My therapist says I'm vanishing. I wonder is that good or bad... my twenty year high school reunion is at hand. I'm looking forward to seeing people I was not ready to see at ten years. The reunion web site lists in memory my classmates who died in car crashes, drown or whose lungs locked up. I recognize their faces, knew one guy fairly well in high school, but somehow their faces and their deaths haunt me. Certainly others I went to school with have died along with many others much closer to me - my father, uncles, aunts, grandparents, friends.
I'm scared of dying if I'm honest, more scared now that I'm wagering there is no Next... sad there may be nothing next especially now that I have kids. This should make every day, every moment more precious without the distraction of the promise of heavenly blissful, postponement, punishment or reward, right?
I'm feeling less flexible every day, at least physically. I'm putting my head down and working hard knowing it is what it is... I can tell myself it matters and I actually think it does, but what matters more than being with my own kids and the people I love? Rather I spend my energy with others trying to make money to pay the rent, buy bread and maybe a vacation every few years.
I'm not going to buy a stupid phallic sports car or sleep with someone else bored with themselves, but feeling embarrassingly, predictably in the middle of a midlife crisis. I think I've always been in a midlife crisis, but finally approaching midlife.
This is my house (rented), this is my beautiful wife and I'm thankful for both and all that is my rented, borrowed life. Wishing to be more at ease with it all, more prone to laughter, spontaneous song and dance, less drink, more connecting, more conversation, then no conversation, quiet, peppermint tea, a book, the idea of a book, I always fall asleep when reading, but I love the idea of a book, a walk in the misty cool of this early September eve, Summer having already begun to slip as it does every year, giving up the nights first and somewhere betwixt this season and between the next, somewhere between my ribs, betwixt the sky lies the ease I search for, not the easy way out, but the graceful way in, the way into life, this life, my life.
For now, embarrassingly predictable, mundane midlife crisis at hand, complete with all the drama of hallmark made for t.v. after school special. 4 in hand, hole in heart.
Be well. Laugh more. Smile. Enjoy. (as usual, much needed advice to myself)
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
The Magic and the Mundane
I compulsively pick my at my nails, any cut disturbing the smoothness of skin, noting the stuck places, the grooves within.
I pick at the inconsistency or the constancy of thought and emotions rising to the surface as blemishes on the skin of my physical being, signalling my mortality and the magic and mundanity therein.
The magic in my life, any life, to have germinated, divided, mutated quite specifically... to have eyes of this color, hair another, height, weight, width all largely determined by the magic combination of him and her, father and mother, determined, directed then polluted or purified by the magic of a mundane world.
An environment of magic in every moment though seemingly mundane the majority of the time to the human animal who has to pay bills, cook dinner and ride the train to and from work.
Mundane to a red head, blue eye who obsesses with a fictional world within skull and musty gray matter, who picks at the apparent inconsistency or contradicting states of the magical and the mundane, neither state lasting forever, sensing at times it is not either or other, but both and brother, brother and sister, fraternal twins cojoined, twisted at the hip, heads facing different directions, spiralling, gently, wonderfully tame.
A trip to the Safeway, a symphony to the attentive ear - a trip to the casket routine to the undertaker while a profound opening to the son who just lost his father - the trip to Safeway stale and inane to the same son ploughing through the long list of to-do's keeping him from getting to the living somewhere in his future or past where "real" life is, magic life was or will be found, precious life that was/will be inspired and inspiring, life that is not separate from poetry and painting, but is the steady stream of words on page, life paint, drying only slightly less lustrous as when first bled from brush, life bursting with appreciation and wonder, but here I am missing the magic again, running from the mundane, missing that the two are comingled, spiralling, gently standing still to someone half asleep.
I pick at the inconsistency or the constancy of thought and emotions rising to the surface as blemishes on the skin of my physical being, signalling my mortality and the magic and mundanity therein.
The magic in my life, any life, to have germinated, divided, mutated quite specifically... to have eyes of this color, hair another, height, weight, width all largely determined by the magic combination of him and her, father and mother, determined, directed then polluted or purified by the magic of a mundane world.
