The nature of friendship for me throughout the years has been flimsy at best.
I believe in an open door policy; that much I know.
I can always push people out the door if I choose and lock it throw away the key.
But historically, I've seldom done that, because you never know when you're going to be on the other side of the fence.
But even more than that it's because my most formidable enemies have proven to be my strongest friends.
Guys who I thought were the biggest asses turned out to be some of my greatest teachers. Unfortunately, some of them turned out proving to be assholes nonetheless.
At least, in my book, as far as the running tally goes.
But believe me, the door isn't closed , not in the least,
and maybe I feel like I've got some growing up to do outside of those
individuals.
Like I really just need that time away and likely vice versa.
It has been a crooked road though, not well-paved, and difficult to understand.
My greatest weakness seems to be that I don't keep in touch very well.
I let the lines dangle sometimes.
The list of names are seemingly endless, and yet, I don't remember where the cause of the break ceased being that I had nothing left to offer or that I screwed people over.
I think where that is concerned, the percentages just slowly decreased.
The nature of friendship stopped being about who was the coolest and wildest to hang out with... who knew the most arcane and far gone places to visit.
Somewhere along the line, it stopped being an outward thing. I could care less
today as to what kind of clothes a person wears or what kind of music they listen
to or whether they even pay attention to their own taste. Taste will always be
just that: taste. Opinions are like assholes, and there are a lot of them in
the world. I mean sure, there is this lingering attention I have to aesthetics
but as time goes on, I find myself fascinated by the people who have different
tastes in aesthetics, or who just allow themselves to stray because it keeps
everything fresh. You never used to see me wear yellow or green or even orange
at one time. But now I'm drawn to that. Or maybe I've started feeding myself a
different dialogue. Or maybe I want to belive a different dialogue so I just try
new things and hope I can learn to like something just for its newness.
There is something to be said for friends in this same fashion. In order to have
a friend anywhere, you have to be a friend. And I've found that to be the most
successful route. And now there are people whose company I crave and I start to
read them and see what would appeal to them, how to best approach them with the
kindness they seem to want. That sounds sort of like people pleasing, doesn't
it? Hmmm... is there a way around that? Is there a way around simple flattery?
I;ll bet there is a study somewhere-- and I'll look for it soem other time if I
feel I have more time to burn.--that would actually prove the value of flattery
in trying to make friends. Most people-- and this is something my mother always
pointed out to me when I bewailed my sorry state as limited in the friendship
category-- like it when you ask questions about them, to get them talking about
themselves. I've found that to be amply true in a lot of different
circumstances, especially when I've had that golden bit of information about a
person that allows me to get them to open up completely. That incredible moment
when you've just struck the note taht gives them free reign to talk about the
very thing that they love to talk about. Personally, I love talking about
baseball, literature or music and food. I feel like these are categories that
were I to thoroughly trust the other individual to not cut me short or stray from
the given topic, I would likely find myself going on and on all day with that
person except if one of us had another pressing engagement. Movies as well. I
love that linbe in True Romance when Christian Slater says that he always goes to
see a movie on his birthday because I identify with that kind of ritualistic
mentality.
Certainly, I would have easily connected with a guy like Clarence Worley if we
were to meet at some random location like a video store or in line at a movie
theater. My friend Jason and I sit outside the cafes downtown drinking coffee
and go through list after list of movies we have enjoyed over the years... It's
all about scenework, what was hilarious, grotesque, incredible about something
one character did to another. My girlfriend Brooke and I quote lines together, I
often find myself remembering that I've heard the line somewhere but cannot
remember where I've heard it. She calmly reminds me of not only the line itself
but the context in which it was uttered. To us, it seems movies are kind of like
offshoot occurrences of reality.
My friend John and I regardless of the month or season of the year continue to
discuss both news and issues as they relate to the world of baseball... it is a
disjointed conversation at times because he likes to rattle off interesting
information about the Cubs while I am myself a Yankee fan. But the strength of
our friendship has been our ability to poke fun at each other's teams misfortunes
and our ability to watch out for the sucess of the other's teams. I pay
attention to what Chicago is doing and think of how it affects him. My ears perk
up for news about the goings on in Chicago. Likewise, he listen in when he
hears news about New York, We see each other every Tuesday night and compare
notes. My father has been the same way for years now. He still reads the World
Herald and checks out high school football scores. I went to Prep, my sister to
Millard North and he knows how each team's football program did this year much
more than I ever did. He checks out all the scores and highlights and gives me
updates every time I talk to him. If there's one thing I've missed for years,
it's been the little post-it notes of Yankee scores he left me on the kitchen
counter in the morning. He did that for so many years it still amazes me, his
little vigil to me, even in times when I didn't have my shit together. Now I'm
pretty much on top of it, and we can have an ongoing dialogue about "the other
night" or "that game against Toronto". I love that. It allows me to feel
closer and closer to him every year. It's prolonged evidence that the burning
bush doesn't always come down in the form of a burning bush.
Friends are a blessing and maybe it was sometime after I realized that people
people our life for particular reasons that I began to really pay attention to
the people around me. To really listen to what they were saying even if it was
moaning and groaning. If you're going to care about someone, then there has to
be some kind of commitment to whatever need they have. At least that's what
I'm finding out. Slowly. That friendship isn't all about grabbing the
coattails and hanging on to the good times. Sometimes there has to be a certain
amount of descending into the darkness even if just for a little while. Going
into those dark places with people that they have found, that are evidence of
themselves. Not all of us are strong as oak trees with backs that will never
split. Some of us can be disappointed in one another. We bruise easily. I say
all of this as an appropiated victim. A victim of my own insecurities and
quirkiness and reluctance to change, to offer anything other than what I have
learned how to give. Sometimes I'm guilty of holding back. It's not what I
want in the future. Hell, it's not what I want today, but sometimes it's just
where I'm positioned, it's how it all comes out despite my best efforts.
Sometimes I'm half-assed. My friends know that about me, and friends that want
to get to me better usually have to learn and be surprised by my seeming
buffoonry. I don't aim at eloquence. I don't aim at greatness, if I even embody
these traits for stolen moments in any given day I imagine it's something short
of a miracle. But I can only hope it's not because I'm not trying. It's
because I have skin, teeth, blood, a brain, wired funny, mixed wrong, like a
salad with all the wrong dressing, a meal mismatched with the wine. I'm still
trying things out, still finding stuff that doesn't work, still mistakenly
throwing away stuff that does. I wonder sometimes, how much time is it going to
take to learn? Will my time run out? Et cetera. Unfortunately, as good as
friends are, sometimes it's only something bigger that will give me any
serenity, any lasting peace on these matters... it's up to Him to decide.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Sunday, November 25, 2007
We arrived at the Salvation Army only to see fire trucks at the entrance.
