zimatravels

There are many journeys in addition to geographical ones.  Such was the unexpected journey a Los Angeles reporter took into the world of mental illness and homelessness.  For a year, he wrote occasional articles about his relationship with Nathaniel, a gifted musician who played beautiful music and slept on the streets and under freeway bridges in Los Angeles.

He wrote a book about his relationship with Nathaniel and it became the movie now out called “The Soloist.”  I haven’t read the book, but the movie examines the mind of the reporter even more than that of the mentally ill Nathaniel who was tormented by angry voices that came and went.

The actor who plays Nathaniel, Jamie Foxx, said in an interview that he came dangerously close to falling into the abyss portraying the tortured soul of Nathaniel.  But I related more to the reporter, Steve Lopez, because I once had an artist/poet boyfriend whom I tried to “help.”

The most meaningful sentence in the movie to me was when Steve admitted very clearly that, in spite of good intentions and great effort, he had not really succeeded in helping Nathaniel, but that knowing Nathaniel had helped him far more.

I could say the same about my artist/poet boyfriend.  He would most likely even say that I had damaged him over the intense years of our relationship.  Although our boyfriend/girlfriend relationship ended, we continued in close friendship.  Finally, 22 years later, I received a last “Dear John” letter from him.

I have always regretted that I hadn’t really been able to keep him far from the edge of mental illness.  But I have been grateful for the ways he which he encouraged me to take inner journeys.

Like Nathaniel and the reporter, my artist boyfriend saw me more clearly than I saw myself.  Although I was more functional in the “normal” world,  he was more proficient in inner journeys.  These inner journeys became a vital added dimension to my life and my nomadic traveling years.  He also helped me to see the world through an artist and poet’s vision and creativity.  Like the reporter, I also met others in the chaos of mental illness and homelessness through knowing him.

Similar to the reporter who worried over Nathaniel’s safety, I worried for my friend’s safety as he wandered nightly, and sometimes slept, on the streets of New Orleans, miraculously managing to only get mugged a few times and was never shot.  Although he was shy on some social levels, he had a way of connecting to strangers that seemed magical to me.  Paper placemats in restaurants always turned into quickly drawn portraits that were received warmly by a waitress or a passerby he chatted with.  Like Nathaniel, my friend could not hold a regular job or make money by his talent, but he could reach people through his art like Nathaniel could through making beautiful music.

The reporter is grateful to Nathaniel, and I am grateful to my artist friend.  They helped us more than we helped them.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, June 7th, 2009 at 3:33 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.