I thus far regret that at any time I attempt to pour my mind out of paper, my desire for perfection and intellectualism takes over. Making it prettier, intellectual, "correct."
Tonight I am not feeling correct. I am only feeling everything else.
December 17, 2010
I awaken with a dog-head on mine. He rolls, flops, uncomfortable. Scratches, whines. I am unsure if my alarm went off or if I shut it off.
It's cold out, enough to see your breath, but not too cold. He is mesmerized by the frozen grass and cannot pay attention to his walk. He must be pulled away from smelling and licking.
I drive. I drive very, very fast to where I am going.
The meeting is about men in prison. Murdering men who want to be soft and succulent women in prison. It progresses as usual. Things to absorb:
Bondage pornography is not a sign of stability. I say it is not a preclusion of stability. Doctor says they have anal sex pretending their anus is a vagina. He tried to cut off his own penis at 15. We apparently think he may be lying about that. No one is going to check, though. She is a master make-up artist but can not put her hair in non-completely-fucked-up pigtails. Can he be a muslim and transgendered. Can he be a woman with a fist-length beard. Can he ever dream of being accepted by either. Should he just kill himself. Can she ever be in a single cell with her history of auto-erotic asphyxiation.
I am bored.
I am looking at my phone.
"Myspace has friended you on Myspace." Worse.
I drive again, this time even faster. I eat a gigantic burrito and fall asleep. I sweat so much under the down comforter I have to shower again.
I go into the cold and go to a movie. A tiny theater, old old old. Surrounded by old women, all intellectuals, and old men who mostly seem crazy.
The movie is beautiful terrifying gorgeous decadent horrible brilliant lovely sickening soft dark sad fucked perfect. Perfect perfect.
Immediately to the gym. Goal of a mile under 12:00 is approaching, down to 13:35 now. My heart rate reaches 200. I pour sweat, my legs feel weak and heavy. I lift, I pull, I flex, I sit up. I look in the mirror at the places that I hate. I try not to. I touch my chin and cheeks. I do not recognize myself. I breathe deep.
I sit for a minute and try to understand what I am doing. I do not remember if I am successful. I keep doing it.
I see my breath. I walk the dog.
I again wash the sweat off, now for the third time today.
I rest against the bed. I orgasm. Tears come now, streaming, leaking.
I sob and the catharsis, the letting go, the pain, the grief, the loathing, the fear, the joy, the beauty, the perfection, the confusion, the relief comes. My heart swells up.
I comfort myself as I would another. I touch the things near me that are soft and forgiving. I cry a small patch onto the bed. I hold myself as I would another.
I roll onto my back, I meditate. I place the soles of my feet together and feel warm.
I think about joy. I consider my love and it's ferocity, precocity, and I have insights and revelations. I rewind my week and apply my love to every moment.
Every walk I dread in the biting cold. Every moment seemed lost, looking into the eyes of someone defined "criminal." Every judgment of others, every needless frustration. Every leaf clinging to every gray and frozen tree. I apply my love. It envelopes my whole being.
I cannot meditate with a crazy puppy in the room.
I do not feel angry. I keep my eyes closed and smile.
I plug in the Christmas tree. It twinkles.
My heart is still swollen, hammering but now silently, my brain bounces through winding corridors past fun-house mirrors and running fast. So fast. Happy.
I consider all things created. I am buried deep in my stacks and stacks of art, film, music, the pieces of people contained within those cold paper and plastic things. Those inhuman things are very human. Very precious. They contain souls.
I feel for a book: a masterpiece containing the stories, thoughts and paintings of Salvador Dali. I consider the "rule" he made with Bunuel regarding their art: "that they would not accept any idea or image that was susceptible of rational, psychological or cultural explication." I consider how I search these pieces for just this meaning, finally settling to apply my own version of these constructs. I cannot turn off this search for meaning while even viewing... how would one turn it off while creating. Impossible, psychologists will say.
I consider my art, the love contained and grasped within my hands, the images in my head, the fucked-up-edness, the black ooze and this blinding light. This creation and being both dormant and awake within me, my hammering heart. I consider this.
I do not want to be correct or polite.
I do not care what people think of me or whether they will ever love me.
I does not matter.
I do not care how I am seen when I am bare-naked in front of them.
Tonight I am in love with everything.
I want to be in love with everything.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Saturday, December 11, 2010
remember, remember...
...the 11th of December...
In the winter of 1942 a handsome young soldier returned home to Missouri from training in California. He was preparing for deployment to Germany- but he had one last thing to do before he left. Ten months prior he had met a girl. He had his first and only date with the beautiful, fiery women's libber- who everyone said was "too good" for him. Having already been drafted, he was immediately shipped to California. But such an obstacle could not stop their communique. They each mailed a letter, every day without fail, for the next ten months. And when his next two days in Missouri came on December 11th, they married.
