It was the first haircut in nearly two months. The first since uprooting from Kansas and moving to Maryland. Nearly two months is an eternity for hair that goes from acceptably shaggy to "just climbed out of a hamper" in the blink of an eye. It was time, and it made me feel like a million bucks. Felt good.
Walking back to the car in the cooling humidity of a rain-washed evening, I didn't think much of why I felt so good, although I savored it. By "think too much of it" I mean there was no attempt to analyze this rush of what many would call mild euphoria. Contentment. A calmness upon the mind. This is a goodness in very short supply.
Upheaval and dislocation have been the prime drivers of my depression and anxiety for over a year. Isolation and lack of daily companionship drawing the curtains on a dark room in which I could not find the door. I had light when I needed it, sometimes, when good people, good friends opened their hearts (and occasionally their homes) to me. I would not have survived gracefully moving cross-country if not for the companionship of my daughter. This lights still shines in my head.
Not to say I have yet unlocked the door. Diving into a new job turned up the heat and pressure, in ways I expected but still involve struggle for balance. Mornings require a pep talk to arise from the bed. Weeks require a therapy pit stop to relocate and recalibrate. I look for that which provides a nudge back to the path, but energy often drains swiftly away into fatigue. I know that many people say sometimes you just have to roll with it, but an affirmation of direction would be welcome.
No surprise that self-care of certain kinds took a back seat to simply making it through the day. Getting a haircut barely registered on the scale of things I needed to be present in my life. Evidence of this was the shagginess I saw in the mirror one morning last week. It wasn't the guy I used to know. He looked more like an 18th century engraving of a half-insane composer. I think my cat even gave me a few "Time to trim the weeds" looks.
The curious thing was that it took me three weeks to make a decision. Twenty one days to make up my damn mind about a simple thing like getting a haircut. A sure sign that things are out of whack from living too much in my own head.
I arrived home from the haircut relaxed, unwound. The mirror showed me a very different face from the one I had woken up with earlier in the day. It was a face looking relaxed, content, and knowing it had a million dollars in the bank of the spirit. It was the face of a human being.
Showing posts with label brains. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brains. Show all posts
20 August 2017
08 March 2015
Simulacra and the War
Coastal notes, February 2nd. The night and the water conspire to unnerve.
Still, they whisper. Imps tugging at my hindbrain, eager for reaction. Their voices rasp my eardrums in a flurry of catastrophic news and capitalistic blandishments. The one to take my peace of mind, the other to take my money. Mercifully, my blood does not boil. The faint scratchiness coming over the wireless speaker reminds me of leaves on concrete.
A colossal wave, a leviathan of water, slams the shore. Vibrations from it cause my lighter to jump, the speaker to tremble. Small and reminiscent of a Japanese stone lantern, the speaker is one of the few concessions to technology allowed in this monk's cell that is my cottage. As with many things of its ilk, its usefulness and purpose are two-edged. My electronic umbilical, it irritates but allows me to know what is going on back in the world I would sometimes rather shut out altogether. Blessing and curse for introverted information junkies such as I myself.
The wind is low this night. The usual sough is subdued, rarely making its presence known long the eaves of the cottage. When it does, I imagine a conversation between the wind and the radio. What they might discuss is beyond my ken, yet I cannot help but wonder if they share a motive to visit.
The moon, gravid and bright, waxes low in the sky. The argentine glow is diffracted by the restless skin of the ocean. Further in on the breakers, the light scintillates in the foamy curls of spray, diffusing and diffracting into uncountable diamonds that disappear into the surf. The breakers, too, whisper and moan up and down the beach. Wavelets hiss and burble, offering sweet counterpoint to the electronic anxiety offered up by the speaker.
It is dark but not pitch black inside the cottage. Dull embers on the hearth provide some warmth and tinge the air with a near subliminal glow. Reflected moonlight from the pale sand and graphite sea streams through the windows above my desk. The glow is enough to see, if not to work. This I find acceptable. I gave up working hours ago. The words would not come. Replacing them was an abstract, hazy thicket of thoughts winding around themselves, twining around the central core question I kept asking myself: Are we real or are we simulacra, convincing ourselves we are clever indeed in our wars and consumption?
Behind me, a world bent on self-immolation in a firestorm of lunacy and strife seeps through the wireless conduit, trying to pull me back into the fight. I lack the energy to get up to turn it off. I continue staring out the window, my mind and the sea becoming mirrors. The speaker whispers still while the sea groans for my attention. I breathe slow, deliberate, in spite of the simulacra and the war.
14 May 2014
Book Soul, Book Heart
Field notes, 08 May 2014. Alone, expectant, waiting. For what?
Where resides the heart and soul of a book? Not the story inside it, perhaps, but the thing in itself. I cannot imagine the devoted reader that I am, cozying up to an ebook or tablet.
There is no life in the machine.
Digital pages do not rasp under the fingers, nor does the light reflect from them with any warmth. Silicon, glass and aluminum react to the fingertips and the blood running through them. But that blood does not carry logos on its way back to the heart. Ultimately, electronic readers seem not tactile enough to satisfy me.
Wind outside. There is no music or television chatter, so the rustling of leaves I hear through the walls. My mind loses its place. The book is replaced by the voice of Marcus Aurelius, speaking softly in the temple of my head.
"Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one."The book I set on the nightstand before it slips from my fingers. The wind stirs the trees again, sounding for all the world like a dead emperor whispering from the yard. I roll over, turn out the light, hoping to dream of that good man to be.
22 April 2014
That Awkward Moment of Collapse
….when you realize that you are not living up to your promise and potential. Those terrible moments waking from a dream at godawful o'clock in the morning. A dream of collapse and loss, panting in panic muddled with fear. The seizure when you feel in your heart that you are so far from what you said you wanted to be that you will never catch up.
Pardon me. A moment, please. (Sighing)
I keep writing "you" as if I am describing the arc of your lives, you the reader. I should stop that now. What I should have written was "I". That awkward moment when I realized those awful things about my life. Not you. I cannot speak of these things in your life because I do not know the arcs of your lives in such particulars.
Waking up from such unsettling dreams as often as I have in recent weeks, it is my hope that no one of whom I know is experiencing the same. It makes for poor sleep, which in turn makes for sluggish days on which it takes far too much effort and time to get back to being in the moment.
These dreams have a recurring theme, that of losing all of my means of support. Cold sweat awakens me, wondering where my jobs went, how could I possibly lose them and the money that goes with them. I twitch awake, breathing hard. It is unpleasant, to say the least. I know these dreams have their roots in the unfortunate round of layoffs I endured starting in 2008, and the subsequent scrambling to find gainful employment. The question I cannot answer is, Why now?
What add a particular new shade of funk is that this unleashing of the succubi in my subconscious has manifested in the form of shame. Shamed by a sense of personal failure as a writer. In the cold grey sump of sunless mornings, imps have been whispering in my ears: "You will never be a professional. You squander any gift you might have possessed, you have not achieved meaningfulness as a way of life."
This is so disturbing that words are not sufficient to illuminate the heaviness in my heart. It is damning to hear those awful voices, to look back on what I have done, and think that perhaps the imps are right. Catchy titles, very short stories that exist in a near vacuum, the occasional flash of brilliance: these are things in which I perhaps have some facility.
Perhaps. Yet a solid body of work they are not. I have had a million ideas go nowhere. I have failed to produce anything I would be happy to call a book. A collection of short stories, maybe, if one cares to be generous of spirit. Yet disjointed fever dreams and notes scrawled on virtual Post-its do not an oeuvre make. Because of this, the small hours of the morning become tainted with anxiety swirled with disappointment bordering on self-loathing.
My mind overflows. My hand is stilled by a lack of ambition or surfeit of sloth, I am not sure which. The disappointment I feel fuels the crematorium of my dreams. I do not write this to depress or disturb any who may read it, forgive me if this has happened. This scrawling of mine is not a plea for pity, I wouldn't be so pathetic.