Immediately, I saw this as an intrusion upon my day, my day, finally getting a
ten year medallion, Brooke was coming with me, she would see what the meetings are
like, even if just to catch a glimpse, I would see Tom and Cindy and at last, I
would have recognition and validation for this last year, for the last 3650 days which no
one really counts but me. The deus ex machina, out of the sky to give me and
all of us a bigger picture, if we wanted to see it or not. This facility houses
several families mostly women who have brought their children to that home to
escape whatever it is that's been hounding them indefinitely for the grater part
of their lives... So there we were and it couldn't have been much more than 35
degrees and we're all having to wait outside before the meeting, gathered in the
cold, and the firemen tell us it would be best for us if we were to back away
from the building, so now we have to move away from the shelter and heat of the
building which had prior to that protected us... and then, Tom and Cindy began
to notice that there were small children, babies, with their mothers. Wrapped up
in blankets and swaddling clothes, tiny babies in the 35 degree weather where you
could see your breath...and we watched while mothers turned on their cars and the
heaters in the cars for warmth... something to keep their children warm with and
Thomas notes that there are no doubt some among this group who would have no
place to live if it weren't for that place... the plot thickens, awareness
grows stronger, more intense in the there and the now... and you begin to see
again that there is more to all this than what we are looking at... we don't have
enough eyes in our head...but he sprung into the desire for more action, thinking
maybe I'll bring MY car around here and turn it on because then we could fit more
into our car and then there would be more warm children...This is how I'm just beginning to think but I'm not entirely there. I've been
trained pretty well, trained mostly just to think and perceive beyond the two
feet in front of me. Instead, to try to read the text that surrounds me.
Sometimes, because my mind has warped areas, I misinterpret the text, the
telling clues. I can't help that, simply that my perception is awkwardly fouled
up at times, and often times. Sometimes, I'm dead on but where there concerns
other people and what they are thinking or their emotions, I seem to jump to
faulty conclusions at times. But maybe I'm getting better at it now only for the
simple fact that I am not letting a few hasty judgements get me down. I mean
what it is it besides a judgement... so you're wrong, big deal, just keep at it
like archery. You may not nail the bullseye but the attempt and aim make the
sport worthwhile after all.Tom reminded me of the spiritual experiences of the burning bush/white light kind
which I believe I personally had a result of meditation. They were undeniable
experience but there is a prideful side to these experiences that can be
extremely misleading. Namely, there is a limit, I believe to their frequency as
they are revealed to any one particular person and as a result, the intensity
with which a person is allowed to experience them decreases, as does the
frequency. So you are left with the residue which understandably the divine
power which grants such experiences intends for you to carry around with you for
sometimes prolonged, extended periods of time... in other words, I may never
experience a spiritual experience like that with power and grace like that
conceivably for the rest of my life. I happen to think that that is doubtful
but that exact assuredness might be the very facet of my character which will not
allow me to replicate a similar experience...who's to say that God will continue
to bless any one person with intense powers of emotion and the ability to
distinguish beauty in nature only on the sole basis that that person tries
heartily to do his work well, tries to live well... it isn't a guarantee at all,
not in the slightest, but a greater blessing I don't think has ever been offered
me... Would you indeed have to be subject to some of the most acute moments of
humiliation before you could expect to have the utmost gratitude and humility in
life? I think perhaps that is true. A man we know talks about the importance of
desperation in the role of cultivating the needed gratitude to transform one;s
life. Desperation being a key ingredient for the willing. Without it, one never
really can amount to much humility. And the same could be said of their
willingness... Cindy said something about the importance of giving up control,
in the effort to teach yourself the difference between the happiness which is
wrought from pursuing happiness over rightness. The significance of not needing
to be right today... just to settle on that's right. I see your point. You
know you have an interesting way of looking at that. I had neevr thought of it
that way before. One of the older guys I know, a guy whose been around the
solution for much longer than me was referring to the hills we will die on.
Nobody needs to die today. You just sit down and rest on the hill, all the
others climbing so hard upon it can just have their day in the sun. You rest
and feel the sunlight of a spirit wash all over you... let others beat you to the
top. It's the journey anyway, right?I thought of the image of me walking through the forest and enjoying it but
getting caught up on so many side treks....distract by so much in the foliage and
just so quickly, I find myself lost in hideous woods... As a result, my newest
goal is to try to stay on the path as much as possible, just hang in there with
the path, let my mind wander but not react, just stay on the path for now, as
it were and see where it leads. I haven't been lead to far astray, and have met
many wonderful teachers along the way who have made it easier to do this kind of
thing... who make the time go by so much more wonderfully, smoothly... Like Brooke likes to tell me I have a roof over my head, there is food in our
fridge, we have a warm bed to sleep at night, we have more than we need, more
than we need. Jake, the dog sleeping on the floor in his blanket, books on
the shelf to inspire us, movies to watch to remind us of where we've been, where
we are where we might like to go to... music to make us laugh, cry, shake our
asses if we like... we have more than we need, plenty of what we need.
Immediately, I saw this as an intrusion upon my day, my day, finally getting a
ten year medallion, Brooke was coming with me, she would see what the meetings are
like, even if just to catch a glimpse, I would see Tom and Cindy and at last, I
would have recognition and validation for this last year, for the last 3650 days which no
one really counts but me. The deus ex machina, out of the sky to give me and
all of us a bigger picture, if we wanted to see it or not. This facility houses
several families mostly women who have brought their children to that home to
escape whatever it is that's been hounding them indefinitely for the grater part
of their lives... So there we were and it couldn't have been much more than 35
degrees and we're all having to wait outside before the meeting, gathered in the
cold, and the firemen tell us it would be best for us if we were to back away
from the building, so now we have to move away from the shelter and heat of the
building which had prior to that protected us... and then, Tom and Cindy began
to notice that there were small children, babies, with their mothers. Wrapped up
in blankets and swaddling clothes, tiny babies in the 35 degree weather where you
could see your breath...and we watched while mothers turned on their cars and the
heaters in the cars for warmth... something to keep their children warm with and
Thomas notes that there are no doubt some among this group who would have no
place to live if it weren't for that place... the plot thickens, awareness
grows stronger, more intense in the there and the now... and you begin to see
again that there is more to all this than what we are looking at... we don't have
enough eyes in our head...but he sprung into the desire for more action, thinking
maybe I'll bring MY car around here and turn it on because then we could fit more
into our car and then there would be more warm children...This is how I'm just beginning to think but I'm not entirely there. I've been
trained pretty well, trained mostly just to think and perceive beyond the two
feet in front of me. Instead, to try to read the text that surrounds me.
