forward, playing the part, whatever. The space of delusion is — not that foreign in that there are delusional realities in the real world. Delusional threads, let’s say. Very real, very true, very everyday. 

But it was also my family, in that, I came from a lineage evidently. Everyone does. But you chose on some level, I believe. Meaning me. Death respects, embodies the unknown also, looking at me with deep wells deeply true. The unknown is a real thing. I chose on some level — sure — to come into this life through these people — sure — and that seemed to teach me that lineage is very real in fact. I was “special,” he started listing off adjectives in my — who cares way since to him who isn’t special? But yes I was particularly “special,” using my air quotes, a most impregnated word, to some. But now, I’ll be the one to know I am special.

And still even still, man, I got to thinking how many truly special people there are, there were, all that, in fact. Who cannot realize their potential for whatever reason. I lost sight of all that, “yeah.” In fact, in fact, in fact, death began, in fact, I was like this, in fact, I didn’t believe in myself. In fact, the clothes — the clothes — okay — there were better clothes he assured me. The presentation became a problem. Well I think well I think well I think — these characters in my life — he didn’t give a shit — not in this exchange. What do YOU think?

It might in fact be different.

So that took time.

He doesn’t curse.

I was always at the same time very much my own person, and Death said “good for you…” I laughed. You know, we could laugh, and we did laugh a lot, just because this was Death, the oldest storyteller - though you might not see it, you just might not. The laughter. “Which world, which you…” I always came back to that. “Always your own person…” who isn’t? He looked around. Who is saying this?

“You had no idea where home was,” and I’m still honestly searching for it, in foreign countries, and now, I really don’t know what’s next, but I’m feeling better…watching movies somewhere out there…sometimes feeling this impossible gap between this screen and me — but I’m here at step one. I’m finishing a book too, I just can’t believe it. I found myself saying, well, I mean, I have these scenes, and this producer nodded, having read some narrative, “I can put it in script form,” a revelation, and he suggested it. It would be easier for him, but we’ll get there, let’s just start with what we need to do to sell it, and then “one of our writers…” might develop…that. Looking at Death…the oldest storyteller. Wow.

My first movie synopsis, and in step, on our way to some hotel room because I had to get into a hot tub in the most immediate fashion, “if you got a proper apartment…” he said. But I’m taking stock of what I learned after this leg — progress being made, the wheels are turning, all that, and we — wait a moment — for a character to clear, won’t look back like that anymore — we’re here. We’ll keep taking the next step, and even this story gets more and more real, the one I’m writing from here, and maybe love is really the force. Maybe it really is.

He watched me write this first movie synopsis since he’s one of my goals, I want to tell a story called The Oldest Storyteller, so this story has been a guide for me, bursting from my chair, like who cares, I got to the end! I did it! Who cares if it’s good yet! I did it! He was watching a story take shape, and it does, there’s an inherent intelligence to a story — on its own, it takes shape. The path of least resistance, so I wrote another story, but Miracle Mile, funny enough, these four years I spent in this other person’s house because my mother threw money at her, accused my father of being a child molester, another one of these words, “accused” because someone suggested you stop putting “lie” in quotation marks…These four years, I have the vision for it, but that’s a different animal, just because I don’t know how to look back using the structure he gave me, so I’m still working that out — very bright, the rainbows, Death said, “it’s all about the rainbows” in the perfect house on Miracle Mile, the greenest grass, “once upon a time,” he reminded me. “The teacup sets…” at my house, of course, but it’s a matter of getting at the structure, the end, because my whole understanding of these four years changed, and I could write a true fiction — so a father wakes up, essentially, and let’s say he’s innocent, “it’s all about,” he said, “that scene that she tells him that my mother lied about him being a child molester…and he goes, cool, cool, she can stay with you… though you’ve basically put on a show for me which I cannot compute…I have not a thought to even ask where my child is, in fact, which was a hard day, Death led me through what didn’t happen, but we found potential in the scene itself. She doesn’t know, what is going on, actually, and he — is…problematic. In an abusive situation, in a dark place, we nodded, trying to understand this person who stands at some woman’s DOOR — wide open door — while his child plays like a madman, ignoring him, and he cannot draw basic connections like — step through the door. You see? Death had to break it down in its most basic form. Who is this person? The shadow. She decides, he says, that he isn’t a child molester…

And sitting very seriously in front of me — based on what?

He wakes up.

And a father did, for me, so this is fiction, “and it’s about to set you free.” He has to push through the obstacles, come to understand that he’s been in some headfuck, demands his daughter — he takes the appropriate emotional dimension, Maria, Death said, the excuse, he takes the opportunity despite the obstacles, and then, now what? I would have gotten behind this person, but wow, what would that have even been? He gives a speech, Death says, “an important one,” about truth, sense, there should be. And then a father and daughter have to start over from there.