I write because of the dreams. I recently read truth from a favorite author of mine, who said "...honesty means nothing if there's no real risk to it, no self-examination". The dreams are forcing me to self-examine. I write this out of honesty, and I am enervated by what I have not done.
Pardon me. A moment, please. (Sighing)
I keep writing "you" as if I am describing the arc of your lives, you the reader. I should stop that now. What I should have written was "I". That awkward moment when I realized those awful things about my life. Not you. I cannot speak of these things in your life because I do not know the arcs of your lives in such particulars.
Waking up from such unsettling dreams as often as I have in recent weeks, it is my hope that no one of whom I know is experiencing the same. It makes for poor sleep, which in turn makes for sluggish days on which it takes far too much effort and time to get back to being in the moment.
These dreams have a recurring theme, that of losing all of my means of support. Cold sweat awakens me, wondering where my jobs went, how could I possibly lose them and the money that goes with them. I twitch awake, breathing hard. It is unpleasant, to say the least. I know these dreams have their roots in the unfortunate round of layoffs I endured starting in 2008, and the subsequent scrambling to find gainful employment. The question I cannot answer is, Why now?
What add a particular new shade of funk is that this unleashing of the succubi in my subconscious has manifested in the form of shame. Shamed by a sense of personal failure as a writer. In the cold grey sump of sunless mornings, imps have been whispering in my ears: "You will never be a professional. You squander any gift you might have possessed, you have not achieved meaningfulness as a way of life."
This is so disturbing that words are not sufficient to illuminate the heaviness in my heart. It is damning to hear those awful voices, to look back on what I have done, and think that perhaps the imps are right. Catchy titles, very short stories that exist in a near vacuum, the occasional flash of brilliance: these are things in which I perhaps have some facility.
Perhaps. Yet a solid body of work they are not. I have had a million ideas go nowhere. I have failed to produce anything I would be happy to call a book. A collection of short stories, maybe, if one cares to be generous of spirit. Yet disjointed fever dreams and notes scrawled on virtual Post-its do not an oeuvre make. Because of this, the small hours of the morning become tainted with anxiety swirled with disappointment bordering on self-loathing.
My mind overflows. My hand is stilled by a lack of ambition or surfeit of sloth, I am not sure which. The disappointment I feel fuels the crematorium of my dreams. I do not write this to depress or disturb any who may read it, forgive me if this has happened. This scrawling of mine is not a plea for pity, I wouldn't be so pathetic.
I write because of the dreams. I recently read truth from a favorite author of mine, who said "...honesty means nothing if there's no real risk to it, no self-examination". The dreams are forcing me to self-examine. I write this out of honesty, and I am enervated by what I have not done.
02 October 2013
Queasy Piñata
Today's attempt at writing has its roots in grandeur, and probably its end in mediocrity. My ambitions outstrip my ability, all because my head feels like a piñata. This is a source of great distress for me. I had grand plans and a good idea last night, but no time or energy to write it out. The backup plan was to write the kernel of the idea down in one of my handy-dandy little notebooks, then turn out the light for some sleep.
Except for one little detail. My bedside notebook had gone AWOL. Not in the drawer, not on the nightstand, not even on the floor beside the bed. I told myself that I would remember in the morning, but you can guess how well that turned out.
Upon awakening this morning I found myself in possession of a low-grade headache. It started in the base of my skull and wrapped itself around the left side of my brain, edging its way into the frontal lobe. Manageable in the morning, by late afternoon it would balloon into quite a whopper. Like someone was beating it with a stick.
A fine sandwich for lunch had no effect on it. Pain medicine? Pffft. My go-to solution of taking a nap was of no help. In fact, when I arose from the nap, my head felt even worse. The throbbing in the piñata bobbing around on the top of my neck made me slightly nauseated.
Nauseated, not nauseous. I use that word deliberately.
Never let it be said that I cannot learn something new. As someone who aspires to be a writer, I am always on the lookout for new words and word-related knowledge. Recently, it became illuminated for me the difference between 'nauseated' and 'nauseous'. Shocking, I know, that I did not know the shading between those two siblings.
Simplifying a bit, but it turns out, that to be 'nauseated' means to be feeling sick to the stomach, i.e. inclined to vomit. 'Nauseous', on the other hand, means to cause feelings of nausea, i.e. something revolting or physically disturbing.
A very fine line, would you say? Me, too. Admittedly the latest dictionaries seem to indicate that over time, the usage of 'nauseous' to mean the feeling of sickness rather than the cause of sickness has become so commonplace that the two words are near interchangeable. So for years, I had been saying "I feel nauseous" when what I really meant was "I feel nauseated".
The realization made me nauseated. Heehee.
So when I sat down to write today, trying to think through the fog of fatigue, forgetfulness and headache, the only thing looping through this weird brain of mine was a riff on the new thing I learned. That is about as good as it was going to get, seeing as I lost another essay idea to the void.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, left me a little...nauseated.
Except for one little detail. My bedside notebook had gone AWOL. Not in the drawer, not on the nightstand, not even on the floor beside the bed. I told myself that I would remember in the morning, but you can guess how well that turned out.
Upon awakening this morning I found myself in possession of a low-grade headache. It started in the base of my skull and wrapped itself around the left side of my brain, edging its way into the frontal lobe. Manageable in the morning, by late afternoon it would balloon into quite a whopper. Like someone was beating it with a stick.
A fine sandwich for lunch had no effect on it. Pain medicine? Pffft. My go-to solution of taking a nap was of no help. In fact, when I arose from the nap, my head felt even worse. The throbbing in the piñata bobbing around on the top of my neck made me slightly nauseated.
Nauseated, not nauseous. I use that word deliberately.
Never let it be said that I cannot learn something new. As someone who aspires to be a writer, I am always on the lookout for new words and word-related knowledge. Recently, it became illuminated for me the difference between 'nauseated' and 'nauseous'. Shocking, I know, that I did not know the shading between those two siblings.
Simplifying a bit, but it turns out, that to be 'nauseated' means to be feeling sick to the stomach, i.e. inclined to vomit. 'Nauseous', on the other hand, means to cause feelings of nausea, i.e. something revolting or physically disturbing.
A very fine line, would you say? Me, too. Admittedly the latest dictionaries seem to indicate that over time, the usage of 'nauseous' to mean the feeling of sickness rather than the cause of sickness has become so commonplace that the two words are near interchangeable. So for years, I had been saying "I feel nauseous" when what I really meant was "I feel nauseated".
The realization made me nauseated. Heehee.
So when I sat down to write today, trying to think through the fog of fatigue, forgetfulness and headache, the only thing looping through this weird brain of mine was a riff on the new thing I learned. That is about as good as it was going to get, seeing as I lost another essay idea to the void.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, left me a little...nauseated.
26 September 2013
If Only I Could Stop...
If ever I would stop thinking about music and politics,Yeah, well there is the problem. I can't stop thinking about music and politics, even when I so desperately desire it. Part of that is just my own weirdness, part of it is the incessant yammering of pop culture and social media not giving it a rest. There is so much going on that I feel compelled to comment on, so many distractions, I cannot get it together. If I was paid for each reaction I have to the latest nuggets about gun control, Kanye West, Syria, or Miley Cyrus, I'd probably be wealthy enough to be "financially independent".
I would tell you that music is the expression of emotion
And that politics is merely the decoy of perception.*
But I am not paid for my exertions. Thus, I am not wealthy in that regard.
I have been silent for weeks now because I am overwhelmed by the blathering that passes for discourse in our shared media environment. So many things I could comment on, but I do not have the time or energy. So I'll leave it to the pundits, talking heads and chattering masses. Politics lately is making me tired, and music, well, music is making me slightly sad.
Do-nothings and twerking are not the breakfast of champions. Right now, so much has been said by others I feel there is nothing I can add without shrieking or weeping. And no one, especially me, wants to see that debacle.
I believe this state of affairs exists because of the tensions that bind me. Politics I can ignore to no great harm to my psyche, but music means too much to just set it aside. Coupled with my obsessions about food, I am all set to be uneasy in the media environment these days.