Sometimes, because my mind has warped areas, I misinterpret the text, the
telling clues. I can't help that, simply that my perception is awkwardly fouled
up at times, and often times. Sometimes, I'm dead on but where there concerns
other people and what they are thinking or their emotions, I seem to jump to
faulty conclusions at times. But maybe I'm getting better at it now only for the
simple fact that I am not letting a few hasty judgements get me down. I mean
what it is it besides a judgement... so you're wrong, big deal, just keep at it
like archery. You may not nail the bullseye but the attempt and aim make the
sport worthwhile after all.Tom reminded me of the spiritual experiences of the burning bush/white light kind
which I believe I personally had a result of meditation. They were undeniable
experience but there is a prideful side to these experiences that can be
extremely misleading. Namely, there is a limit, I believe to their frequency as
they are revealed to any one particular person and as a result, the intensity
with which a person is allowed to experience them decreases, as does the
frequency. So you are left with the residue which understandably the divine
power which grants such experiences intends for you to carry around with you for
sometimes prolonged, extended periods of time... in other words, I may never
experience a spiritual experience like that with power and grace like that
conceivably for the rest of my life. I happen to think that that is doubtful
but that exact assuredness might be the very facet of my character which will not
allow me to replicate a similar experience...who's to say that God will continue
to bless any one person with intense powers of emotion and the ability to
distinguish beauty in nature only on the sole basis that that person tries
heartily to do his work well, tries to live well... it isn't a guarantee at all,
not in the slightest, but a greater blessing I don't think has ever been offered
me... Would you indeed have to be subject to some of the most acute moments of
humiliation before you could expect to have the utmost gratitude and humility in
life? I think perhaps that is true. A man we know talks about the importance of
desperation in the role of cultivating the needed gratitude to transform one;s
life. Desperation being a key ingredient for the willing. Without it, one never
really can amount to much humility. And the same could be said of their
willingness... Cindy said something about the importance of giving up control,
in the effort to teach yourself the difference between the happiness which is
wrought from pursuing happiness over rightness. The significance of not needing
to be right today... just to settle on that's right. I see your point. You
know you have an interesting way of looking at that. I had neevr thought of it
that way before. One of the older guys I know, a guy whose been around the
solution for much longer than me was referring to the hills we will die on.
Nobody needs to die today. You just sit down and rest on the hill, all the
others climbing so hard upon it can just have their day in the sun. You rest
and feel the sunlight of a spirit wash all over you... let others beat you to the
top. It's the journey anyway, right?I thought of the image of me walking through the forest and enjoying it but
getting caught up on so many side treks....distract by so much in the foliage and
just so quickly, I find myself lost in hideous woods... As a result, my newest
goal is to try to stay on the path as much as possible, just hang in there with
the path, let my mind wander but not react, just stay on the path for now, as
it were and see where it leads. I haven't been lead to far astray, and have met
many wonderful teachers along the way who have made it easier to do this kind of
thing... who make the time go by so much more wonderfully, smoothly... Like Brooke likes to tell me I have a roof over my head, there is food in our
fridge, we have a warm bed to sleep at night, we have more than we need, more
than we need. Jake, the dog sleeping on the floor in his blanket, books on
the shelf to inspire us, movies to watch to remind us of where we've been, where
we are where we might like to go to... music to make us laugh, cry, shake our
asses if we like... we have more than we need, plenty of what we need.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Giving thanks.
I'm grateful I sat around a table today filled with gracious food, and everything was delcious and I enjoyed the company, and I didn't feel like I had to be the center of attention, it never once occurred to me...that there were smiling faces around the table and noone disliked anyone else. The discussion was steady but not heavy, and it wasn't strained. We ate and were merry, we laughed at each other lovingly. I am not entirely a stranger to others' generosity, I take it in stride because there's no guarantee in life.. . I am grateful that while I've had my struggles I have never slept in a mission on Thanksgiving. I think of those horror stories about families that are missing their brother, sister, mother, father, son, daughter and don't know where they are because of some tragedy. I am sorry that those tragedies ever occur on or around the holidays, forever fixing a date in someone's mind that this date will ever be one of sadness. That people would have to mull around forever with that weight on their conscience. And maybe have to hold back, or feel like they have to hold back explaining to people why maybe they just can't do it this year. Or maybe it's not going to be the way it was in years past because it's just not really going to be the same for them. You get the idea. I know it's out there, and part of me wonders how many people go through this Let them have peace somehow... let them find each other. Or some power that will get them through it.
I'm grateful I sat around a table today filled with gracious food, and everything was delcious and I enjoyed the company, and I didn't feel like I had to be the center of attention, it never once occurred to me...that there were smiling faces around the table and noone disliked anyone else. The discussion was steady but not heavy, and it wasn't strained. We ate and were merry, we laughed at each other lovingly. I am not entirely a stranger to others' generosity, I take it in stride because there's no guarantee in life.. . I am grateful that while I've had my struggles I have never slept in a mission on Thanksgiving. I think of those horror stories about families that are missing their brother, sister, mother, father, son, daughter and don't know where they are because of some tragedy. I am sorry that those tragedies ever occur on or around the holidays, forever fixing a date in someone's mind that this date will ever be one of sadness. That people would have to mull around forever with that weight on their conscience. And maybe have to hold back, or feel like they have to hold back explaining to people why maybe they just can't do it this year. Or maybe it's not going to be the way it was in years past because it's just not really going to be the same for them. You get the idea. I know it's out there, and part of me wonders how many people go through this Let them have peace somehow... let them find each other. Or some power that will get them through it.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
"With God, we get power, we get free... let us shout that from the rooftops so that more of us can hear that" -Anonymous.
This is from what I consider a very spiritual document taken from Thomas Mails'
interviews about Fools Crow , Wisdom and Power... Thomas let me borrow this something
like nine years ago. Reading it again brought that same eerie feeling I got the
first time I read it...
http://www.geocities.com/native_america2001/Hollow_Bones.html
This is from what I consider a very spiritual document taken from Thomas Mails'
interviews about Fools Crow , Wisdom and Power... Thomas let me borrow this something
like nine years ago. Reading it again brought that same eerie feeling I got the
first time I read it...
http://www.geocities.com/native_america2001/Hollow_Bones.html
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Two Poems, Written Separately, Composed and Dedicated to Brooke on This, Her Birthday, the Number of Which I Will Not Now Disclose out of Virtuous Respect for Her Privacy But Which
Should She Grant Permission I Will Offer Out of Desire to Grant the Truth, May She Know that
Today Is Truly Happy, In Commemoration of Her Birth into this World of Martyrs and Fools.
