Nanu, Nanu

“Robin Williams was an airman, a doctor, a genie, a nanny, a president, a professor, a Peter Pan, and everything in between. He arrived in our lives as an alien – but he ended up touching every element of the human spirit. He made us laugh. He made us cry. He gave his immeasurable talent freely and generously …” so President Obama wrote yesterday (or his staff did, but that’s not important today).

From his breakthrough in Mork & Mindy, through forgettable films he “did for the money”, to heart-warming roles such as Good Will Hunting, what pops from memory is an insane stand-up marathon tellingly titled Weapons of Self Destruction. Every time I watch, I’m the Tom peeping from behind a curtain, watching a man turn his manic underwear inside out for all to see. We roll in the aisles while the clown catches his breath, pat-pats his recently repaired heart in a gesture of “It’s me, can’t you see?” and grabs his crotch once too often, as if to say, “Look at me, so funny.”

All this leaves me feeling sad, both then and now. Two days ago he took his own life, as the expression goes. According to police, he “died of asphyxia from hanging sometime after his wife went to bed around 10:30 on Sunday night.” At his whit’s end; alone as behooves the fool. May his soul be at peace.

In this moment, after decades of riding the depressive disorder roller coaster, I, too, am at peace. A burst of tears in gratitude for having met you, Mr. Williams. I can hear your voice now, the eccentric teacher in Dead Poets’ Society gathering the lads around you, quoting the poet:

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.

I spent the morning with a handsome gelding named Hawkeye. After a bit of work, we go for a walk, linked by a rope and mutual trust, along an overgrown trail until wild blackberry bushes block our path. There we feast: he on thorny leaves and I on luscious fruit, soon both of us on berries that turn our tongues purple. Bored with that and released into a round pen, he explodes into pirouettes of bucking, kicking, and farting. Three rounds of that, at times with all four in mid-air, as if to say, “Such fun, being alive,” he walks right up to me, energized from dancing, blessing me with hot exhales.

May all beings be at ease.

photo: dpa/Bildfunk