So, I won't use this post to rant about music and politics. As to food, let me say that I have been thinking about it in the gaps where I was not thinking about music and politics. About what other people are eating, what I want to eat and where I can get it. This has given me the urge to write about food, which I must say I have been doing, just not here.
And that is a story for another time. I'll keep you posted on that score.
Suffice to say that all this mental meandering has left me in quite a state. Thinking about food often leads me to thinking about travel, because much of what I am curious to eat is better experienced in its native surroundings. Plus, there are people I want to meet in those places I want to eat. Here, there, and everywhere, food is often better when shared. My difficulty in traveling, meeting and eating is that difficulty common to the modern era: the lack of time and money.
So what is this all about? Ladies and gentlemen and those in between, I really do not know. This ramble of mine had no specific agenda, I simply felt the need to communicate to you where I my head and heart seem to be. Where they are, is somewhere between the poles and the equator, wishing I could break bread with you all.
That, and wishing I could stop thinking about music and politics.
*Lyrics quoted from "Music and Politics" by The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy
17 January 2013
On What We Could Be Doing
Dear readers, I know my posting of things has been rather sparse, and for that I offer my regrets. The usual suspects are involved: life events, job search pressures, the endless search for food and revenue. I do not offer them as excuses, only factors. But those factors alone do not account for my relative silence.
No, it is more. Two things at odds with each other.
It is the Buddhist idea of "mindfulness" versus the overbearing, seemingly endless paranoia and violence of the culture surrounding me in these here United States. I'm at a bit of impasse as to how to resolve the tension. It is giving me tremendous food for thought, yet stifling my creativity and energy.
I am trying to practice mindfulness (the awareness of one's body, one's feelings, one's thoughts and perceptions, and consciousness itself), because I am becoming aware of how it may help me in my quest for inner peace. It helps me realize peace and appreciate beauty in ways that escaped me as a younger man.
But it has made me more aware...of everything. Or almost everything. This means that the overload of information from events over the past two or so years, such as vitriolic politics seemingly devoid of reason and the horrific acts of gun violence (and the continued willfully irrational fallout from both) have strained my internal resources close to the point of non-functioning.
This makes me sad.
When I consider all the wonderful things we could be doing with our time, like caring more for our fellow humans, creating beauty, working constructively for a better future for all of us in this supposedly free society in contrast to what actually happens (violence, hatred, partisanship)...I lose energy and motivation.
There is much beauty to be had, love to be shared, yet we spend our time building walls, digging trenches and tearing down others. So many advantages and blessings, squandered.
Bah. It is winter and I am feeling tired. I am mindful of that, and know that it will pass. Perhaps the practice of mindfulness will teach me to celebrate what I can do, rather than mourn what others cannot seem to do. This is my hope.
No, it is more. Two things at odds with each other.
It is the Buddhist idea of "mindfulness" versus the overbearing, seemingly endless paranoia and violence of the culture surrounding me in these here United States. I'm at a bit of impasse as to how to resolve the tension. It is giving me tremendous food for thought, yet stifling my creativity and energy.
I am trying to practice mindfulness (the awareness of one's body, one's feelings, one's thoughts and perceptions, and consciousness itself), because I am becoming aware of how it may help me in my quest for inner peace. It helps me realize peace and appreciate beauty in ways that escaped me as a younger man.
But it has made me more aware...of everything. Or almost everything. This means that the overload of information from events over the past two or so years, such as vitriolic politics seemingly devoid of reason and the horrific acts of gun violence (and the continued willfully irrational fallout from both) have strained my internal resources close to the point of non-functioning.
This makes me sad.
When I consider all the wonderful things we could be doing with our time, like caring more for our fellow humans, creating beauty, working constructively for a better future for all of us in this supposedly free society in contrast to what actually happens (violence, hatred, partisanship)...I lose energy and motivation.
There is much beauty to be had, love to be shared, yet we spend our time building walls, digging trenches and tearing down others. So many advantages and blessings, squandered.
Bah. It is winter and I am feeling tired. I am mindful of that, and know that it will pass. Perhaps the practice of mindfulness will teach me to celebrate what I can do, rather than mourn what others cannot seem to do. This is my hope.
05 December 2012
Sleeping Dogs In My Head
Crash! Clang! Bang the lids
Warbling yelps, claws scratch hardwood
while bastard me laughs
Warbling yelps, claws scratch hardwood
while bastard me laughs
21 July 2012
Devil's Hatband
Hot. Hot like the hell. Another round of temperatures exceeding the 100° mark, and it looks like we are headed for 110° in the next two days or so. Folks are predicting new records for the KCMO area. I am inclined to believe them. This is heat I haven't felt for some time, and never for so long. The yard is turning into brown chaff faster than sprinklers can restore it. When I look out the window I sigh and shake my head.
"There is nothing to be done," intones the hollow voice in my head. We water, we "tsktsk", we wonder: when will it rain? Rain enough to make a difference? I grow tired of waiting.
Drought conditions persist, not enough work, water or money. August is approaching. This means I am facing ten months without an architecture job of which to speak. This means that the rain has stopped. The cisterns such as I had are swiftly draining. I can see the bottoms now, this makes me very nervous. I have lost my rain-making juju. This vexes me greatly.
The lake level has dropped, you can see the stumps now. There is baked mud where used to be pond weed and lilies, frogs and fish. The trails of dying fish can be seen in the hard grey earth of the dry bottom. They flipped and flopped, gasping for air in the heat, perhaps not comprehending their fate. I can only know by imagination what they felt. The idea of suffocating in air, gills drying out, tongue blackening, is truly unsettling. I don't know it physically. I do know it mentally. My bad dreams have shown me the path into the desert.
Grim, I know. Not the sort of thing we really enjoy discussing in polite company. I try to avoid inflicting these inner terrors on those around me, and those for whom I care. I am, as you may have noticed, not a complete success in that endeavor. Witness the words I spill for you now.
I stepped out in the heat today, on multiple occasions. There were errands to run, lunch to be had, sprinklers to be adjusted. While I was out, I saw that the flower bed at the front of the house was suffering an incursion of pesky grasses and bindweed. This was a bit much for me, having been parked in front of my computer trying to piece together some fragmented areas of my domestic life. I was in an ornery state. The agitation arising from my contemplation of the figuratively disappearing lake spurred me into action. The grasses and the weeds, they didn't stand a chance.
I ripped. I pulled. I tore out handfuls of vegetation, reveling in the discharge of energy. It felt good to flex and move. The heat made me sweat profusely, but even that felt invigorating. As is often the case, the distraction of a well-defined task allowed my mind to let go of some Stuff. This freed it up in turn to contemplate some Things. Things like that slowly evaporating lake in my mind.
If the idea of vanishing water and sun-baked stumps seemed bleak, the lower level of the lake also presented opportunities. That which was once hidden by the murky water was now coming to light again. What used to be wreckage could now be salvaged. Ideas and ambitions, hopes and fears, exposed again to the light of the day-mind. Now I could wade into the shallows and drag them back to higher ground. Something good could be reclaimed from things I believed to be lost.
Cool water splashes on my calves and back. In my peregrinations around the flowerbed, I had wandered into the arc of the sprinkler out in the yard. The shock of the water reminded me by contrast, of the heat. The mirage in my head popped out of existence and I came back to this world. The sun burned like a plasma cutter and I heard the voice of my father saying "It's hotter than the Devil's hatband out there!"
I wipe the sting from my eyes. There was curse making its way to the tip of my tongue, but I swear I could taste a little lake water there, so I bite back on the epithets. The Devil's hatband might as well be on my brow, the sweat pouring down my face in direct contradiction to the drought all around me. The drought, though, seems less threatening. It's change that creates difficulties which can be hard to overcome. Still, with change comes opportunity. The heat may brown the grass and dry the leaves, but this time I'll save the seeds I've gathered, in anticipation of the rains I know will surely come.
01 June 2012
What Are Words For?