I.
You broke my heart in Memphis,
those lonely hours in the night of that motel room,
with champagne & soaps & feathers all around,
but nowehere, nowhere would you walk out
in your evening goan, lean against the wall,
you couldn't tell me you loved me there
in that space with the train whistle in the distance
and the lonely sound of the radiator, reminding
me how I would sleep without you near me,
that that train knew nothing about us, nor the smokestack
and the cold, cold rails in the night, they couldn't
lead me back to the sound of your laughter,
not in Memphis, not that night, and all I did was cry.
And you broke my heart in Birmingham,
that Sunday afternoon when you
called me crying and I was on the move,
and the tears and the wheels were rolling,
and I was staring at a sign with three arrows
that were sending me down three highways
that didn't lead me anywhere I knew
that didn't lead me back to the heart
of the hearth with the warmth & the depth of you.
And you broke my heart in Jasper,
where the rocks & the rills & placid streams,
where the junipers wave & the elmwood trees,
where I was leaning back north & fighting
all the winds in every direction and I could feel
my heart was giving out & beating slow & long
and love was screaming off the reins, telling
me to slow down my heavy pace and fly
like a nighthawk with long, elegant wings
back to the straits, the wellspring, back to loving you.
And you broke my heart in Atlanta,
Under a Georgia-heavy sky where the peach blossoms
filled my lungs with their scent, sweet and soft,
and all I could do was cry; I wasn't quite sure
why you told me you were a peach, but on that day
I could smell you all over, and in my memory,
and your hair was with me, your skin, your smile,
the lingering scent of a hundred mornings of
how I'd been with you and a hundred more
I might never know and in the light of the Georgia
sunshine, I couldn't hide, & I just couldn't help but cry.
And my heart was broken before I left Georgia,
I left that boy I was when I met you
somewhere down there, deep under the southern clay,
I left that boy with the Alabama moonshine,
with the dust of the Oxford moors, the mist of the Tupelo
ferries, and the fog and the crickets and the Mississippi
bullfrogs and the Choctaw moccasins, and baby,
I just couldn't really bring myself to care,
I caught the first train back to Cape Girardeau,
the steamboats just west of Cairo, that boy you knew
was not on the freightliner heading south into Arkansas,
that boy you knew, you thought you loved, he was
already halfway through Missouri, he'd left Tennessee
in a hurry, the mud already washed off his boots
by the Kentucky rain and the Illinois showers,
he was back in your arms before you could sigh,
before you finished any last letters goodbye.
You broke my heart and you'll break it again,
I love you, baby, my northern light, you'll never
stop shining, I hope you don't, I hope, I hope
I'll never see New Hope again, New Harmony
or New England, & if I do you'll be with me,
or following close behind, you've taught me to break,
to break, to break my heart over & over again,
and fill your arms with my blood, my love,
and with tears of joy and tears of passions,
& with tears of love on my cheek, I just can't help but cry.
Should She Grant Permission I Will Offer Out of Desire to Grant the Truth, May She Know that
Today Is Truly Happy, In Commemoration of Her Birth into this World of Martyrs and Fools.
I.
You broke my heart in Memphis,
those lonely hours in the night of that motel room,
with champagne & soaps & feathers all around,
but nowehere, nowhere would you walk out
in your evening goan, lean against the wall,
you couldn't tell me you loved me there
in that space with the train whistle in the distance
and the lonely sound of the radiator, reminding
me how I would sleep without you near me,
that that train knew nothing about us, nor the smokestack
and the cold, cold rails in the night, they couldn't
lead me back to the sound of your laughter,
not in Memphis, not that night, and all I did was cry.
And you broke my heart in Birmingham,
that Sunday afternoon when you
called me crying and I was on the move,
and the tears and the wheels were rolling,
and I was staring at a sign with three arrows
that were sending me down three highways
that didn't lead me anywhere I knew
that didn't lead me back to the heart
of the hearth with the warmth & the depth of you.
And you broke my heart in Jasper,
where the rocks & the rills & placid streams,
where the junipers wave & the elmwood trees,
where I was leaning back north & fighting
all the winds in every direction and I could feel
my heart was giving out & beating slow & long
and love was screaming off the reins, telling
me to slow down my heavy pace and fly
like a nighthawk with long, elegant wings
back to the straits, the wellspring, back to loving you.
And you broke my heart in Atlanta,
Under a Georgia-heavy sky where the peach blossoms
filled my lungs with their scent, sweet and soft,
and all I could do was cry; I wasn't quite sure
why you told me you were a peach, but on that day
I could smell you all over, and in my memory,
and your hair was with me, your skin, your smile,
the lingering scent of a hundred mornings of
how I'd been with you and a hundred more
I might never know and in the light of the Georgia
sunshine, I couldn't hide, & I just couldn't help but cry.
And my heart was broken before I left Georgia,
I left that boy I was when I met you
somewhere down there, deep under the southern clay,
I left that boy with the Alabama moonshine,
with the dust of the Oxford moors, the mist of the Tupelo
ferries, and the fog and the crickets and the Mississippi
bullfrogs and the Choctaw moccasins, and baby,
I just couldn't really bring myself to care,
I caught the first train back to Cape Girardeau,
the steamboats just west of Cairo, that boy you knew
was not on the freightliner heading south into Arkansas,
that boy you knew, you thought you loved, he was
already halfway through Missouri, he'd left Tennessee
in a hurry, the mud already washed off his boots
by the Kentucky rain and the Illinois showers,
he was back in your arms before you could sigh,
before you finished any last letters goodbye.
You broke my heart and you'll break it again,
I love you, baby, my northern light, you'll never
stop shining, I hope you don't, I hope, I hope
I'll never see New Hope again, New Harmony
or New England, & if I do you'll be with me,
or following close behind, you've taught me to break,
to break, to break my heart over & over again,
and fill your arms with my blood, my love,
and with tears of joy and tears of passions,
& with tears of love on my cheek, I just can't help but cry.
II.
"Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy,
absentminded. Someone sober
will worry about events going badly.
Let the lover be." -Rumi.
