Theo of Golden

by Allen Levi

Just think, we might actually meet a sincerely kind human being. There don’t seem to be many of those around these days.”

But even old men have young memories.”

“No, my dear. Sadness might be many things, but it is rarely stupid. The good sadness, I think, is always trying to tell us something very important.”

He pondered how a trunk could become so gnarled. It must have taken a great force to torque such a massive object. Or had some small force early in the tree’s life dictated its course of growth? You can bend a twig, but not a tree.

He simply felt the question deserved a better place, a better time, a better chance to be properly answered.

She dethroned all of Theo’s previous deities the day she was born.

He wept . . . and moaned . . . and choked on his sorrow until one final eruption of longing, and a sob that seemed to carry the hurt of all his stolen hopes, tore through his chest.

Theo had learned somewhere in his past that the spectacle was called a murmuration. His soul caught its breath at the sight, like a swimmer coming up from the depths. For that moment he could separate beauty from his grief, and celebrate, if only ambivalently, that there was still a world of goodness apart from, or bigger than, his aching loneliness.

“Yes, we can be such a terrible race at times, but, at the same time, terribly wonderful. All capable of saintliness.

He would remark later that the old man listened in a way that made one dangerously willing to talk.

But I guess if a work of art makes us see something familiar in a new way or makes us feel something we ought to have felt all along or shows us our place in the world more clearly, maybe then it qualifies as ‘good.’ If it makes us better somehow, maybe that’s what gives it value.”

There must be love for the gift itself, love for the subject being depicted or the story being told, and love for the audience. Whether the art is sculpture, farming, teaching, lawmaking, medicine, music, or raising a child, if love is not in it — at the very heart of it — it might be skillful, marketable, or popular but I doubt it is truly good. Nothing is what it’s supposed to be if love is not at the core.”

How is it, Theo wondered, that a piece of paper — a letter, a photo, a ticket stub, a sketch, a painting — is suddenly transformed by placing it in four bits of wood beneath a pane of glass? What does it mean that we place permanent boundaries around transient moments? What does it say of humankind that we take such trouble to freeze specific memories, that we devote such energy to capturing and preserving the “minute particulars” of our lives?

it was better to see one thing well than many poorly.

I simply help people sit still long enough to see what is already there.”

the older I get, the more convinced I am that every hurt the world has ever known is somehow the fault of every person who ever lived.

Maybe not directly and never entirely, but somehow, I fear, we own all of the world’s hurts together.”

If there is such a thing as ‘gumbo music,’ where you just put in a little bit of everything and see what comes out, maybe that’s the category.

It’s crazy what a jungle and fear and a gun and some misguided patriotism can bring out of a man. I’m afraid there’s a killer inside every one of us.

He once wrote that the best portion of a good person’s life is ‘the little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.’

“Then I propose that we make a trade. Give me that old picture in your head, and take this new one home with you.”

She held her hand over Theo’s and opened her fingers, then dropped the hostile mental image into his palm.

“Asher, in every face I detect sadness.” A crease of curiosity formed between Asher’s eyes. “Why do you say that?” “Well, it is subtle, and maybe it takes an old man — an expert in sadness — to see it, but it is there in every portrait, in some more than others. It is not gloomy or angry or even terribly obvious. It is like a weariness or an unmet longing or a disappointment; something we inherit from those who lived before us. But to these old eyes, it is in every face, the universal affliction.

“I suppose anyone as old as me could say the same. When we’re young, we’re usually too busy or too self-absorbed to see it, but by the time one is almost ninety, this world has beat the sadness into him quite deeply. Every week there is some tragedy or reminder to keep it alive and well.” It was an unusual subject to discuss while standing in line for coffee. They placed their orders, stepped away from the counter, and continued talking. “Theo, I appreciate that you’re such a sensitive man. You have a tender heart.” “Not tender, Asher. Broken. My expertise in sadness is hard-earned.

Living with sadness, accepting it, is easier than trying to pretend it isn’t there. It is another of life’s great mysteries that sadness and joy can coexist so compatibly with one another. In fact, I wonder if, on this side of heaven, either one can be complete without the other.”

There is no virtue in advertising one’s sadness. But there is no wisdom in denying it either. And there is the beautiful possibility that great love can grow out of sadness if it is well-tended. Sadness can make us bitter or wise. We get to choose.”

“Baby, they’s justice and they’s mercy. If you not sure what to do and you gotta choose one or the other, I say always go the mercy way. If you make a mistake, make it for mercy. Bad mercy don’t hurt nearly like bad justice, and always remember, the eye of God can see.”