Not much for me to offer right now. Sorry about that, dear readers. The thing that brought me to the keyboard, to write, is that today was the first day of June, 2012. Hardly anything of significance, but I had this nagging anxiety about letting the first day of the new month pass by with nothing to show for it. My very anemic output in May had something to do with this I am sure. I feel itchy and anxious when I have written too little.
Neil Gaiman said something to the effect that if you only write when you are inspired, you might make a decent poet but you won't succeed as novelist. I think a little of that may be at work on me, even though I have never had any serious claim to being a novelist.
I'd like to be a novelist. The editing exercises I have indulged in this week have planted some doubts in my head as to whether that is possible for me. I have written a few substantial short stories and a lot of really short stories, even a lot of what I guess might be called flash fiction, too. Or maybe mini-stories? The file I have compiled of the short fiction is approaching 120 pages and over 64,000 words, but it is in no way a novel. Or a novella. Or a truly definable group of long short stories.
But I am not done yet. I have another short story I need to edit, and a connected series of them I need to stitch into one longer version. Then there is the memoirs I have collected, mostly related to my experiences of 2003 with the twins and the NICU, in a separate file. Then I need to start on the slice-of-life stuff I have written...
...then the stuff I don't even know how to classify...
The glaring trait that leaped out at me today, in the midst of reading through my back catalog, is that I don't have a specific genre I most closely identify with. It is the jack-of-all-trades phenomenon rearing its head. So what to do? I observe, I think, I overhear, I experience. I get ideas and then the chatter starts in my head so I write it down. Sometimes it comes out as fiction, sometimes non-fiction, sometimes a blur of the two.
I don't know what to do with it all. This troubles me. Trying to sort it all out is a full-time job on its own. And I still want to write for the sake of writing! Time, please!
Oh, and another thing. I went through every single one of the 906 previous posts of mine, in the last two-and-a-half days. This was to sort out and identify the pure fiction pieces I wanted to collate. What I noticed is that over the course of time from October 2008 to the present is that my fiction output tapered off dramatically through 2011 to now, dwindling in frequency and in length. I don't know if that is a function of decreasing energy or attention span, but it made me uneasy.
What is becoming of the world if I cannot find more good stories in it?
My challenge is to find the inspiration for new stories and the discipline to write them even when I do not feel like writing. I must work at the writing, so the writing will work for me. So it is written, so it must be.
Neil Gaiman said something to the effect that if you only write when you are inspired, you might make a decent poet but you won't succeed as novelist. I think a little of that may be at work on me, even though I have never had any serious claim to being a novelist.
I'd like to be a novelist. The editing exercises I have indulged in this week have planted some doubts in my head as to whether that is possible for me. I have written a few substantial short stories and a lot of really short stories, even a lot of what I guess might be called flash fiction, too. Or maybe mini-stories? The file I have compiled of the short fiction is approaching 120 pages and over 64,000 words, but it is in no way a novel. Or a novella. Or a truly definable group of long short stories.
But I am not done yet. I have another short story I need to edit, and a connected series of them I need to stitch into one longer version. Then there is the memoirs I have collected, mostly related to my experiences of 2003 with the twins and the NICU, in a separate file. Then I need to start on the slice-of-life stuff I have written...
...then the stuff I don't even know how to classify...
The glaring trait that leaped out at me today, in the midst of reading through my back catalog, is that I don't have a specific genre I most closely identify with. It is the jack-of-all-trades phenomenon rearing its head. So what to do? I observe, I think, I overhear, I experience. I get ideas and then the chatter starts in my head so I write it down. Sometimes it comes out as fiction, sometimes non-fiction, sometimes a blur of the two.
I don't know what to do with it all. This troubles me. Trying to sort it all out is a full-time job on its own. And I still want to write for the sake of writing! Time, please!
Oh, and another thing. I went through every single one of the 906 previous posts of mine, in the last two-and-a-half days. This was to sort out and identify the pure fiction pieces I wanted to collate. What I noticed is that over the course of time from October 2008 to the present is that my fiction output tapered off dramatically through 2011 to now, dwindling in frequency and in length. I don't know if that is a function of decreasing energy or attention span, but it made me uneasy.
What is becoming of the world if I cannot find more good stories in it?
My challenge is to find the inspiration for new stories and the discipline to write them even when I do not feel like writing. I must work at the writing, so the writing will work for me. So it is written, so it must be.
29 May 2012
The Fields Are Ripe With Grain
As a testament to my distraction, I finally noticed today that, in the month of May, I had only posted twice to this here soapbox I call Irish Gumbo. A pity, really. Judging by the torrent of thoughts and ideas rushing through my noggin these past twenty-nine days I would have guessed my real output to have been much higher. Alas, that is not the case.
I haven't met my usual standard, methinks. Much of my writing occurs in my head, long before it hits the page, digital or otherwise, but it still makes it to some form of reality. The month of May has been for my writing self a mirage. A phantom. A figment. There has been much to say. I have created fiction, non-fiction and that intersection of the two called real life. Short stories, novellas, novels, anthologies, all have been cranked out in my Gutenberg mind.
Sadly, dear readers, as you can tell this fecundity has not made it to the page. The noise and clatter of the world has pulled me away from my explorations, and I regret that I have not set aside more time to the transcription of the stories in my overheated mind.
There has been intense and prolonged change in my world, stretched out over months. I have moved long distances physically, emotionally and spiritually. I have questioned many things in my life, seeking right answers to very hard questions. I have sought to overcome a stretch of unemployment that has now run close to eight months. Mentally, I am in a high state of attenuation, my mind and heart strings over the fretboard.
A chance encounter with a local bookstore/small printing house owner delivered unto me the opportunity to perhaps have some of my work professionally edited and printed, ideally in a small run. The past two days, I have had the good fortune to devote long stretches to editing my own writing.The effort I have been blessed to expend has left me with a sense of nervous excitement at the possibilities that may open up before me. This is a good thing, and perhaps the closest I have come yet to really being published.
What I need is time. I need more time. I haven't thought this big in a long time, and I don't want to stop. But time is crucial. It is not an infinite resource for those of us fated to walk this mortal coil; the imperative is to make the most of the moment before us. This I want to do, dear ones. I have to make the most of this moment of 'compilation' even if it means 'creation' must temporarily rest.
I want to make beautiful things, my lovelies. Creation is sustenance. Never in my life has it come so clear to me that now is the time to make what I want to do and what I need to do coincide. Wish me luck.
I haven't met my usual standard, methinks. Much of my writing occurs in my head, long before it hits the page, digital or otherwise, but it still makes it to some form of reality. The month of May has been for my writing self a mirage. A phantom. A figment. There has been much to say. I have created fiction, non-fiction and that intersection of the two called real life. Short stories, novellas, novels, anthologies, all have been cranked out in my Gutenberg mind.
Sadly, dear readers, as you can tell this fecundity has not made it to the page. The noise and clatter of the world has pulled me away from my explorations, and I regret that I have not set aside more time to the transcription of the stories in my overheated mind.
There has been intense and prolonged change in my world, stretched out over months. I have moved long distances physically, emotionally and spiritually. I have questioned many things in my life, seeking right answers to very hard questions. I have sought to overcome a stretch of unemployment that has now run close to eight months. Mentally, I am in a high state of attenuation, my mind and heart strings over the fretboard.
A chance encounter with a local bookstore/small printing house owner delivered unto me the opportunity to perhaps have some of my work professionally edited and printed, ideally in a small run. The past two days, I have had the good fortune to devote long stretches to editing my own writing.The effort I have been blessed to expend has left me with a sense of nervous excitement at the possibilities that may open up before me. This is a good thing, and perhaps the closest I have come yet to really being published.
What I need is time. I need more time. I haven't thought this big in a long time, and I don't want to stop. But time is crucial. It is not an infinite resource for those of us fated to walk this mortal coil; the imperative is to make the most of the moment before us. This I want to do, dear ones. I have to make the most of this moment of 'compilation' even if it means 'creation' must temporarily rest.
I want to make beautiful things, my lovelies. Creation is sustenance. Never in my life has it come so clear to me that now is the time to make what I want to do and what I need to do coincide. Wish me luck.