We can find each other under swathes of nightshade
We can bathe in the salt waters of the tempest that
sometimes threatens to cover us completely
but we rise above the surface of the waves
and sleep in the shadow of the light of the moon
until at last, I can swim you back to shore on my back,
and even if I flounder, you breathe into me new resolve;
the promise is not of a smooth passage, only a safe landing
and the sand on our feet : this is the gift of the holy to us.
We have yet to convince this world that we are not
as reckless as we know ourselves to be
when we have caught fire in one another's arms,
that this kind of love is not unfettered as it is true,
when convincing ourselves has been the proven wizardry,
a matter of striking flint repeatedly in the dark,
the patient but sometimes frantic desire to keep
the blaze alive, when it rages on behind this veneer
we keep in front of our eyes : I've seen it on cold nights
when you throw your love upon me, when you ache
and beg me to let you keep me warm again tonight.
I've wandered into the corridors of your past, down crooked
paths, through magical forests, straits & narrows
putting photographs together to rebuild your worlds,
imagined and assumed, while you delve down streets
and alleyways where I once tried to lose myself forever,
but could find nothing but sleep and an itch
to throw myself again headlong onto avenues of mystery,
broken homes & broken lives, to see how unlike they were to mine.
I am even sure that you will allow me to see all the rivers,
valleys, mansions, and moors that you've known in younger times,
I am sure that we will sail upon the sea, your hair flickering
across your face, branches of brown in the wind;
that there will be an island and a road through this island,
there will be thousands and millions of grains of sand,
that our hearts & lungs will be filled with the sea,
that we will eat from the fishes of the water and
you and I will be lovely, if we want these things,
if what we tell each other in the night and in the late
autumn afternoon when the sun gets low, and you come
to my arms, silently, for sleep, for rest, and I love you then
as I love you now; you are always with me, even
when in the evening moon, I cannot be with you.
I hear you, I smell you, telling me how like the sun,
the moon, the stars I seem to be, this is my gift
to you, that I want to remain these things, as long
as I can write these things, as long I can love you & say these things.
XOXOXOOXXO.
"Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy,
absentminded. Someone sober
will worry about events going badly.
Let the lover be." -Rumi.
We can find each other under swathes of nightshade
We can bathe in the salt waters of the tempest that
sometimes threatens to cover us completely
but we rise above the surface of the waves
and sleep in the shadow of the light of the moon
until at last, I can swim you back to shore on my back,
and even if I flounder, you breathe into me new resolve;
the promise is not of a smooth passage, only a safe landing
and the sand on our feet : this is the gift of the holy to us.
We have yet to convince this world that we are not
as reckless as we know ourselves to be
when we have caught fire in one another's arms,
that this kind of love is not unfettered as it is true,
when convincing ourselves has been the proven wizardry,
a matter of striking flint repeatedly in the dark,
the patient but sometimes frantic desire to keep
the blaze alive, when it rages on behind this veneer
we keep in front of our eyes : I've seen it on cold nights
when you throw your love upon me, when you ache
and beg me to let you keep me warm again tonight.
I've wandered into the corridors of your past, down crooked
paths, through magical forests, straits & narrows
putting photographs together to rebuild your worlds,
imagined and assumed, while you delve down streets
and alleyways where I once tried to lose myself forever,
but could find nothing but sleep and an itch
to throw myself again headlong onto avenues of mystery,
broken homes & broken lives, to see how unlike they were to mine.
I am even sure that you will allow me to see all the rivers,
valleys, mansions, and moors that you've known in younger times,
I am sure that we will sail upon the sea, your hair flickering
across your face, branches of brown in the wind;
that there will be an island and a road through this island,
there will be thousands and millions of grains of sand,
that our hearts & lungs will be filled with the sea,
that we will eat from the fishes of the water and
you and I will be lovely, if we want these things,
if what we tell each other in the night and in the late
autumn afternoon when the sun gets low, and you come
to my arms, silently, for sleep, for rest, and I love you then
as I love you now; you are always with me, even
when in the evening moon, I cannot be with you.
I hear you, I smell you, telling me how like the sun,
the moon, the stars I seem to be, this is my gift
to you, that I want to remain these things, as long
as I can write these things, as long I can love you & say these things.
XOXOXOOXXO.
Monday, November 12, 2007
The NY Times on-line - I'm going to town blogging this stuff, I think absinthe is fascinating... hehe- vicarious pleasures...
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/12/arts/12conn.html
Norman Mailer, Towering Writer With Matching Ego, Dies at 84 ,New York Times Arts section.
by Charles McGrath
"Mailer was a prodigious drinker and drug taker, a womanizer, a devoted family man, a would-be politician who ran for mayor of New York, a hipster existentialist, an antiwar protester, an opponent of women’s liberation and an all-purpose feuder and short-fused brawler, who with the slightest provocation would happily engage in head-butting, arm-wrestling and random punch-throwing. Boxing obsessed him and inspired some of his best writing. Any time he met a critic or a reviewer, even a friendly one, he would put up his fists and drop into a crouch. "
Gore Vidal, with whom he frequently wrangled, once wrote: “Mailer is forever shouting at us that he is about to tell us something we must know or has just told us something revelatory and we failed to hear him or that he will, God grant his poor abused brain and body just one more chance, get through to us so that we will know. Each time he speaks he must become more bold, more loud, put on brighter motley and shake more foolish bells. Yet of all my contemporaries I retain the greatest affection for Norman as a force and as an artist. He is a man whose faults, though many, add to rather than subtract from the sum of his natural achievements.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/12/arts/12conn.html
Norman Mailer, Towering Writer With Matching Ego, Dies at 84 ,New York Times Arts section.
by Charles McGrath
"Mailer was a prodigious drinker and drug taker, a womanizer, a devoted family man, a would-be politician who ran for mayor of New York, a hipster existentialist, an antiwar protester, an opponent of women’s liberation and an all-purpose feuder and short-fused brawler, who with the slightest provocation would happily engage in head-butting, arm-wrestling and random punch-throwing. Boxing obsessed him and inspired some of his best writing. Any time he met a critic or a reviewer, even a friendly one, he would put up his fists and drop into a crouch. "
Gore Vidal, with whom he frequently wrangled, once wrote: “Mailer is forever shouting at us that he is about to tell us something we must know or has just told us something revelatory and we failed to hear him or that he will, God grant his poor abused brain and body just one more chance, get through to us so that we will know. Each time he speaks he must become more bold, more loud, put on brighter motley and shake more foolish bells. Yet of all my contemporaries I retain the greatest affection for Norman as a force and as an artist. He is a man whose faults, though many, add to rather than subtract from the sum of his natural achievements.”
