Finding Time
My partner and I don't get out very much. For various reasons, but mostly, we live a very insular life. We can be quiet together or not, we share a lot.
Early in the relationship. probably around the second or third break up to make up, I went to go see my teacher/friend/mentor Jake Adam York.
Jake cuts an impressive form, and some people would feel inclined to be intimidated by him. He looks imposing. He looks powerful. And he did to me, always look all of those things too, however, he never looked like he was about to shake you down. Jake was not your typical teacher-man. He was warmer, like he understood you before you were capable of understanding yourself.
Such a moment was this one, in his office, crying over my faltering relationship with someone I was just learning to love and not because it is the way of relationships to always be in turmoil, but because I felt something deeper and wider than anything I could actually put into words so I just had tears.
Up until that moment, Jake had never seen me cry over or about anything, but he wasn't caught off guard by my tears, he just said, "Do you actually love this person, or are you enamored with the idea of them?" I responded that this was real, the really real, the end all be all beginning of, and what he said, next was,
"So what is it then that binds you? What similarities, and by that I mean foundational beliefs, do you share that make this relationship the one that will last? Because if you can't find that sort of core belief between two people, it won't last."
He went on to elaborate about his previous marriage, and how and why that marriage didn't last, and why Sarah, was his real match, his really real, and though he didn't use the term at the time, I'm going to go ahead and use it now, his Love Supreme.
Count on Jake to ask the good questions.
And while I wasn't done yet with that relationship, it was clear that I was only going to be able to maintain my laissez les bons temps rouler attitude for a finite amount of time. So I made the most of it and kept rolling.
I would see Jake a few times that year usually in passing, but I never missed the chance to buy him lunch or coffee or to hug him. Even if it was little inconvenient, I couldn't help myself.
That's a story centered around me, about someone I lost. I feel like it's important to point this out because Jake's loss isn't most ardently felt in this arena.
Jake is an active voice on a national level regarding race. His death sent ripples through communities I'm only now beginning to notice. Jake was never not aware of the power of his voice as a white hetero man from the south. I want to tell a few stories from Jake's mouth regarding his work. in my next post.