18 March 2012
Sunday Meditation #19: Silence and the Saint
Saturday night was a curious mix of sound, celebration and intent. At the local tavern, St. Patrick's Day festivities were in full swing. A block over, in the community hall on the town common, the sounds of what may have been Tejano or mariachi music thumped loudly through my window. I had no desire to be at the tavern and I have no idea what they celebrating at the hall; perhaps a fundraiser or a wedding reception.
I'm pretty sure that the people at the tavern were not really celebrating the life and memory of St. Patrick. I didn't really expect that they would. But still, the thought of faux-Irish music and green beer...well, it gave me no reason to want to be there. As with many "holiday" celebrations in this country (Cinco de Mayo also comes to mind) the rapacious nature of consumer culture turns it into yet another overbearing push involving overindulgence in alcohol and food, stretched taut over a paper-thin surface of incomplete understanding. Green cardboard shamrock hat, anyone?
The other celebration or party, with the music, was more of a puzzle. While I wished they would turn down the volume (too much bass is not cool and only makes my head hurt) I was more interested in the reason for it. If I had not had my daughter with me for the weekend I would have sauntered over to the hall to peek in the windows, see what was going on. I could hear the shouts and squeals of children or young people, so my guess was a big party for family and friends. I don't know if any saints were involved.
Earlier in the evening I had put my daughter to bed after watching one of her favorite shows on the food channel. We had snuggled up on the couch with her collection of stuffed animals, she tucked in under a blanket. She declared that I "made a good footrest," some of the highest praise I've received in the months of my unemployment. We enjoyed our slice of time there, just us, no bother, no worry, no noise and clatter.
That which I truly want to celebrate has no need for the loud and the crass and the intoxicated. As I lay on my bed with the music vibrating through the walls, I wondered what Saint Patrick would really think of this day, and I wondered at my own desire to celebrate something meaningful. Then I had it. The gift I received today was the quiet time with the blood of my blood. Blessings abound in the silence between our words, and I prayed again in gratitude for the quiet.
I'm pretty sure that the people at the tavern were not really celebrating the life and memory of St. Patrick. I didn't really expect that they would. But still, the thought of faux-Irish music and green beer...well, it gave me no reason to want to be there. As with many "holiday" celebrations in this country (Cinco de Mayo also comes to mind) the rapacious nature of consumer culture turns it into yet another overbearing push involving overindulgence in alcohol and food, stretched taut over a paper-thin surface of incomplete understanding. Green cardboard shamrock hat, anyone?
The other celebration or party, with the music, was more of a puzzle. While I wished they would turn down the volume (too much bass is not cool and only makes my head hurt) I was more interested in the reason for it. If I had not had my daughter with me for the weekend I would have sauntered over to the hall to peek in the windows, see what was going on. I could hear the shouts and squeals of children or young people, so my guess was a big party for family and friends. I don't know if any saints were involved.
Earlier in the evening I had put my daughter to bed after watching one of her favorite shows on the food channel. We had snuggled up on the couch with her collection of stuffed animals, she tucked in under a blanket. She declared that I "made a good footrest," some of the highest praise I've received in the months of my unemployment. We enjoyed our slice of time there, just us, no bother, no worry, no noise and clatter.
That which I truly want to celebrate has no need for the loud and the crass and the intoxicated. As I lay on my bed with the music vibrating through the walls, I wondered what Saint Patrick would really think of this day, and I wondered at my own desire to celebrate something meaningful. Then I had it. The gift I received today was the quiet time with the blood of my blood. Blessings abound in the silence between our words, and I prayed again in gratitude for the quiet.
05 February 2012
Sunday Meditation #15: A Bowl Too Big for the Masher
It is a snowy, wet evening. The night before the biggest annual sporting event in America, and I am walking the local mall with my dear daughter in tow. The Super Bowl is far down on my list of things to ponder; we are in search of that which may have more import for me and the Wee Lass. We are looking for a potato masher and some brownie mix. Tomorrow is a big day: we want to make brownies.
We eat dinner and set out for the kitchen wares store, the type that has an extensive selection of finely made stuff, and the overheated price tags to match. I had in mind the masher I wanted. Heavy duty, sturdy, preferably stainless steel. The kind with a flat, perforated disk attached to thick bars and a solid handle. I have never possessed such an instrument. Having read reviews and done research, the disk type seems an excellent choice.
The store has an excellent selection of mashers of various types. Wee Lass enthusiastically joined in the search, bringing me various mashers she took delight in finding on the racks. The low end started at $20, a coil type that seemed bizarre. Next up was a rubber handle/metal shaft, also at $20. Then, solid metal at $25. None was the disk type. Then I found it: chromed stainless, holey disk, Swiss. Almost like a fine watch.
It was $45. Forty-five dollars.
I admit, I balked. It was indeed a very fine tool. Well-made. Sturdy. A Ferrari among the Hondas, as it were. In my state of jobless-induced fiscal austerity, out of my league at the moment. I wistfully placed the masher back on the rack, telling my daughter we might have better luck with brownie mix.
We found the brownie mix. Tastefully done packaging, extolling the delights of fine dark chocolate and the creators' passion for excellence in baked goods. Handsome fellows wearing aprons on the box photo, beaming over a plate of what surely must be brownie nirvana.
Nirvana, at $17 a box. I silently put enlightenment back on the shelf. My sigh was audible. I told her I would look for a likely recipe on the Internet, or in my collection of food-related books at home. She smiled and said okay. Before leaving the mall, she and I strolled over to a nearby department store, whereupon I found a serviceable thickset silicone masher of the disk type. Price? Nine bucks.
Sold.
Purchase tucked under arm, we wended through the mall on our way back to the car and home. Wee Lass strolled along beside me, we laughed and chatted. But I had this moment of clarity, a voice speaking quietly but firmly in my head as we passed all the new stores full of shiny things we may want but do not necessarily need. Stores crammed full of things that here pass for ordinary, but would be luxuries in many places on earth. People buying, people jonesing for stuff as the voice said: When did we as a society come to want so much, and why? When did we lose perspective on content over form, value over cost, truth over hype?
I thought of the impending Super Bowl, a contest which, in all candor, makes me yawn but which much of the nation seems to treat as a secular holiday. Full of hype, of noise and blather, of aggression and over-indulgence. A spectacle that I as an American am supposed to want watch just because its, well, the SUPER BOWL!
But I don't. I enjoy a good sporting contest, but this just seems like an over-blown aggrandizement of the many negative traits of consumer culture. The real kicker for me, the one that made me wonder about the pop culture my daughter will grow up in, be surrounded by, and possibly be made to feel like an alien if she doesn't care to participate in it...is that even the commercials get just as much publicity as the game. The commercials, for crying out loud! People actually say the only reason they watch the Super Bowl is for the commercials. 30 seconds, millions of dollars, all for the purpose of getting us to buy stuff.
For some reason this made me sad and anxious. Those thoughts, and my humbling search for a simple potato masher, left me feeling a sense of dislocation like I was an alien among a different tribe. I reached for the only antidote I could think of at the time: I took my daughter by the hand, and we walked out into the snowy night, marveling at the fat flakes falling from the sky. She laughed to catch one on her tongue, and so did I. It was then I felt closer to home and okay in my affinity for simplicity. Tomorrow, we would make brownies from scratch and know that they are good.
Epilogue: Wee Lass and I spent some time discussing the merits of spending $45 dollars versus $9 dollars on a potato masher. I did my best to explain the difference between the 'value' and the 'cost' of an item. She did me proud when she nodded her head and said "The plastic one will do for now, and you can get a better one later when you have more money!" Well said. At home, I dug out my copy of the compendium 'Cook's Illustrated 2004'. Lo and behold, there was a recipe for brownies. From scratch, simple, and just what I needed. And more for less.
We eat dinner and set out for the kitchen wares store, the type that has an extensive selection of finely made stuff, and the overheated price tags to match. I had in mind the masher I wanted. Heavy duty, sturdy, preferably stainless steel. The kind with a flat, perforated disk attached to thick bars and a solid handle. I have never possessed such an instrument. Having read reviews and done research, the disk type seems an excellent choice.