Friday, November 09, 2007
Ten years ago today bathed in a fevered sweat. Ten years ago today my nerves, questionable.
Today I sit next to a girl who epitomizes my supreme self-absorption ten years ago. Maybe that's entirely judgmental. I'm guilty of that on occasion as well. But the difference is that maybe she can get away with it longer than I did. I have just come to see that kind of self-absorption as a lonely place. Kind of like Plato's friends who sit watching the shadows on the wall... Depite what anyone can say about me, anyone who's spent a great deal of time with me over the last ten years knows I am not the same person I was then. The theory about the electrons changing, the cells migrating. Those details are amenable to science. I don't know if I know more than I knew back then. Maybe I do in that I know that I know less than I think I do. Thank you, Confucius.
The goal is to be more humble. Less me. The goal the last five years have been to be less me. Less the type of person that lingers which perhaps need not. It's not the Body Artist. This is not a tale of asceticism. Maybe that works for the Jains or the Opus Dei but not for this cat. I have a low threshold for pain. Ten years of reality, except for dreams. Life is but a dream when you're clean. At least, it can be I've found. I remember waking up one Sunday morning, as I have for a couple years as far back as I can remember and going to a meeting club and there were all my friends sitting in their chairs, some beaming, some reflective, some sleepy-eyed. But they surrounded me.
There was a man I'll never forget as long as I live named Richard Watkins who went to the Sacred Heart Church in North Omaha who gave me a post-it note with the inscription "Isaiah 43:4" on it. Nothing else, no real explanation. But it was there, and why I remember that above all else, I can only explain by my experience over the last ten years in light of that one phrase, "Since thou hast been precious in my sight, and honourable, and I have loved thee; therefore will I give men for thee, and peoples for thy life." I remembered that around 3 years or so. I would have been 24-years old and it would have been six years since the day that Richard gave me that slip of paper. It took my breath away to think of that. Waking up from a dream only to find that my life was but a dream.
I think I've tapped out most of the nay-saying people from my life who would judge me for who I am. I wondered recently if that didn't mean that I was a better judge of character. That the people surrounding me for the purpose of having a weaker person latching on to a stronger one, the old threadbare idea of having someone around that's lower than you, all that seems to be gone now. And never need return. That awful ache in the heart of low men... that sad loneliness becoming a rocketing into the fourth dimension of existence.
Today I sit next to a girl who epitomizes my supreme self-absorption ten years ago. Maybe that's entirely judgmental. I'm guilty of that on occasion as well. But the difference is that maybe she can get away with it longer than I did. I have just come to see that kind of self-absorption as a lonely place. Kind of like Plato's friends who sit watching the shadows on the wall... Depite what anyone can say about me, anyone who's spent a great deal of time with me over the last ten years knows I am not the same person I was then. The theory about the electrons changing, the cells migrating. Those details are amenable to science. I don't know if I know more than I knew back then. Maybe I do in that I know that I know less than I think I do. Thank you, Confucius.
The goal is to be more humble. Less me. The goal the last five years have been to be less me. Less the type of person that lingers which perhaps need not. It's not the Body Artist. This is not a tale of asceticism. Maybe that works for the Jains or the Opus Dei but not for this cat. I have a low threshold for pain. Ten years of reality, except for dreams. Life is but a dream when you're clean. At least, it can be I've found. I remember waking up one Sunday morning, as I have for a couple years as far back as I can remember and going to a meeting club and there were all my friends sitting in their chairs, some beaming, some reflective, some sleepy-eyed. But they surrounded me.
There was a man I'll never forget as long as I live named Richard Watkins who went to the Sacred Heart Church in North Omaha who gave me a post-it note with the inscription "Isaiah 43:4" on it. Nothing else, no real explanation. But it was there, and why I remember that above all else, I can only explain by my experience over the last ten years in light of that one phrase, "Since thou hast been precious in my sight, and honourable, and I have loved thee; therefore will I give men for thee, and peoples for thy life." I remembered that around 3 years or so. I would have been 24-years old and it would have been six years since the day that Richard gave me that slip of paper. It took my breath away to think of that. Waking up from a dream only to find that my life was but a dream.
I think I've tapped out most of the nay-saying people from my life who would judge me for who I am. I wondered recently if that didn't mean that I was a better judge of character. That the people surrounding me for the purpose of having a weaker person latching on to a stronger one, the old threadbare idea of having someone around that's lower than you, all that seems to be gone now. And never need return. That awful ache in the heart of low men... that sad loneliness becoming a rocketing into the fourth dimension of existence.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
While reading the book Kaddish by Leon Weltseltier about both the history and origins of "The Mourner's Kaddish" I came across the prayer, which I had never heard nor seen before, but found a copy of obviously built from the ground up from Hebrew. Apparently, it was originally composed in Aramaic both for Rabbinical and for those who wish to exhalt God for the purpose of protecting loved ones after their time of death... It seems a beautiful prayer and though I do not know the Hebrew, I was still touched by Mr. Weltseltier's meticulous study of this prayer, according to him, was to attempt to connect, understand and have a new relationship with this prayer.
Exalted and sanctified is God's great name.
in the world which He has created according to His will
and may He establish His kingdom
may his salvation blossom and his anointed near.
in your lifetime and your days
and in the lifetimes of all the House of Israel
speedily and soon; and say, Amen.
May His great name be blessed
forever and to all eternity.
Blessed and praised, glorified and exalted,
extolled and honored, elevated and lauded
be the Name of the Holy One, blessed be He
beyond (far beyond) all the blessings
and hymns, praises and consolations
that are spoken in the world; and say, Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * *
{The half kaddish ends here.
Here the "complete kaddish" includes:}
* * * * * * * * * * *
Let them be accepted: the prayers and supplications
of the entire House of Israel
before their Father in Heaven; and say, Amen.
{Here the "kaddish of the rabbis" includes: }
Upon Israel and its rabbis and their students
and upon all their student's students
and upon all those who engage in the Torah
here and in all other places
may they and you have much peace
grace and kindness and mercy and long life
and plentiful nourishment and salvation
from before their Father in Heaven [and Earth];
and say, Amen.
{All variants but the half kaddish conclude:}
May there be much peace from Heaven,
[and] [good] life
and satiety, and salvation, and comfort, and saving
and healing and redemption and forgiveness and atonement
and relief and deliveranced
for us and for all His people Israel; and say, Amen.
He who makes peace in His heights
may He [in his mercy] make peace upon us
and upon all [his nation] Israel; and say, Amen.
in the world which will be renewed
and He will give life to the dead
and raise them to eternal life
and rebuild the city of Jerusalem
and establish his temple within
removing foreign worship from the earth
and the Heavenly service shall return
and the Holy One, blessed is He
in his kingship and splendour ...
