Noboby Knows

Can you see? The face of the artist is always there, partly obscured and partly revealed, by her creation.

Is it funny? In our age, the layers of irony that need to be unpeeled to locate the soul of an artist would make an onion blush. Not to mention The Onion.

What does the artist have to say about love? She is more than silent on this question. Love is an artifact now, a thing of her past. If she put her faith in love and it was misplaced, she hardens her heart. Why bother thinking about love when so many other matters require her urgent attention?

Why are modern women becoming so unromantic? Why are men so out of touch with this development -- why do we (some of us) continue to seek romance when the message shouted back to us, loud and clear, by almost all women is "that's what I used to believe, but no longer."

What is happening to all of us? What will be left if we can no longer trust in the instinct that allows us to fall in love? How many times can a man turn his head, pretending he just doesn't see? *

I don't blog for the fun of it. These are not specious questions, but ones to which I urgently seek answers, not just for myself, but also for many (not all) of us. Cynics should not read my blog, nor judge me harshly for my naiveté. I still believe in the magic of suddenly meeting somebody and falling in love, but I am getting a bad feeling that this is not one of my strengths.

I think instead I am rapidly getting out of date. Anyone who is cool knows you don't go about your life in this way anymore. Nothing good can last. Live ONLY in the moment. Never consider the future.

Do you know why I care about the future? Because I have a little grandson who is planning on joining this world sometime around New Year's Day, 2007. And I have six children, each capable of contributing wonderful things to this world. All but the youngest of them realizes that global warming, to cite one salient example, will be wreaking havoc during their own lifespan, and therefore is not some future generation's problem.

And what has my generation, the 60's activists, done about this fundamental issue? Precious little. Yes, some of us have been writing and agitating about this issue for over 30 years but we've had almost no impact on U.S., let alone global policies. By the time humanity gets its act together, I am afraid it will be way too late.

That makes me sad for my unborn grandson, and the other lovely girls and boys who will soon follow, in our family and in others. We are all in this together, yet we proceed as if we are disconnected parts of a dysfunctional machine. As if nothing we do or don't do matters. As if love is irrelevant.

***

Tonight was a very nice night for San Francisco Giants fans. But you have to be a rather hopeless idealist to think that this season, very likely Barry Bonds' last as a Giant, will end with a World Series ring. For that to be even a statistical probability, the Giants have to win tomorrow and again on Sunday, as they did tonight (7-3, we were there) over their archrivals, the first-place Dodgers.

They are now five games behind the Dodgers with 40 games to play. The trouble is that three other teams are still in between these two old franchises.

I was explaining to my friend that there probably isn't any rivalry greater than that between the Giants and the Dodgers. It's written in their histories rooted in separate boroughs of New York City; then shockingly transported west to California almost a half-century ago.

The first time they met out here, the Giants beat the Dodgers 8-0.

Tonight, Omar Vizquel hit a huge homerun early that pulled the Giants to victory. But they have to do it again and again, tomorrow and Sunday, to really have a chance this season. Tonight, at least, people like me can hope.

But I have a bad feeling about their chances. I fear they will end up a little short of the playoffs, and that will signal the end of the Barry Bonds era. It's hard to watch the old superstar struggle; tonight he hit three weak groundouts and then struck out. He no longer carries his team. He has become an artifact, which is why, if he asked me, it is time for him to retire.

He just can't do it anymore.

As for me, it may be that it is getting close to the time I should retire from the game of pursuing love, no? If women no longer believe my words, then I will have nothing left to say.

Except, of course, to my grandson. And for his sake, I promise to not become a cynic myself, despite what life experiences suggest to me.

All we have, I believe, is our sense of hope. Therefore, the only thing I have of any value to impart to the little ones who follow us is hope. Go ahead and hope, little children. Don't give up, not yet.

And, of course, that includes young Giants' fans. They may well yet pull it off...this old team of veterans, battling time and their broken bodies. The greatest sports story of our time, for San Franciscans, would be if Barry Bonds hit one into the Bay one last time, in the seventh game of a World Series, to bring this city its first baseball championship.

So, who am I? I am the little boy in the last row, squeezing his ticket, still believing that the impossible might come true.

Still believing in love. But summer is soon coming to an end.

* Bob Dylan (of course)

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