The store has an excellent selection of mashers of various types. Wee Lass enthusiastically joined in the search, bringing me various mashers she took delight in finding on the racks. The low end started at $20, a coil type that seemed bizarre. Next up was a rubber handle/metal shaft, also at $20. Then, solid metal at $25. None was the disk type. Then I found it: chromed stainless, holey disk, Swiss. Almost like a fine watch.
It was $45. Forty-five dollars.
I admit, I balked. It was indeed a very fine tool. Well-made. Sturdy. A Ferrari among the Hondas, as it were. In my state of jobless-induced fiscal austerity, out of my league at the moment. I wistfully placed the masher back on the rack, telling my daughter we might have better luck with brownie mix.
We found the brownie mix. Tastefully done packaging, extolling the delights of fine dark chocolate and the creators' passion for excellence in baked goods. Handsome fellows wearing aprons on the box photo, beaming over a plate of what surely must be brownie nirvana.
Nirvana, at $17 a box. I silently put enlightenment back on the shelf. My sigh was audible. I told her I would look for a likely recipe on the Internet, or in my collection of food-related books at home. She smiled and said okay. Before leaving the mall, she and I strolled over to a nearby department store, whereupon I found a serviceable thickset silicone masher of the disk type. Price? Nine bucks.
Sold.
Purchase tucked under arm, we wended through the mall on our way back to the car and home. Wee Lass strolled along beside me, we laughed and chatted. But I had this moment of clarity, a voice speaking quietly but firmly in my head as we passed all the new stores full of shiny things we may want but do not necessarily need. Stores crammed full of things that here pass for ordinary, but would be luxuries in many places on earth. People buying, people jonesing for stuff as the voice said: When did we as a society come to want so much, and why? When did we lose perspective on content over form, value over cost, truth over hype?
I thought of the impending Super Bowl, a contest which, in all candor, makes me yawn but which much of the nation seems to treat as a secular holiday. Full of hype, of noise and blather, of aggression and over-indulgence. A spectacle that I as an American am supposed to want watch just because its, well, the SUPER BOWL!
But I don't. I enjoy a good sporting contest, but this just seems like an over-blown aggrandizement of the many negative traits of consumer culture. The real kicker for me, the one that made me wonder about the pop culture my daughter will grow up in, be surrounded by, and possibly be made to feel like an alien if she doesn't care to participate in it...is that even the commercials get just as much publicity as the game. The commercials, for crying out loud! People actually say the only reason they watch the Super Bowl is for the commercials. 30 seconds, millions of dollars, all for the purpose of getting us to buy stuff.
For some reason this made me sad and anxious. Those thoughts, and my humbling search for a simple potato masher, left me feeling a sense of dislocation like I was an alien among a different tribe. I reached for the only antidote I could think of at the time: I took my daughter by the hand, and we walked out into the snowy night, marveling at the fat flakes falling from the sky. She laughed to catch one on her tongue, and so did I. It was then I felt closer to home and okay in my affinity for simplicity. Tomorrow, we would make brownies from scratch and know that they are good.
Epilogue: Wee Lass and I spent some time discussing the merits of spending $45 dollars versus $9 dollars on a potato masher. I did my best to explain the difference between the 'value' and the 'cost' of an item. She did me proud when she nodded her head and said "The plastic one will do for now, and you can get a better one later when you have more money!" Well said. At home, I dug out my copy of the compendium 'Cook's Illustrated 2004'. Lo and behold, there was a recipe for brownies. From scratch, simple, and just what I needed. And more for less.
04 December 2011
Sunday Meditation #10: Bellum Terra
Slightly troubled thoughts today, while completing chores and contemplating the world in which I live. I have experienced unease and discord in disconcerting amounts, not by design but by circumstance. A side effect, perhaps, of too much television and Internet. The world is an unsettled place and it seeps in if we are not careful.
I considered this in my own mind, as I barked a curse at an inattentive driver today on the road. I was running an errand on my way to lunch. Hunger and impatience getting the best of me. The temper flared and I said something that induced in me mild regret. I know better that what I do, sometimes, yet I have been unable to entirely refrain from anger, spite, and irritation at my fellow humans.
Amusing, perhaps. That ideal behavior is something we expect from pacifists and clergy folk, monks and nuns. I am far from being any of those exemplars, yet I often expect myself to act as one. I sometimes actively wish for the patience and beatitude one expects of saints. Occasionally I manage the trick, if ever so briefly. The sensation often catches me by surprise. Alas, my self-awareness of it is the finger touching the soap bubble and POP! it is gone.
Ah, I am digressing, in my own meditation. Why does all of this matter? What is the cause of this discord? It occurred to me today, after reading too much news and inanity in the Internet, that much of it springs from the feeling that we live in a Land of War, an American bellum Terra. Aggression is built into our culture, our patriotism, our propriety towards nations and neighbors. Everything, even the simple act of our daily existence, is framed in terms of war, conflict, and competition. The prevailing militancy and mean-spiritedness has turned everything into fight for survival, even when it is no such thing.
I meditated today on my own expressions of aggression. I realized I had allowed the pettiness and selfishness of a few to infect and disrupt my own better nature. I understood that some of the nameless dissatisfaction and formless irritation I felt was because I let it affect me. I did something simple to reset my head.
I cut the grass in my yard.
For thirty-five minutes, nothing more was demanded of me than to push, cut, turn, and repeat. It was a cool morning, and I warmed up quickly as I let myself be taken up by the task. The working of muscles, the meter of the breathing, the intake of fresh morning air into my lungs: this integration of mind and body brought me back together much like that moment at which the camera lens spins into focus, and the image is sharp before the eye. I needed the physical action to knock my mental actions back onto a better track.
When I was done, I returned indoors and rested a bit. My gut had relaxed, my mind was no longer roiled. I felt a slight pang of shame in that I had allowed the world at large to pull me away from my better nature. But I also felt so much better that I was able to come back. The world, and the people in it, can make you mean, to be sure. As to myself, lesson learned. Serenity takes work, too, and it does not pay to let the selfish, the hateful, and the uncaring dictate the course of our actions.
I will never be a saint. This is okay, I don't want to be a saint. What I do want is to be a placidis hominum, (peaceful human) to those I love and those I meet. In the land of war, peace is water for thirsty soil, and I have much to grow.
I considered this in my own mind, as I barked a curse at an inattentive driver today on the road. I was running an errand on my way to lunch. Hunger and impatience getting the best of me. The temper flared and I said something that induced in me mild regret. I know better that what I do, sometimes, yet I have been unable to entirely refrain from anger, spite, and irritation at my fellow humans.
Amusing, perhaps. That ideal behavior is something we expect from pacifists and clergy folk, monks and nuns. I am far from being any of those exemplars, yet I often expect myself to act as one. I sometimes actively wish for the patience and beatitude one expects of saints. Occasionally I manage the trick, if ever so briefly. The sensation often catches me by surprise. Alas, my self-awareness of it is the finger touching the soap bubble and POP! it is gone.
Ah, I am digressing, in my own meditation. Why does all of this matter? What is the cause of this discord? It occurred to me today, after reading too much news and inanity in the Internet, that much of it springs from the feeling that we live in a Land of War, an American bellum Terra. Aggression is built into our culture, our patriotism, our propriety towards nations and neighbors. Everything, even the simple act of our daily existence, is framed in terms of war, conflict, and competition. The prevailing militancy and mean-spiritedness has turned everything into fight for survival, even when it is no such thing.
I meditated today on my own expressions of aggression. I realized I had allowed the pettiness and selfishness of a few to infect and disrupt my own better nature. I understood that some of the nameless dissatisfaction and formless irritation I felt was because I let it affect me. I did something simple to reset my head.
I cut the grass in my yard.