An environment of magic in every moment though seemingly mundane the majority of the time to the human animal who has to pay bills, cook dinner and ride the train to and from work.
Mundane to a red head, blue eye who obsesses with a fictional world within skull and musty gray matter, who picks at the apparent inconsistency or contradicting states of the magical and the mundane, neither state lasting forever, sensing at times it is not either or other, but both and brother, brother and sister, fraternal twins cojoined, twisted at the hip, heads facing different directions, spiralling, gently, wonderfully tame.
A trip to the Safeway, a symphony to the attentive ear - a trip to the casket routine to the undertaker while a profound opening to the son who just lost his father - the trip to Safeway stale and inane to the same son ploughing through the long list of to-do's keeping him from getting to the living somewhere in his future or past where "real" life is, magic life was or will be found, precious life that was/will be inspired and inspiring, life that is not separate from poetry and painting, but is the steady stream of words on page, life paint, drying only slightly less lustrous as when first bled from brush, life bursting with appreciation and wonder, but here I am missing the magic again, running from the mundane, missing that the two are comingled, spiralling, gently standing still to someone half asleep.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Ode to Ollie ~ May 1991 - May 2008
17 years ago almost to the day, Ollie was born and joined my life or my life joined hers.
Named errantly a boy after Ollie's frozen custard stand outside Dekalb, IL truly a girl when heat unfurled all the furry that comes with a cat coming of age.
From Crawford's Dekalb to my Dekalb, to Palos to Bartlet, IL, to Fresno, CA, to Clovis, CA, to Seattle (Kirkland), WA, to Palos Hts, IL, to Boulder, CO, to Longmont, CO, to Naperville, IL, to rest once more.
17 years she walked with me, caused trouble, if trouble includes taking meat left unattended from the counter, waking you in the tired night, more tired once kids already disturbed the sacred quite, biting from time to time, once down to the ankle bone, provoked or unprovoked, who is to say?
She briefly had a brother, first week together she bit Max in the neck in CA and 17 stitches later he was back at home, a little more respectful of his older sister. I had to separate them later in Seattle.
She ran face first into big dogs, German Shepherds, Retrievers, she was 23-0-01 with Duchess the nasty cat in Boulder, pet to the Turks downstairs - she never tangled with big orange, not for his size, but what was in his quite eyes, psycho as she might have been, Ollie was not dumb.
And now as I type, I'm just starting to consider that she is really gone... she disappeared last weekend either dead in our house or out in the world at large... I like the latter... she stepped back into the mystery that precedes what I know of her... just weeks ago R. Nadim said quite sad, "what would our house be without Ollie?" Just nights ago T dreamt that Ollie was dead and now most likely she is.
I like to think she waited for the door to crack so she could slip back into the mystery, the before now, the before thyroid thirst, the before deaf days and rail thin body, food hard to keep down days.
17 years she invested in my life, seemingly without choice. She comforted me time and time again, she packed her bags and traversed the country as I searched for myself, Ollie always ready to settle into my lap, not sure what I was looking for, but ready to comfort me.
Rest well Ollie where ever your head rests tonight. Our house is emptier without you, my heart heavy at the loss of looking to the chair where you sat more and more, heavy, asleep yet lighter and lighter. Be well good friend. I hope I provided some comfort to you.
God's speed.
Named errantly a boy after Ollie's frozen custard stand outside Dekalb, IL truly a girl when heat unfurled all the furry that comes with a cat coming of age.
From Crawford's Dekalb to my Dekalb, to Palos to Bartlet, IL, to Fresno, CA, to Clovis, CA, to Seattle (Kirkland), WA, to Palos Hts, IL, to Boulder, CO, to Longmont, CO, to Naperville, IL, to rest once more.
17 years she walked with me, caused trouble, if trouble includes taking meat left unattended from the counter, waking you in the tired night, more tired once kids already disturbed the sacred quite, biting from time to time, once down to the ankle bone, provoked or unprovoked, who is to say?
