Sunday, September 16, 2012

Steve Lopez:- The Soloist: A Lost Dream, An Unlikely Friendship, And The Redemptive Power of Music

I watched the movie and read the book on which the movie is based. This led me to googling Steve Lopez and Nathaniel Ayers into the wee hours of the morning. In my search, I discovered Los Angeles - The city of angels and the Los Angeles Times. The movie, the book and the articles had such an impact on me that I spent the whole Sunday morning - instead of reflecting on my maker and His goodness - regurgitating to my sister all that I had learnt.

Where do I start?

Steve Lopez - I admired not just his writing but also his demeanour as he was interviewed.  I envied him for the fact that he had found purpose in life beyond simply being a columnist at the Los Angeles Times. Steve had the opportunity and tenacity to make a difference in the life of Nathaniel Ayers whom he bumped into, quite by chance. So many times I spend my working days doing many things and at the end of it all wonder whether all these things are simply "a chasing after the wind".  Steve's story - was for me - better than a sermon. I digress to wish that our journalists might make a difference through the articles they write.

Nathaniel Ayers - I was puzzled by the "demons" that led an otherwise promising child to the skid row.  Was it the pressure of being the only black student playing the cello?  Was it the pressure he felt in wanting or waiting to excel?  Had Nathaniel been my townsman, my people might be forgiven to believe that someone had definitely 'done him in by remote control'. There would have been a frenzy searching for the oldest person as the scapegoat for such a heinous deed.

Nathaniel was admitted to Julliard College , one of the most prestigious music schools in New York but he dropped out and became one of the close to 40,000 homeless people in Los Angeles. How does one explain such a thing in a rational manner except to believe that something paranormal must have occurred in his life?  The medics have found a name for this mental health condition and aptly named it Schizophrenia.

When I grew up we threw stones at 'Ali Kichwa' who walked by our house to the Municipal Graveyards.  As kids, we never paused to discuss his mental condition or whether it had a medical name.  We did not bother ourselves with why he was as he was, which home he came from or whether he had a mother who loved him.

As I read Steve Lopez’s columns, I remembered my classmate's sister who was diagnosed with Schizoprenia. G recounted how her perfectly normal sister heard voices that no one else heard.

The story got me to ponder about my best friend  of years gone by. Her two siblings - brilliant whilst they were in high school - went over the ledge and were in & out of Kenya's only psychiatric hospital.  Why would God visit such a burden on an otherwise lovely & promising family? A challenge that tested the very foundations that they believed in.

I thought about JK who for no properly explainable reason flipped and 'never returned from whence she went'.  N's sister who had to be confined - much to her chagrin - to prevent her from harming herself and others.

Into the wee hours of the morning, I thought of cousin S who decided - rather irrationally - that she preferred the freedom of the streets to the confining comfort of a home.

These are too many people for me to have known who have suffered similar unexplainable conditions without much support being available for them.


LAMP - The people who worked - some pro bono - at LAMP challenged me. I was moved by the expression that sometimes 'People need compassion and not a cure'. It is almost impossible to understand what it means to be sick unless we too have been sick. It is difficult to grieve for someone who has lost something unless we too have lost the same thing.  Even the Messiah had to take upon himself the nature of man so that he might be able to  better understand our challenges.

I retold, to my sister's listening ear, of my adventures   visiting the old people's home, a shelter by the Presbyterian Church of Eastern Africa in Thogoto each Sunday during my high school days.  Old folks who had been abandoned by their families & who received no visitors except for the Sunday visit by young lads and lasses in green skirts and grey trousers.  When they died - as old people often do - they were interred at the church graveyard without an obituary or a telegram to a loved one.  I often wondered how someone could not have a home, no matter how basic, and often pondered what 'ill wind' led to such a lonely existence without children, grandchildren, siblings & friends to fawn over in the dusk of their lives. I thought of my grandparents as I chatted with a lad from "Across" strolling back to school  for another week.

Los Angeles California - There was a comment that Los Angeles - the City of Angels - was the homeless capital of the world.  I need to further research this phenomena but must digress to recall my first visit to Washington  DC where I saw an old fellow push all his worldly belongings on a shopping cart. I could not imagine where he came from or where he was going to. Neither could I reconcile this to the America I knew & watched on the airwaves.  What had happened to him in this land of promises where all dreams came true?  Me - who was an African - was so afraid of the people who slept in the subway which I had to take from my hotel in downtown Washington DC to the malls!!! I had neither the heart nor the courage to take a photo in remembrance, the way foreigners to my country do when faced with scenes of starving children.

Now I understand that there might be a myriad of reasons why these people might be homeless. Whose homelessness might not be a rational lifestyle choice. This again reminded me of my sister's thesis on people with disabilities and what the GOK could do to make their burden lighter.

The Rest of Us - More often than not I am guilty of judging people and assuming they have made certain lifestyle choices which have led them into the abyss they find themselves in.  I blame these events on the sins of the father that will follow them upto the third generation, or join in the 'binding and losing' and casting out demons.  If all fails, I turn away - like the teachers of the law - and pretend that I never noticed.

But there were good moments too.  I discovered Neil Diamond and found that I loved his music. I also discovered that Mozart, Beethoven and Bach is actually music that I could listen to.  I have often wondered why people listened to this genre of music. Watching the movie and some of the orchestras transported me to places I had never experienced before.

Everyday I learn a new thing and find a new distraction. 

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