For thirty-five minutes, nothing more was demanded of me than to push, cut, turn, and repeat. It was a cool morning, and I warmed up quickly as I let myself be taken up by the task. The working of muscles, the meter of the breathing, the intake of fresh morning air into my lungs: this integration of mind and body brought me back together much like that moment at which the camera lens spins into focus, and the image is sharp before the eye. I needed the physical action to knock my mental actions back onto a better track.
When I was done, I returned indoors and rested a bit. My gut had relaxed, my mind was no longer roiled. I felt a slight pang of shame in that I had allowed the world at large to pull me away from my better nature. But I also felt so much better that I was able to come back. The world, and the people in it, can make you mean, to be sure. As to myself, lesson learned. Serenity takes work, too, and it does not pay to let the selfish, the hateful, and the uncaring dictate the course of our actions.
I will never be a saint. This is okay, I don't want to be a saint. What I do want is to be a placidis hominum, (peaceful human) to those I love and those I meet. In the land of war, peace is water for thirsty soil, and I have much to grow.
29 November 2011
Sitting Beside The Tracks, Waiting. The Crickets Hum.
I'm here. Not doing much, but I'm here. Good thing I brought a hat. The November sun hits low in the cool air, but it can still burn me. I am waiting beside the tracks for the train whose number I do not know. I suppose I'll sit here a spell and wait for the shadows to lengthen over the hill. A tunnel bores through the hill like a wide-open vein.
Metaphorically, you understand. The reality is that I am sitting on my couch. Sundown was three hours ago. the quiet in the house is just what I need. I'm a little confused that it is warm enough that I have some windows open to catch the breeze. Post-holiday fatigue has set in, it is a shade lonely here at Casa Del Gumbo.
But I am waiting. That is no metaphor.
I accomplished a lot today. I'll spare your the tedium of my Domestic God triumphs, let's just say a lot of ducks and a lot of rows now march behind me. The two things I did NOT get done, however, weigh on my big noggin. Here's what I did not get done:
1) Find a job.
2) Write something truly edifying.
It's funny, right now I cannot decide which pains me more. I managed to get a resume out the door, but the 22 others behind it? Nothing. As to the writing, dear readers, I'm in a pickle. This is the longest drought I think I've ever had. It has me worried. It also makes me tired.
I have this recurring image in my head of popping a cork from a bottle to pour something, only nothing comes out. Except a puff of air. And the tang of desperation. So, the glass remains empty in this most quiet of Novembers.
It's deep fall in the woods by the river. I hear its murmurs, faint and silvery as they filter up through the barren trees. The rail bed gravel is warm beneath my haunches, a welcome buffer against the slow cooling of the air. The air itself is tinged with watery gold as the sun goes down. The mineral tang of rock embraces the dusty grass aroma of the weeds on the embankment. A soft, steady breath of cold air wafts from the mouth of the tunnel as I peer into the gathering darkness in the middle. The rails, twin seams of polished silver leading to a mouth of gold at the far end of the tunnel. I stare into the gold, eyes owlish with fatigue.
I place my hands on the burnished metal rail in front of me. It trembles ever so faintly, but I cannot tell if a train is coming, or the earth is sighing. I remove my hands, and wait.
Metaphorically, you understand. The reality is that I am sitting on my couch. Sundown was three hours ago. the quiet in the house is just what I need. I'm a little confused that it is warm enough that I have some windows open to catch the breeze. Post-holiday fatigue has set in, it is a shade lonely here at Casa Del Gumbo.
But I am waiting. That is no metaphor.
I accomplished a lot today. I'll spare your the tedium of my Domestic God triumphs, let's just say a lot of ducks and a lot of rows now march behind me. The two things I did NOT get done, however, weigh on my big noggin. Here's what I did not get done:
1) Find a job.
2) Write something truly edifying.
It's funny, right now I cannot decide which pains me more. I managed to get a resume out the door, but the 22 others behind it? Nothing. As to the writing, dear readers, I'm in a pickle. This is the longest drought I think I've ever had. It has me worried. It also makes me tired.
I have this recurring image in my head of popping a cork from a bottle to pour something, only nothing comes out. Except a puff of air. And the tang of desperation. So, the glass remains empty in this most quiet of Novembers.
It's deep fall in the woods by the river. I hear its murmurs, faint and silvery as they filter up through the barren trees. The rail bed gravel is warm beneath my haunches, a welcome buffer against the slow cooling of the air. The air itself is tinged with watery gold as the sun goes down. The mineral tang of rock embraces the dusty grass aroma of the weeds on the embankment. A soft, steady breath of cold air wafts from the mouth of the tunnel as I peer into the gathering darkness in the middle. The rails, twin seams of polished silver leading to a mouth of gold at the far end of the tunnel. I stare into the gold, eyes owlish with fatigue.
I place my hands on the burnished metal rail in front of me. It trembles ever so faintly, but I cannot tell if a train is coming, or the earth is sighing. I remove my hands, and wait.
05 October 2011
Walls Within
An ordinary Tuesday night, and I was mildly bent out of shape over a snippet of douchebaggery I heard about on the news. By now you've probably heard about the mental belch emitted by Hank Williams, Jr. regarding his idiotic and odious comparison of Barack Obama to Hitler. Please note he said he was sorry that the remark offended some people. He didn't say he was sorry to have said it in the first place.
Anyway. This irritation I was feeling threatened to ruin my evening so I pushed myself to think of something else, something more constructive. So I got to thinking about walls.
Walls. The walls we build around ourselves, the ones we build around our hearts and in our minds. To protect and to defend, to keep out the hurt. And which can inadvertently keep out the help.
So as I cooled off and backed away from the rant that was forming in my head, I mused a little more on the walls I'm tearing down and the bridges I will build out of the fortress of my heart. I wondered what it takes to truly overcome the bricks and stones of our souls, and how we return ourselves to the world.
I wondered, how will you tear down your walls, so I can see the true and wonderful you?
Anyway. This irritation I was feeling threatened to ruin my evening so I pushed myself to think of something else, something more constructive. So I got to thinking about walls.
Walls. The walls we build around ourselves, the ones we build around our hearts and in our minds. To protect and to defend, to keep out the hurt. And which can inadvertently keep out the help.
So as I cooled off and backed away from the rant that was forming in my head, I mused a little more on the walls I'm tearing down and the bridges I will build out of the fortress of my heart. I wondered what it takes to truly overcome the bricks and stones of our souls, and how we return ourselves to the world.
I wondered, how will you tear down your walls, so I can see the true and wonderful you?
01 October 2011
Powdered Rusk
September 30th, 2011, 9:55 p.m. The Wee Lass sleeps, I am alone in a cool room. The night surrounds.
It has been a year of posts for me, yesterday, to be exact. 365 days of posting once a day. A record for me I never intended to set, but once it came close I could not stop. It is good exercise, but it has left me exhausted in a creative sense. But I couldn't stop. Perhaps I should take a break, soon, revitalize and get some other things done. Tend to the garden, as it were.
It was made clear to me tonight, as I was wiping down the kitchen counters. I could see some bread crumbs scattered on the laminate, a wheaten corona around the humble silver carcass of my toaster. I realized I had not emptied the crumb tray in weeks, so I moved the toaster towards the leading edge of the counter in order to clean it. I slid the tray from its slot, and was amazed.
Two thin sheets of metal, a forked tongue in the mouth of the miniature dragon that browns my bread. They were obscured by a thick layer of parched crumbs, the detritus of multiple mornings of making toast. I considered briefly storing them in a jar in the vain hope I would remember to use them in a sauce or maybe to coat some fish for frying. But then I remembered how long it had been. There was probably dust in there, and some of the crumbs were so hard it might have been like eating sand. I tossed the crumbs in the rubbish bin, feeling slightly sad.
Those crumbs stayed on my mind as I sat down and tried (not) to write. My mind, a wetware toaster cranking out thoughts golden brown, crispy and hot. My crumb trays are getting full, though, and I need to empty them out. I let you know if I find any thing worth saving, amongst the dry and carbon black bits scattered on the bottom of my mind.