She briefly had a brother, first week together she bit Max in the neck in CA and 17 stitches later he was back at home, a little more respectful of his older sister. I had to separate them later in Seattle.
She ran face first into big dogs, German Shepherds, Retrievers, she was 23-0-01 with Duchess the nasty cat in Boulder, pet to the Turks downstairs - she never tangled with big orange, not for his size, but what was in his quite eyes, psycho as she might have been, Ollie was not dumb.
And now as I type, I'm just starting to consider that she is really gone... she disappeared last weekend either dead in our house or out in the world at large... I like the latter... she stepped back into the mystery that precedes what I know of her... just weeks ago R. Nadim said quite sad, "what would our house be without Ollie?" Just nights ago T dreamt that Ollie was dead and now most likely she is.
I like to think she waited for the door to crack so she could slip back into the mystery, the before now, the before thyroid thirst, the before deaf days and rail thin body, food hard to keep down days.
17 years she invested in my life, seemingly without choice. She comforted me time and time again, she packed her bags and traversed the country as I searched for myself, Ollie always ready to settle into my lap, not sure what I was looking for, but ready to comfort me.
Rest well Ollie where ever your head rests tonight. Our house is emptier without you, my heart heavy at the loss of looking to the chair where you sat more and more, heavy, asleep yet lighter and lighter. Be well good friend. I hope I provided some comfort to you.
God's speed.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Monday, March 3, 2008
November 4, 2004 five fifteen a.m.
Meet Me in Montauk (Eternal Sunshine of A Spotless Mind)
lucid day dreams or dejavu
memories of you fading,
evaporating, dissipating
and no one can save them…
“blessed are the forgetful for they get the better even of their blunders”
but blunders haunt beyond the specific
smell and look of a gray winter day
forever locked in pain, the sadness
lingers the ache meanders
through grey matter even when the “blessing”
of forgetfulness erases the exact root of the ache
and thus the forgetful end up cursed
not able to search the wounded waters
of regret and hurt to find the part of themselves
that was once whole, spotless? spotted?
nearly extinct elephants in New York before Madison Square Garden
the circus absurd in the city, the city a circus absurd on a snowy beach Long Island
on a gray winter day slipping into darker gray, light snow blowing
sand sleeping below, sand “over rated just being really small rocks”
flashlight photography glimpses of the events that led to this
captured on degradable film, that led to this latest
attempt at escape
only to discover what we discover last, time and time again
that the way out is the way back in
only to discover what we discovered last time, time and time again
hidden from the mind is a familiar secret
not rememberable until dead;
that when given the choice
we chose to do it all over again
we chose against the eternal sunshine
of a spotless mind
Beck’s voice haunts the surf hazy night
back in gray winter, the snowy beach of my memory
as I search for my father’s hand outstretched
from whence I came and from where
I shall return only to pause,
reflect, reform and return
to struggle to ache to yearn
too often missing the moment; forever to be enjoyed
lucid day dreams or dejavu
memories of you fading,
evaporating, dissipating
and no one can save them…
“blessed are the forgetful for they get the better even of their blunders”
but blunders haunt beyond the specific
smell and look of a gray winter day
forever locked in pain, the sadness
lingers the ache meanders
through grey matter even when the “blessing”
of forgetfulness erases the exact root of the ache
and thus the forgetful end up cursed
not able to search the wounded waters
of regret and hurt to find the part of themselves
that was once whole, spotless? spotted?