Exalted and sanctified is God's great name.
in the world which He has created according to His will
and may He establish His kingdom
may his salvation blossom and his anointed near.
in your lifetime and your days
and in the lifetimes of all the House of Israel
speedily and soon; and say, Amen.
May His great name be blessed
forever and to all eternity.
Blessed and praised, glorified and exalted,
extolled and honored, elevated and lauded
be the Name of the Holy One, blessed be He
beyond (far beyond) all the blessings
and hymns, praises and consolations
that are spoken in the world; and say, Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * *
{The half kaddish ends here.
Here the "complete kaddish" includes:}
* * * * * * * * * * *
Let them be accepted: the prayers and supplications
of the entire House of Israel
before their Father in Heaven; and say, Amen.
{Here the "kaddish of the rabbis" includes: }
Upon Israel and its rabbis and their students
and upon all their student's students
and upon all those who engage in the Torah
here and in all other places
may they and you have much peace
grace and kindness and mercy and long life
and plentiful nourishment and salvation
from before their Father in Heaven [and Earth];
and say, Amen.
{All variants but the half kaddish conclude:}
May there be much peace from Heaven,
[and] [good] life
and satiety, and salvation, and comfort, and saving
and healing and redemption and forgiveness and atonement
and relief and deliveranced
for us and for all His people Israel; and say, Amen.
He who makes peace in His heights
may He [in his mercy] make peace upon us
and upon all [his nation] Israel; and say, Amen.
in the world which will be renewed
and He will give life to the dead
and raise them to eternal life
and rebuild the city of Jerusalem
and establish his temple within
removing foreign worship from the earth
and the Heavenly service shall return
and the Holy One, blessed is He
in his kingship and splendour ...
Sunday, November 04, 2007
I really don't know where I was when I took this picture. I have to guess that it had to have been somewhere in Alabama. The second day of my trip down south, which was a Sunday and Sunday is now my day of great spiritual banking. Find empty places and drinking in spiritual food there... I love the spiritual light of this picture, because it's the refracting of the sunlight through the marks on the windshield, but I was moved by the wide expanse of sky and road. You see the broad sweep of this stretch of highway and those spirits seeming to rise up from the erth, good, clean happy spirits.
There was an old photograph our family had of when this priest and nun from the parish we belonged to came to our house and ate Sunday dinner with us. There was an inexplicable mark that appeared on that picture. It vaguely resembled a dove-shape and my point in bringing up this is there is the proposition that the Spirit of the Universe is either everything or else it is nothing. Either the photograph captures the rapture and deep well-being I was feeling at the moment or it is a picture took from the road where the dirt and grime of the windshield has gathered. Either it IS a figment of the imagination, one that is fired, or else it is the cold soul of a being grounded in the mathematics of reality. Either you can calculate what is happening in the present moment and explain away all the magic of it, or you can let thoughts run wild in amazement of what is happening and what kinds of things it may be promising for the future.
This is some place between Memphis Tennessee and Oxford, Mississippi... I'm listening to blues music at this point, Muddy Waters, Bobby Bland, Howlin Wolf. Elmore James. And Muddy is really the only one from Mississppi but I'm feeling that deep mysticism that comes from being in that place. I think of Twain's Jim running for his life, trying to find his way up to free territory for black slaves, and that song "Hellhound on My Trail" by Robert Johnson running through my mind, that haunting line about "blues falling down like hail" and I see the sunrise, likely when most of the slaves along the railroad had to find a place to hide, deep with the evergreens so noone could find them... There was a hellhound on my trail and it was the fear I had of my self.... the fear that maybe I was running from my self again, that I was going farther and farther away from myself. Etheridge Knight had that line about how he almost kicked it with kinfolk, how he'd almost caught up with himself... I'll never know why the darkest of notions hit me the same way, they puzzle me the deepest. But this is a beautiful portrait of how God wakes up the world. Within a half-hour, I was overwhelmed by the light of day and I would hit pockets of road where I could almost not see anything at all, the rays of sunlight were so bright and penetrating.
I heard the bit on Bob Dylan again today and John Hiatt talked about "All Along the Watchtower" being a reflection of Dylan on the Book Of Isaiah. Now I have to go back and read the Book of Isaiah, because while they played that song, with some kind of spiritual overlay, suddenly that song takes on a whole new meaning for me. Then I see it as an attempt for a deeply troubled but determined man (Dylan) trying to grapple with the message of the divine.And this guy trying to remain ever introspective on the meanings of texts written down for the purpose of mankind, and what these stories can ultimately teach us about ourselves, about our connection with this whole other dimension of reality, the dimension we sense strongly is there, but have little scientific proof of actually encountering.
Saturday, November 03, 2007
I couldn't help myself, looking out at the world through windows moving 75 mph... sometimes the going was slower, amore plodding gait, other times, it sped up wildly, profusely. I must have been somewhere outside of Columbia Missouri because the shadows had begun to fall, it is a late afternoon photograph taken on October 21st... the trees and fields are still lush, green but you can see little flairs of color in there as well. It was the beginning into the descent of night, the darkest night of the soul, the unholy hour, or maybe it was just another afternoon in fall, where the heart beats differently because the going is neither rough nor tidy.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Oklahoma. The Weigh Station.
I'm not sure what kind of monster writes about his family. There's so many dynamics to it. You go into it thinking that you might be a monster or they will be moved, elated, flattered. You're never sure where to begin or how roughly you should trod. Whether it's not better to just carry the proverbial big stick. I do it now (I think) because I have admiration for my family. This is not a method to establish personal denouement. That's what therapy is for. Or Augusten Burroughs novels. No, this is to illuminate, glorify a family which was born best out of the threads which are woven into the flags of the American Dream. I begin with a photograph which sits on my desk. Easter it must have been. Somewhere around either 1982 or 1983. Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Outside of Tulsa. A brown clay brick house in which we lived. (Street name?) My other to the left, in a white business-style blouse with a blue tied ribbon next to my grandmother wearing her signature white coat and her pink-rimmed glasses, smiling wide for the camera. Proud to be with her grandchildren, her daughter-in-law. I was still Master Greg Schoonmaker, still shorter than my sister and still blaringly blonde. My sister, her hair cut short but a white barrett on the side, a navy blue dress. One purple ribbon in the middle and white tights to cover her legs, white shoes. Navy blue was the fare of the day. It must have been Easter, would have been my guess. My grandmother's favorite holiday, and usually right around the time when she would have been able to come see us all.