It has been a year of posts for me, yesterday, to be exact. 365 days of posting once a day. A record for me I never intended to set, but once it came close I could not stop. It is good exercise, but it has left me exhausted in a creative sense. But I couldn't stop. Perhaps I should take a break, soon, revitalize and get some other things done. Tend to the garden, as it were.
It was made clear to me tonight, as I was wiping down the kitchen counters. I could see some bread crumbs scattered on the laminate, a wheaten corona around the humble silver carcass of my toaster. I realized I had not emptied the crumb tray in weeks, so I moved the toaster towards the leading edge of the counter in order to clean it. I slid the tray from its slot, and was amazed.
Two thin sheets of metal, a forked tongue in the mouth of the miniature dragon that browns my bread. They were obscured by a thick layer of parched crumbs, the detritus of multiple mornings of making toast. I considered briefly storing them in a jar in the vain hope I would remember to use them in a sauce or maybe to coat some fish for frying. But then I remembered how long it had been. There was probably dust in there, and some of the crumbs were so hard it might have been like eating sand. I tossed the crumbs in the rubbish bin, feeling slightly sad.
Those crumbs stayed on my mind as I sat down and tried (not) to write. My mind, a wetware toaster cranking out thoughts golden brown, crispy and hot. My crumb trays are getting full, though, and I need to empty them out. I let you know if I find any thing worth saving, amongst the dry and carbon black bits scattered on the bottom of my mind.
30 September 2011
Ask and Ye Shall Receive, One Hopes
What would it be like, to not ask questions? To not be curious? There is no time in my life after puberty that I can recall not being inquisitive. I don't mean questioning of the rapid-fire "daddywhyistheskyblue?" type questioning. I've always been a quieter, observe-and-research type asker of questions.
Why do birds do that?
Why do leaves turn red?
How does an eddy form in the water behind a rock?
What do people hear in the music of Kesha that makes them want to listen to it?
Why is the sky blue? (I do known the answer to that one. Now.)
Being a questioner is strongly correlated with being a thinker. And so it is with me. I am wont to think. Lately, I have been thinking a lot about love. Love always brings up questions, does it not? One question that I've been ruminating on a lot is this: Why love?
I'm sure this is a question that we can attempt to answer, we may think we have an answer, but ultimately cannot really be answered. I entertain the notion that rather than try to answer it, it is best to just live it.
Is that enough? Will that do? Tell me, for you: Why love?
Why do birds do that?
Why do leaves turn red?
How does an eddy form in the water behind a rock?
What do people hear in the music of Kesha that makes them want to listen to it?
Why is the sky blue? (I do known the answer to that one. Now.)
Being a questioner is strongly correlated with being a thinker. And so it is with me. I am wont to think. Lately, I have been thinking a lot about love. Love always brings up questions, does it not? One question that I've been ruminating on a lot is this: Why love?
I'm sure this is a question that we can attempt to answer, we may think we have an answer, but ultimately cannot really be answered. I entertain the notion that rather than try to answer it, it is best to just live it.
Is that enough? Will that do? Tell me, for you: Why love?
24 September 2011
Living In The Synapse
An odd phenomenon here on the People's Republic of Gumbolia. I had approached the computer with vigor and purpose, certain I had a gem of story to tell, and when I sat down to write it, it disappeared. This pleases me not. I felt no need to reach for a notebook, because I was convinced the story would make it to the page.
I was wrong. I should have known better.
This happens to me on a regular basis, that I have a great idea, only to have it vanish. Well, who knows if it was great, if I can't write it down for all to see. Not to worry, I suppose. It's Saturday, the weekend is in full swing. Perhaps I'll live a little...then come back to tell the tale.
I was wrong. I should have known better.
This happens to me on a regular basis, that I have a great idea, only to have it vanish. Well, who knows if it was great, if I can't write it down for all to see. Not to worry, I suppose. It's Saturday, the weekend is in full swing. Perhaps I'll live a little...then come back to tell the tale.
20 September 2011
Another Train Song
A busy day for moi, le President-For-Life of the People's Republic of Gumbolia, and I am winding down. It feels good to stop, sometimes, and just rest or let the heart have its lead. A hurried dinner of reheated last night's fettucine Genovese (from a local eatery), then it was out the door to cut the grass before it was too dark to see. I finished my grass cutting adventures tout de suite, and then indulged in the luxury in a little websurfing time wasting. I really hadn't wanted anything more.
I skimmed a lot of stuff, some fluff and some weightier material. It was while reading that I became aware of just how tired I felt, and how quiet the house seemed. The quiet was not unexpected, the weather has been mild enough the past four or so days that the air conditioning has been off the entire time. Open windows and comfortable night air, along with a serenade of crickets. Very serene.
For some reason I began to wonder about an issue that has been nagging me for quite some time, and that in the form of a question:
Why are so much of human relations tied up in the exercise of power?
It deflated me. I felt wearier than before. The deluge of information I had been absorbing, reading the news and op-ed pundits and lifestyle snippets...and it all seems to go back to power. Who has power over whom. Whom is getting power. Exercising power over others as a form of social climbing and ego gratification. Even who has power in that most basic of human relationships: that of being in love.
From those struggling against the ruling power structure, both malignant and benevolent (benevolent, at least, from outward appearances) all the way down to who is trying to leverage whom in bed, the majority of the world seems to be addicted to power: acquiring, enhancing, wielding, amassing.
It never seems to stop. The subtle corrosions of it seem to have infiltrated all levels of human interaction. Some forms of it I can understand and accept, but much of it just makes me sad. I have very little interest in power, and even that is primarily limited to the effort I have to take in order to keep others from exerting too much power over me. And I am ever alert to keeping the taint of it out of the love in my heart.
I feel myself winding down. I'm wearier, in the good way of effort making itself known in the muscles I used to cut my grass. I stopped reading stuff on the web a while ago, just so I could think and listen. Cool night air and sounds soothe me. Off in the distance, across the river, the low hoot of a train horn carries wistfully in the suburban blackness outside my windows. The thrum of the engine backed it up and I closed my eyes, rubbing my temples. I feel my heart begin to lift, carried away on the wheels of steel and the bittersweet promise of another train song, one that lets me know there are places in this universe where Love triumphs over Power. It is a dear wish of mine that one of those places is my heart.
I skimmed a lot of stuff, some fluff and some weightier material. It was while reading that I became aware of just how tired I felt, and how quiet the house seemed. The quiet was not unexpected, the weather has been mild enough the past four or so days that the air conditioning has been off the entire time. Open windows and comfortable night air, along with a serenade of crickets. Very serene.
For some reason I began to wonder about an issue that has been nagging me for quite some time, and that in the form of a question:
Why are so much of human relations tied up in the exercise of power?
It deflated me. I felt wearier than before. The deluge of information I had been absorbing, reading the news and op-ed pundits and lifestyle snippets...and it all seems to go back to power. Who has power over whom. Whom is getting power. Exercising power over others as a form of social climbing and ego gratification. Even who has power in that most basic of human relationships: that of being in love.
From those struggling against the ruling power structure, both malignant and benevolent (benevolent, at least, from outward appearances) all the way down to who is trying to leverage whom in bed, the majority of the world seems to be addicted to power: acquiring, enhancing, wielding, amassing.
It never seems to stop. The subtle corrosions of it seem to have infiltrated all levels of human interaction. Some forms of it I can understand and accept, but much of it just makes me sad. I have very little interest in power, and even that is primarily limited to the effort I have to take in order to keep others from exerting too much power over me. And I am ever alert to keeping the taint of it out of the love in my heart.
I feel myself winding down. I'm wearier, in the good way of effort making itself known in the muscles I used to cut my grass. I stopped reading stuff on the web a while ago, just so I could think and listen. Cool night air and sounds soothe me. Off in the distance, across the river, the low hoot of a train horn carries wistfully in the suburban blackness outside my windows. The thrum of the engine backed it up and I closed my eyes, rubbing my temples. I feel my heart begin to lift, carried away on the wheels of steel and the bittersweet promise of another train song, one that lets me know there are places in this universe where Love triumphs over Power. It is a dear wish of mine that one of those places is my heart.
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