The loss of Robin Williams brought a glittering jangle of recollections back to me. Because he was a San Francisco lad, I can remember playing jazz on Union Street and skittering a couple of doors down to watch Robin spin his frenetic, seemingly nonsequitous routines. He would ricochet from person to fact to time to space until he brought his audience to the level of a dervish dance. He always brought them home, to where he began, regardless of how far away he had spun himself and us. He came at the performing community, the clowns of the Pickle Circus, the overwrought mimes of the Embarcadero from a different direction but we all collided, identifying with his perfect and universal madness.
I missed most of Mork and Mindy, television wasn't in my life then. After our shared time in the clubs, I remember him best in Terry Gillian's "The Fisher King" where he played a traumatized and grief-stricken homeless man obsessed with the legend of A Fisher King, the Holy Grail, and his own wife's tragic and violent end.
Williams diverse talents took him far — in his career, around the planet, but he always seemed to be a part of San Francisco. His final home was on Tiburon, a peninsula jutting into the bay, giving him a view of both bridges, Angel island, the hills of Berkeley, the fog fingers of summer creeping in from the Pacific, over the built up hills of the city, through the Gate. He was there, he was visible, although not necessarily accessible.
Many of my San Francisco friends spoke of Robin from this place of community that is so predominant in the Bay Area. He seemed of them, and they wanted to speak out. Few were judgmental, but many longed for there have been another way, another way out for Robin, if only he had sat still a little longer, ridden that horse a little bit harder.
I understand the authenticity of that longing, of an urgent wish that circumstances had been 'other' for Williams, that he had somehow in that place where he found himself alone, with his own worse enemy. To those who so beautifully expressed their feelings, those who Robin left behind, I do want to offer a single observation of my own...
Some times, when a person has struggled a lifetime to stay in the saddle, there is no inner or outer 'we' to offer perspective or even a strong, loving, but coercive arm. Sometimes ideas, however wise and authentic, turn gray. At times like that, the end may come as an accident; the alternative so urgently pointed out, the path not taken can hurtle past the rider, all options out of reach and it's over in a moment, final, no turning back, leaving the living to grapple with the questions, the consequences, and some restless modicum of acceptance. Perhaps someday, Robin Williams will be bringing it all back home, some other way. Here's hoping'...
I missed most of Mork and Mindy, television wasn't in my life then. After our shared time in the clubs, I remember him best in Terry Gillian's "The Fisher King" where he played a traumatized and grief-stricken homeless man obsessed with the legend of A Fisher King, the Holy Grail, and his own wife's tragic and violent end.
Williams diverse talents took him far — in his career, around the planet, but he always seemed to be a part of San Francisco. His final home was on Tiburon, a peninsula jutting into the bay, giving him a view of both bridges, Angel island, the hills of Berkeley, the fog fingers of summer creeping in from the Pacific, over the built up hills of the city, through the Gate. He was there, he was visible, although not necessarily accessible.
Many of my San Francisco friends spoke of Robin from this place of community that is so predominant in the Bay Area. He seemed of them, and they wanted to speak out. Few were judgmental, but many longed for there have been another way, another way out for Robin, if only he had sat still a little longer, ridden that horse a little bit harder.
I understand the authenticity of that longing, of an urgent wish that circumstances had been 'other' for Williams, that he had somehow in that place where he found himself alone, with his own worse enemy. To those who so beautifully expressed their feelings, those who Robin left behind, I do want to offer a single observation of my own...
Some times, when a person has struggled a lifetime to stay in the saddle, there is no inner or outer 'we' to offer perspective or even a strong, loving, but coercive arm. Sometimes ideas, however wise and authentic, turn gray. At times like that, the end may come as an accident; the alternative so urgently pointed out, the path not taken can hurtle past the rider, all options out of reach and it's over in a moment, final, no turning back, leaving the living to grapple with the questions, the consequences, and some restless modicum of acceptance. Perhaps someday, Robin Williams will be bringing it all back home, some other way. Here's hoping'...
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