>My dad caught me on either end of my LA conference. Going in, an 8am phone call as I was crawling the side streets of only marginally familiar Venice Beach, peeking for parking. I was distracted, annoyed, in my rental compact.
Why is he calling me so early? He never calls me in the morning. Is there anywhere to park longer than an hour?.. What a racket.
Simultaneously squinting to discern small letters on parking signage, while maneuvering questions about my pre-breakfast general well-being, didn’t make for a friendly, focused, familial exchange.
In a huff, I told him I’d call him back. I was pressed for time. In two hours I had to register at a weekend conference as an “advanced spiritual teacher.” Ha.
I learned innumerable things that weekend. My mind emptied, my heart was bedazzled and it was a fast and furious explosion of awareness that I’ve already written about here. But I’m going to take the woo down a notch and speak about a simple lesson that showed up beautifully and (as a city girl, I always appreciate this efficiency) immediately.
It was about true listening and here’s the teaching:
“When listening to the other, you are paying attention to what is happening within you without judgment.
As you are listening, you will feel a want or need, this is what the other person is wanting or needing.
True compassion naturally arises from doing this because you experience yourself as the other, their need is now your need.”
So, fast forward, book-ending the weekend, in some kind of innate father sonar hone-in that could only be chalked up to grace, my dad called me as I was driving from the conference to elsewhere in LA. He called on the way in, and he called on the way out. He didn’t call in between. And I was in LA, so of course both times he called, I was in a car.
“So what are you going to be doing there with the rest of your time?”
“You know Dad, just seeing some friends out here, keeping it low key.”
He told me about the Hollywood walk of fame and insisted I must see it. “Marlene Dietrich has a star there, you know.” I assured him I have previously been there.
He listed one or two other hopelessly touristy jaunts, forgetting apparently that I lived in this city for six months a decade ago.
“Have you been to the Roosevelt Hotel?”
“No Dad, I have not been to the Roosevelt hotel.” I sighed, what after all, could my father, not having been to LA for a solid 25 years have to teach me (well-informed New Yorker, 2nd lala trip in a month) about all things cosmopolitan in LA?
“Promise me you’ll go.”
“Ok Dad…” I laughed, dismissingly.
He was insistent. “Promise me.”
Then, twixt a pause and a blessed breath, popped forth the aforementioned listening teaching. Here I was, being a total a**hole with my dad, and not even realizing it.
What need or want did he have? He wanted to feel a part of the scene, to be in the know, to have a sophisticated understanding and comfortable connection with one of the world’s glitziest cities. He wanted to be able to show/teach something to his daughter, the intrinsically magniloquent Mags. He wanted to be my Dad.
“Promise me you’ll go.”
Something shifted in me when I saw myself truly listening, and I found my lips replying, in complete resolve: “Ok Dad, I promise.”
I had an over-booked 36 hours left in LA, plans for both evenings elsewhere and I told only three people I would be in town because I knew I just did not have the minutes to spare… One of my dearest friends in the universe didn’t get facetime. The soul sistah I was meeting in Venice beach on the way in to the conference? That ended up being a two-minute drive-by on the edge of said boardwark. The Roosevelt hotel? Why did I promise that? Notgonnahappen.
The next night it was midnight after a spectacular set of music with some wickedly talented, genius even, successful besties. If you think I use any of those words casually, please be advised, I don’t.
We all conglomerated after in the restaurant adjoining the dark venue, brainstorming on where to traipse for the post-show cool down. Our sights were set on a lounge with which I was familiar when one of my friends lobbed out: “How about the Roosevelt Hotel?”
“Wait… what did you say?”
“The Roosevelt Hotel.”
(Everyone reading is well aware, I’m assuming, that LA is a city of millions of people and that there are, let’s say at least thousands of opportunities for various places to eat, drink, be merry… so, tossing out the Roosevelt hotel? C’mon. More than a coinkidink.)
“YES. We’re going there.” My tone made it clear to the others that was the only current option. Was it open? Quick group iPhone check and yes: It was open 24/7—yes, we were going there.
Less than an hour later we were ensconced by a swank diner; its gut reno retro rendition and dark design landscape ubiquitous with late night Hollywood. There was a huge party in the adjoining club which looked my worst nightmare, but in a chocolate vinyl (pleather?/leather?) oversized banquette were some of the people I love most on this earth, a new face or two and someone who fancied me… (never a bad thing for a gal to have adjoining her when sitting late night in a Hollywood booth.)
I drank the only alcohol I’ve had in the last six weeks: pinot noir served in a Riedel tumbler. We ordered milkshakes and onion rings. Others had the best burgers in LA. Mine was veggie; it was the size of my face and it was phenomenal.
The performers and artists were tired. It was a calm late-night feast and we all ordered too much. Even in its sleepy simplicity it was one of the loveliest evenings I’ve had. Great friends, good food, the perfect ambiance.
And I never. ever. would have gone had I not taken the time to truly listen to my Dad. To tap into what he was needing. To let go of any view I had of the world and what it was supposed to look like and what I thought I did or didn’t know. To allow an open and authentic, fresh exchange even with someone I have not known life without. To allow him and myself the possibility that I had not outgrown his wisdom.
It’s been a month and ironically, enough other things have happened that there hasn’t been a moment for me to tell my father that I actually went, living up to my promise. But somewhere, on some plane of the woo that is so mysterious and holy in its elusive tango away from a cognizant understanding, on that lowest three-levels-in an “Inception”esque subconscious working, there was a kind of healing. I don’t know yet whether it was for him or for me. Seeing as we’re inter-connected, I expect it was for both, as well as for us all. Listening to my Dad: my most hipster healing yet.