nearly extinct elephants in New York before Madison Square Garden
the circus absurd in the city, the city a circus absurd on a snowy beach Long Island
on a gray winter day slipping into darker gray, light snow blowing
sand sleeping below, sand “over rated just being really small rocks”
flashlight photography glimpses of the events that led to this
captured on degradable film, that led to this latest
attempt at escape
only to discover what we discover last, time and time again
that the way out is the way back in
only to discover what we discovered last time, time and time again
hidden from the mind is a familiar secret
not rememberable until dead;
that when given the choice
we chose to do it all over again
we chose against the eternal sunshine
of a spotless mind
Beck’s voice haunts the surf hazy night
back in gray winter, the snowy beach of my memory
as I search for my father’s hand outstretched
from whence I came and from where
I shall return only to pause,
reflect, reform and return
to struggle to ache to yearn
too often missing the moment; forever to be enjoyed
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Gloves from My Father
Walking by the river, ice patches looking like odd shaped belugas floating down stream, the only thing revealing that the river is fluid, snow blowing, heavy, wet, southwest at my back, I walk towards the woods for sanctuary, for solace on the sixth anniversary of my father's death.
I've missed him more this year than in recent years, the realization of loss heavier than years past for no reason that I can easily explain.
I walk along with earbuds whispering dreamlike downbeat rhythm, it's cold, but I'm warm, a good feeling as I make fresh steps in the powder that suspends reality, geese honk over the music in my ears, I am at once at peace and longing...
I look down at my hands, new gloves, gloves from my father-in-law to replace
the gloves of my father, worn leather, finally comfortable, thumb starting to split, stolen from my coat downtown Rosebud, I guess someone's hands were colder than mine, a brief aggravation, now a gift, a passing on of something very practical from my father and father-in-law to keep my hands warm, fingers protected and heart connected...
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
I've missed him more this year than in recent years, the realization of loss heavier than years past for no reason that I can easily explain.
I walk along with earbuds whispering dreamlike downbeat rhythm, it's cold, but I'm warm, a good feeling as I make fresh steps in the powder that suspends reality, geese honk over the music in my ears, I am at once at peace and longing...
I look down at my hands, new gloves, gloves from my father-in-law to replace
the gloves of my father, worn leather, finally comfortable, thumb starting to split, stolen from my coat downtown Rosebud, I guess someone's hands were colder than mine, a brief aggravation, now a gift, a passing on of something very practical from my father and father-in-law to keep my hands warm, fingers protected and heart connected...
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Pulled back from Paganism
I’ve pulled back from paganism, the last ism I’d lean to on a foggy day, to contextualize the world in which I step, shop and play and pray and wish and hope, but these later activities take me out of this world and all the pain of my existential head and heart ache is about longing to belong to some line some circle some culture some tribal story of creation, of struggle of staying warm on a rain soaked night, of finding food deep in the bleak midwinter, pine inside, candles everywhere to lift the spirit on the shortest day, the darkest night, that light will return, food will be easier to acquire and the probability of continuing living better and better each day, a little dance, a little drink a little contact to hold back the night and fear that darkness and final silence will claim me too soon. All of this drives the cultural story with in which I want to be held, comforted, steered towards good times and joy, an evolution of a full stomach, warm cave and the instinct for continuance, permanence through DNA, the afterlife becomes a part of the story that our brains once awake must weave beyond the grave, and back the other way beyond birth into the cosmos, the great mystery, the not here which demands definition from our brain that categorizes, searches for lines and form even where there is none.
My father’s dying encouraged me; I was sure he saw friends many years dead, visitors came to the house, angelic, beast like, all fantastic as the seam on the hem of our reality was thin for him, for me. In Aspen, CO I was haunted by a presence, by a chief, by black spots,dreams or not dreams in between dreams, strange things in the awake and the asleep, things I saw, others experienced, what was it? My mind weaving the story of soul, of ghosts of something more permanent than my flesh promises? Did my mind convince myself and others to hear, see and believe things that are not? Does my mind dissolve the moment my flesh begins to rot?
