O Crown of Light, O Darkened One,
I never thought we'd meet.
You kiss my lips, and then it's done:
I'm back on Boogie Street.
A sip of wine, a cigarette,
And then it's time to go . . .
—Leonard Cohen, "Boogie Street"

Esteemed Reader of Our Magazine:

Driving to court to answer a speeding ticket last evening, I was surprised to turn on the radio and hear the resonant speaking voice of Leonard Cohen. The interviewer asked him what "Boogie Street" (a song from a couple albums ago) means to him. He suggested it is what we are always doing, whether we are in the midst of the world or retreating to a monastery. It is the story we are animating, the part we are convinced we need to play in our lives. But occasionally we catch a glimpse of life without the story, and in those moments we are free.

I was distressed to need to leave my car and the interview to answer the summons. Standing before the judge I was compelled to test Mr. Cohen's meaning. She said, "Is there anything you wish to say before sentencing?" I paused, looking into the judge's brown eyes, wanting to utter something true, and could only muster "thank you for the opportunity to plead guilty to the charge of speeding." She smiled. I smiled back and was sentenced to a nominal fine and a driver's reeducation class.

Leaving the court I was happy, and not because of the legal result, but because an iota of connection, of wakefulness, had been injected into my and the judge's evening. We had, for a timeless moment, stepped out of our roles, and off of Boogie Street.

Returning home I heard the tail end of the interview with the esteemed Mr. Cohen, whose poetic broadcasting over the course of his inner life has been a window into a man who has steadily moved toward greater wakefulness and freedom (in this respect, in my estimation, he is a modern saint). By the end of the interview I was weeping, and not so much from what he said, but from the sound he produced even with his speaking voice, which seemed to reach in and massage the tense muscle of my heart.

It is not my intention to use this column for hagiography. Rather I want to share the experience of receiving an influence that had an effect, that lifted me to a higher level. And to share an insight, the reading of which might hopefully have a similar effect on the reader.

Returning home I found my young son finishing dinner in his high chair. He had reached that stage of satiation when he stops bringing the food to his mouth and instead flings it on the floor. Beans, rice, and bits of broccoli were spread beneath his chair with a symmetry suggesting a Goldsworthy sculpture. I interrupted his ardent hurling and asked him if he was ready for his bath. "Bah?" he responded with an affirmative smile.

He relaxed in the tub as I scooped up little buckets and poured gentle streams of warm water over his chest and shoulders. It had the quality of an ablution, or baptism even, as I gave all my attention to his little body. He sat in the tub and smiled up at me. I smiled back. "Bah" he said. "Bath...," I replied.  In that moment we took a short detour off Boogie Street.

These are moments of real life. The rest—the logistics and planning, wheeling and dealing; occupation with I, me, and mine—is fantasy. It is the moments of wakefulness, when a heart opens to what is real and present, that we wish to increase—both in frequency and duration—and enter the real world.

—Jason Stern

So come, my friends, be not afraid.
We are so lightly here.
It is in love that we are made;
In love we disappear.
Tho' all the maps of blood and flesh
Are posted on the door,
There's no one who has told us yet
What Boogie Street is for.