I’m not sure if that’s the direction for this movie — but I might write it as an exercise — try a few scenarios out. Just because — what does he do? Call a psychiatric care unit, face this “so-called escort?” The man who saved your mother from this? Because she was a genius? Does he try? He is still her husband, “who the fuck are you?” Death made the gesture — gestured — I just like speaking like I’m foreign sometimes — between us and this fictional conceit — “this did not happen.” They move to Hollywood, obviously, and they take on the film industry, and he gets noticed at his age, absolutely. And he still gets sick, I mean, he’s going to rise to the occasion.

A tear-jerker. Death saw nothing but the value in such a story. I don’t know the specifics, but I began to see potential avenues for this story — to take on a life of its own.

So I used storytelling to envision new ways of taking what I have and moving in a direction that pleases me. Inspired me. But the four years on Miracle Mile is its own universe, so that’s what I’m sitting with — our ruby slippers playing The Wizard of Oz, there’s no place like home, my slippers were gold, but there’s a psychological drama, not fiction, but the film person, thankfully, Death nodding, “you don’t even,” he said, “have to say it’s based on true events if you don’t want to,” and I said, yes, I think I would like to.

I just like “Death” being there, since “he’s there regardless,” and that makes me laugh sometimes, to step out of the story a moment.

I’m just having so much fun, skating with the oldest storyteller, through the architecture of a story, since I’m here, and there’s so much more out there. They say that death is the ultimate guide, so that’s what I’m meditating on, and he’s supposed to be a teacher, a storytelling teacher, in a sense, and I found that character to be especially potent in that arena. Which makes sense.

The love songs being the soundtrack, I mean, the lambada. Do I just wake up in the end? From a Wonderland, you know? I gotta watch more movies…it’s structure time.

But it’s true, no, in the end, still, even still, at a family dance party — a Brazilian, Jewish dance party — what people have gone through, it’s just amazing, even a theme, and the power of love just might be transformation. So, I’m still trying to find the story of “Once Upon a Time on Miracle Mile…”

Since, Death appears hitting the beat — Celine — the power of love cued my exit, mirrors being SMASHED off the walls — that’s what I came home to…it’s just, uh oh, the literal Miracle Mile story doesn’t feel like a complete story, in that, when I go home with my father — the audience, I think, isn’t going to be feeling warmhearted about it. I felt the “uh oh,” and things got a little scary there, just due to the facts involved now that I know what they are. I have to figure that part out. I thought about that tagline — how do we become who we are? Or, is it just once upon a time on Miracle Mile and I give into the “what is this,” some sexy lady with a snake. Death made me laugh dancing in this living room — just ridiculous.

Heartbreak. Lambada. It’s the celebration.

Is it a heart journey? Is it farcical? Sort of Lynch meets some comedic dimension. Do we laugh, is that the “horror” of it? Where this Brazilian woman opens her legs at the tennis club, a super exclusive one, to communicate the grotesque in this, like—your mouth drops. Meanwhile, Maria, the child, is “studying this.” Huh. And she begins to wake up? Maybe. Maybe that’s the thread. I’ll try that.

Anyway, now I can be in this story, in a new place, because I dealt with this personally.

I wanted to get here, and I’m at step one. There’s NOTHING, Death always reminds me, nothing that says it can’t work out, you know? Step one. These are fun problems to solve, so much fun. I wanted to get here. Meaning, the fact that it happened to me is — not the point. I suppose we all have what we have and then, we discover there’s so much more, plenty, wealth, and for me, drama appeared as a real avenue I could pursue, where I had stories to share — and I got Xmas in Naples, and I wondered, hey, maybe it will be just the best year yet. I liked that idea.

And Death, he keeps saying, in drama at least — I could solve the problem, personally, since that’s a literary character, if you catch my drift. Resolve. He said it long ago, “You’re seeking a resolution.” And yes, there is such a thing. He promised me. A real end. A proper end. And the world keeps turning. I could build from here.

He stood at the doors of de Vivo in Pompei. I laughed. Time to leave this behind. Let’s turn this drama into a great success. We will leave this behind. I forgot to pay, he said. It’s okay, just go back inside. Standing in the sunlight. And Ashton is curing herself of some autoimmune disease that shows up on her skin, I got her pictures, through meditation and visualization. Her skin has almost totally cleared up. Amazing, just amazing, Death thought, what was possible in fact. He had even seen miracles.