Oddly, the one thing that stands out, keeping me agnostic and not atheist, is the night a woman from California ran back into the bar across from Resurrection Cemetery, pale, shaking, lighting a cigarette and looking down, around anxiously unsure. I knew the urban legend and back then I didn’t really question ghosts, the extension of the soul into the unknown, when I asked her what had happened she told me of a very earthly fight with her boyfriend and a stroll outside to clear her head, just then at 3:00 a.m. She noticed a girl walking inside the cemetery, she though it odd, but was not alarmed, the girl got closer and closer to the fence, the woman watched her and walked on through the summer night, wondering why a teenage girls was out so late, in the cemetery of all places, but she was not afraid. When the girl reached the fence she was even with the woman from California and they both paused, the girl reached to grab her arm, her hand, the woman told me went right through the fence and grabbed her, at the exact moment the woman grabbed my arm, “she was so cold, so cold… so cold”. The woman broke into tears and shook and smoked, so cold, so cold…
Was this woman the best actress I’d ever seen? Did this woman know the urban legend of Resurrection Mary and tell me otherwise? The bartender acted as if she didn’t know the woman telling the story, she watched her, seemingly not sure if she believed her…
This experience stands out more than my own direct experience with what I thought was "other", as I have become suspicious of the possibility for biological need to weave a creation and salvation story to distance ourselves from our own death of which, brain awake, we are now aware.
If someone were to read this and tell me they knew the woman, they were a part of this elaborate hoax, I wouldn’t be fully surprised. But there are pieces to the story I do not tell here, that leave me believing at the very least, the woman from California believed what she saw, believed the cold hand that grabbed her own arm was real, yet able to pass through a fence.
I joke that an agnostic is a polite atheist, but still the story of life pulls at me from before my first breath and from the time and place where my breath is no more.
I feel less need than ever for there to be a story, a code, a context to explain why I’m here, where I came from and what’s next. Yet I still look for this story to take me and if not explain things, to at least allow me to celebrate each day.
My father’s dying encouraged me; I was sure he saw friends many years dead, visitors came to the house, angelic, beast like, all fantastic as the seam on the hem of our reality was thin for him, for me. In Aspen, CO I was haunted by a presence, by a chief, by black spots,dreams or not dreams in between dreams, strange things in the awake and the asleep, things I saw, others experienced, what was it? My mind weaving the story of soul, of ghosts of something more permanent than my flesh promises? Did my mind convince myself and others to hear, see and believe things that are not? Does my mind dissolve the moment my flesh begins to rot?
Oddly, the one thing that stands out, keeping me agnostic and not atheist, is the night a woman from California ran back into the bar across from Resurrection Cemetery, pale, shaking, lighting a cigarette and looking down, around anxiously unsure. I knew the urban legend and back then I didn’t really question ghosts, the extension of the soul into the unknown, when I asked her what had happened she told me of a very earthly fight with her boyfriend and a stroll outside to clear her head, just then at 3:00 a.m. She noticed a girl walking inside the cemetery, she though it odd, but was not alarmed, the girl got closer and closer to the fence, the woman watched her and walked on through the summer night, wondering why a teenage girls was out so late, in the cemetery of all places, but she was not afraid. When the girl reached the fence she was even with the woman from California and they both paused, the girl reached to grab her arm, her hand, the woman told me went right through the fence and grabbed her, at the exact moment the woman grabbed my arm, “she was so cold, so cold… so cold”. The woman broke into tears and shook and smoked, so cold, so cold…
Was this woman the best actress I’d ever seen? Did this woman know the urban legend of Resurrection Mary and tell me otherwise? The bartender acted as if she didn’t know the woman telling the story, she watched her, seemingly not sure if she believed her…
This experience stands out more than my own direct experience with what I thought was "other", as I have become suspicious of the possibility for biological need to weave a creation and salvation story to distance ourselves from our own death of which, brain awake, we are now aware.
If someone were to read this and tell me they knew the woman, they were a part of this elaborate hoax, I wouldn’t be fully surprised. But there are pieces to the story I do not tell here, that leave me believing at the very least, the woman from California believed what she saw, believed the cold hand that grabbed her own arm was real, yet able to pass through a fence.
I joke that an agnostic is a polite atheist, but still the story of life pulls at me from before my first breath and from the time and place where my breath is no more.
I feel less need than ever for there to be a story, a code, a context to explain why I’m here, where I came from and what’s next. Yet I still look for this story to take me and if not explain things, to at least allow me to celebrate each day.
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