Oklahoma was always barren, the grass on the front lawn, a parched brown, leading me to belive it could have also been Christmas... a logical guess but in Oklahoma, one never knows. My mother remembered there being dust stroms off in the distance that you could see from the back of the house. Oklahoma is naturally, a mystic place, not often given much creedence as a place to tour or visit, because of its sometimes gaping holes of sky and wide scopes of land. If you're looking for some place which will help you meditate contemplatively on the nature of oblivion, then you've gone to the right place in Oklahoma. I don't remember much of it, except for a time when a tornado watch was threatening. Me & the Ritter kids from down the street were playing and the wind picked up and just as quicky died down. The sky turned yellow, then green. Green. No lie at all and thick rolls of cloud had formed in the sky. Fishermen, farmers and weathermen like to refer to them as mackerel scales and are approproraitely named. It's worse when the sky is green because it's reminsicent of The Emerald City in Oz, where you go when the tornadoes come and pick you up and throw you from this earth.
I'm not sure what kind of monster writes about his family. There's so many dynamics to it. You go into it thinking that you might be a monster or they will be moved, elated, flattered. You're never sure where to begin or how roughly you should trod. Whether it's not better to just carry the proverbial big stick. I do it now (I think) because I have admiration for my family. This is not a method to establish personal denouement. That's what therapy is for. Or Augusten Burroughs novels. No, this is to illuminate, glorify a family which was born best out of the threads which are woven into the flags of the American Dream. I begin with a photograph which sits on my desk. Easter it must have been. Somewhere around either 1982 or 1983. Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Outside of Tulsa. A brown clay brick house in which we lived. (Street name?) My other to the left, in a white business-style blouse with a blue tied ribbon next to my grandmother wearing her signature white coat and her pink-rimmed glasses, smiling wide for the camera. Proud to be with her grandchildren, her daughter-in-law. I was still Master Greg Schoonmaker, still shorter than my sister and still blaringly blonde. My sister, her hair cut short but a white barrett on the side, a navy blue dress. One purple ribbon in the middle and white tights to cover her legs, white shoes. Navy blue was the fare of the day. It must have been Easter, would have been my guess. My grandmother's favorite holiday, and usually right around the time when she would have been able to come see us all.
Oklahoma was always barren, the grass on the front lawn, a parched brown, leading me to belive it could have also been Christmas... a logical guess but in Oklahoma, one never knows. My mother remembered there being dust stroms off in the distance that you could see from the back of the house. Oklahoma is naturally, a mystic place, not often given much creedence as a place to tour or visit, because of its sometimes gaping holes of sky and wide scopes of land. If you're looking for some place which will help you meditate contemplatively on the nature of oblivion, then you've gone to the right place in Oklahoma. I don't remember much of it, except for a time when a tornado watch was threatening. Me & the Ritter kids from down the street were playing and the wind picked up and just as quicky died down. The sky turned yellow, then green. Green. No lie at all and thick rolls of cloud had formed in the sky. Fishermen, farmers and weathermen like to refer to them as mackerel scales and are approproraitely named. It's worse when the sky is green because it's reminsicent of The Emerald City in Oz, where you go when the tornadoes come and pick you up and throw you from this earth.
Beginning. We were a flourish. A family who flourished. Mostly. Until the great becoming. That was my part. Everything else was not a mess. Not until a few years later. But by then things had cracked opened. For us. We were a flourishing family. Everyone except for me. I was so consumed by the fact that the veneer was about to lift. Parents have so many expectations. And siblings too, but not nearly as much. The veneer was about to lift one way or another. Even if I weasn't around to witness it. Especially if I didn't tell anyone where I was going. Or how I planned to arrive there. Or not arrive. There would have been no arrival. Only a passing. And the thin veil which covered us for so many years was not going be a bridal veil. That would come much, much later. I could tell that story but I try not dwell on current events. Not knowing their significance. That particular story is simply not allowed to be told yet.
As a family, we have always reserved the right to withhold information from outsiders. From each other. My father began many sentences, "I haven't told your mother yet---" but he certainly meant well. It was for protection. It was to reduce anxiety. He would be eating peanuts from a porcelain bowl. He chewed awkwardly, a result of dental work from years back. He had formed habits during that time, that he should be careful about the manner in which he ate certain foods. Peanuts were at the top of the list. As he chewed, carefully, he would begin to divulge the top secret information, classified until further notice. Usually, it entailed a business trip, upcoming. He withheld the information in order to be sensitive to my mother's fear of being alone. In an empty house. With large bay windows. Which overlooked a large pond where alligators could live. With only the knowledge of a floor plan. The garage door couldn't open fast enough. With a fear that crept when she watched suspenseful movies, television. Her television nightmares. Her striking my father in her sleep. Her dangerous dreams. So he told her nothing until it was too late. The flights were booked. The itineraries printed. They were in bold, like decrees. She would make clucking noises, she would pull back her lower lip. If that's how it had to be, what further could she protest. So he ate his peanuts. He watched sports. Espn. Mad Money on MSNBC, the thick-headed bald men with the power ties and New York facial tics. The swagger of men who loved to talk about the power of stocks, the movement of the ticker. The Kabbalah of monetary destiny.
As a family, we have always reserved the right to withhold information from outsiders. From each other. My father began many sentences, "I haven't told your mother yet---" but he certainly meant well. It was for protection. It was to reduce anxiety. He would be eating peanuts from a porcelain bowl. He chewed awkwardly, a result of dental work from years back. He had formed habits during that time, that he should be careful about the manner in which he ate certain foods. Peanuts were at the top of the list. As he chewed, carefully, he would begin to divulge the top secret information, classified until further notice. Usually, it entailed a business trip, upcoming. He withheld the information in order to be sensitive to my mother's fear of being alone. In an empty house. With large bay windows. Which overlooked a large pond where alligators could live. With only the knowledge of a floor plan. The garage door couldn't open fast enough. With a fear that crept when she watched suspenseful movies, television. Her television nightmares. Her striking my father in her sleep. Her dangerous dreams. So he told her nothing until it was too late. The flights were booked. The itineraries printed. They were in bold, like decrees. She would make clucking noises, she would pull back her lower lip. If that's how it had to be, what further could she protest. So he ate his peanuts. He watched sports. Espn. Mad Money on MSNBC, the thick-headed bald men with the power ties and New York facial tics. The swagger of men who loved to talk about the power of stocks, the movement of the ticker. The Kabbalah of monetary destiny.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
