With Maimonides

at the Dog Park

(this is not Tiresias)

Behold another story with Maimonides. I don’t know what to make of these stories (some people doodle) but they are satisfying to me. They’re a mix of excising demons, release, whimsy, respect — I look at them as if somebody I don’t know has written them. That’s how it feels. I know my own delight is increased with surprise.

With Maimonides at the Dog Park

Maimonides and I were sitting on a bench at the dog park. My two beasts were barking at the bigger doggies (almost all the doggies were bigger). Tiresias, M’s little doggie, was sitting beneath the bench reading a magazine.

Jimmy, Maimonides opened with, don’t be discouraged.

I’m not discouraged, I said.

I warned you: none of us should make our living this way.

He was referring to the nomen professionalis, the profession.

My brother made the parnassah [money] in the family, said M.

I’m with you, I said, I never made much money anyway, circumstances led me to purity of service.

Ah, said M, so I will tell you where that leads . . .

Where what leads?

The purity of service, I taught it, you’ve tried to live it, the next step said M -- disappointment. Disappointments are inevitable. And yours arose out of insecurities – personal and institutional – and not your own. We’re witnessing much worse in your time. You’ve got some sickos moving things around.

I feel you.

Here the vocabulary of Vayiqra [Leviticus] will be helpful, said M. Think about purity, purity of service, clean and pure. The language of the priests. There is no get in giving [a get is a divorce document].

No get in giving?

I just made that up, said M, detach, no expectations -- think it has legs?

You’ve got better, I said, but I understand what you mean. No expectations, sounds so Buddhistic.

We’re all Buddhists, said M, surely you know that.

I do. I do know that, I said.

Gotta go, said M, and up he jumped. I threw Tiresias* a dog biscuit I had in my pocket and off they skipped down the boulevard. Maimonides is the only adult I know who skips. Sometimes John.

j/sg

*Tiresias: blind prophet of Apollo at Thebes, appears in the Odyssey, sometimes appears as a woman. Tiresias was a they.