[Previously on My Moment With Allen Ginsberg Resulting In A Misunderstanding Over The Word “Asshole”: In each of the books he had signed his name… the date… and then had printed a large A and a large H inside of a circle. I felt a bit uneasy suddenly about the whole exchange. I began to wonder if this was some secret code to distinguish me as one of the jerks that hadn’t bought his new book and then I realized what it meant. “Asshole,” I whispered.]
He totally got away with calling me an “ASSHOLE” for not buying his book.
Suddenly my heart went cold.
I was embarrassed.
Furious.
Disappointed that he would do something so low.
I fumed about the insult all evening until my husband called me from the road.
“Did he really write the word asshole?” my husband asked.
“No,” I said. “But he wrote A. H. inside a circle.”
“Yeah…” he said. “Sounds like code for asshole. Especially with that circle and all.”
I suddenly hated Allen Ginsberg.
How could he be so cruel?
Hadn’t he once been a young struggling artist?
I wanted to go find where he was staying in Long Beach and slap his old face.
But instead I sat down and wrote a vicious and scathing poem about him and then shoved it in a box, along with my bruised ego, and let the years brush the incident aside.
It wasn’t until Dylan, my baby boy, was in his early 20’s that the memory came back to me… when I found my son, in my writing room, looking at my signed copies of Ginsberg’s books, Dylan’s hands gingerly touching the pages, studying the faces of the Beat Poets in Tangiers.
“Did Allen Ginsberg really sign this for you mom?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “But he was a jerk.”
“How so?” Dylan asked.
And so I sat down and told him the story of when we met Ginsberg.
Dylan, obviously not as idiotic as his parents, listened to my story before looking at me and saying, “Yeah but how do you know he was being a jerk? You just assumed he was being a jerk because you felt bad you couldn’t buy his book that day.” He closed the books and put them back on the shelf. “Now that we have internet have you ever gone on line and looked to see if he wrote that in anyone else’s book?”
I stared at him.
Of course I had never thought to do that. After having been so humbled by the incident, I had avoided thinking about it altogether.
“Come on,” Dylan said. “Let’s look.”
I sat down on the computer, beyond trepidacious, with my son standing behind me, and my hands on the keyboard.
I typed the words: Allen Ginsberg A H in books.
And a moment later, this explanation appeared:
From the Holy Soul Jelly Roll liner notes Ginsberg explains how he came up with “Ah”, “…[I] got in the middle of the group who were going off to blockade a highway and started chanting “Ah” after asking them to chant with me. Everybody sat down, then we discussed strategy calmly rather than as a hysterical mob. “Om” closes out at the end but “Ah” leaves the mouth open, breath goes out [see Ginsberg’s Mind Breaths poem for more]. On the 4th of July you see the fireworks and say “Ah”, or you recognize something and say “Ah!” When Trungpa said “Why don’t you try ‘Ah’?” he joined an American sound with Himalayan wisdom, and I’ve used it ever since. “Ah” for recognition, appreciation, the intelligence of speech joining body and mind and for a measure of the breath.”
Suddenly, I felt sick.
All of these years… all of this time…
He had died with me angry at him.
“Wow,” Dylan said. “That’s really cool and super sad that you thought you were an asshole all of these years when really he was showing you recognition for being an artist.”
I wanted to cry.
I wanted to shout, “I AM AN ASSHOLE for thinking Ginsberg was the asshole.”
I wanted to go back in time and rush back into the store and hug him until it felt like his old bones would break.
But I couldn’t.
That’s not how life works.
We make our mistakes.
We misjudge those we love.
We allow skewed perspectives to lead to rash judgements which get in our way.
I would never have a chance to meet with Ginsberg again… and the sting of that… painful.
“It’s okay Mom,” Dylan said. “He didn’t know what you thought all of these years.” And then hugged me hard. “Think about it…” he continued. “He might have been listening to your music this whole time… and glad that he inspired you to write it.”
And I was proud of my son.
Proud of his voice.
The comfort he offered me when I was unable to forgive myself, it soothed me.