That same day, in a tiny town in central Missouri, a baby boy was born. He was the first born in a dysfunctional, angry family. He grew up to marry and have his own children, including a daughter who would often present him with a shiny new belt buckle on his birthday. A buckle that would adorn the belt he used to beat her, or was sometimes used as a weapon itself.
Eventually, long after their estrangement, the daughter would dread this day. Wondering far in advance about the yearly decision to wish or not-wish the old man a happy birthday. Eventually each year became determined by the old man's silence in September- when the daughter had not been wished a happy birthday.
The young soldier and his wife celebrated their love faithfully as decades and decades passed. On December 11, 2003, she sat by him in the mid-morning as he passed from this life. She noted feeling as though he had waiting for this day... their special day.
Less than two years later the now elderly woman married Ralph, an "Army buddy" of her late husband. Both in ailing health, they loved and comforted one another as they each so desperately needed in their octogenarian years.
And today, as my mother called to tell me that Ralph has passed away this mid-morning, she marveled at the significance of December 11th. She reminded me, as I had forgotten the date, of my having called her in 2004 to mourn the death of one of my favorite pets: a very loving rabbit named Notch. Though I didn't remember the date, I did remember coming home from work to find her limp and lifeless. Holding her close and crying, whispering apologies to her for not having taken her to a vet sooner, and the next day trudging through the snowlit, frozen woods with her small blanket-wrapped body in one arm and a shovel in the other. I remember the dirty difficulty of digging a grave in frozen, wooded ground.
On December 11, 2010, I celebrate the 30th birthday of new but close friend, and reflect on the immense joy and beauty that her birth... and the birth of my father... and the marriage of my grandparents... brought into the world. I reflect on how it's a day that holds creation for my family; beginnings, births, deaths. Happiness and grief.
Today is a day brimming with life.
In the winter of 1942 a handsome young soldier returned home to Missouri from training in California. He was preparing for deployment to Germany- but he had one last thing to do before he left. Ten months prior he had met a girl. He had his first and only date with the beautiful, fiery women's libber- who everyone said was "too good" for him. Having already been drafted, he was immediately shipped to California. But such an obstacle could not stop their communique. They each mailed a letter, every day without fail, for the next ten months. And when his next two days in Missouri came on December 11th, they married.
That same day, in a tiny town in central Missouri, a baby boy was born. He was the first born in a dysfunctional, angry family. He grew up to marry and have his own children, including a daughter who would often present him with a shiny new belt buckle on his birthday. A buckle that would adorn the belt he used to beat her, or was sometimes used as a weapon itself.
Eventually, long after their estrangement, the daughter would dread this day. Wondering far in advance about the yearly decision to wish or not-wish the old man a happy birthday. Eventually each year became determined by the old man's silence in September- when the daughter had not been wished a happy birthday.
The young soldier and his wife celebrated their love faithfully as decades and decades passed. On December 11, 2003, she sat by him in the mid-morning as he passed from this life. She noted feeling as though he had waiting for this day... their special day.
Less than two years later the now elderly woman married Ralph, an "Army buddy" of her late husband. Both in ailing health, they loved and comforted one another as they each so desperately needed in their octogenarian years.
And today, as my mother called to tell me that Ralph has passed away this mid-morning, she marveled at the significance of December 11th. She reminded me, as I had forgotten the date, of my having called her in 2004 to mourn the death of one of my favorite pets: a very loving rabbit named Notch. Though I didn't remember the date, I did remember coming home from work to find her limp and lifeless. Holding her close and crying, whispering apologies to her for not having taken her to a vet sooner, and the next day trudging through the snowlit, frozen woods with her small blanket-wrapped body in one arm and a shovel in the other. I remember the dirty difficulty of digging a grave in frozen, wooded ground.
On December 11, 2010, I celebrate the 30th birthday of new but close friend, and reflect on the immense joy and beauty that her birth... and the birth of my father... and the marriage of my grandparents... brought into the world. I reflect on how it's a day that holds creation for my family; beginnings, births, deaths. Happiness and grief.
Today is a day brimming with life.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
a toss up
On February 3, 1959, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper were killed in a plane crash.
Initially, Holly was set to fly, as usual, with his back-up band: Waylon Jennings and Tommy Allsup. The accompanying acts (Valens and the Bopper) were scheduled to take a bus on to the next stop in Minnesota. However, because Richardson (the Bopper) had been ill and was not up for a lengthy bus ride, Jennings relinquished his place on the three-seater plane. Valens and Allsup determined who would get the final doomed seat by flipping a coin.
In the mid-90’s Peter Boyle starred in a classic episode of the X-Files entitled “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose,” in which he played a man obsessed with this tragic story. He commented, far more eloquently than I, on the truly infinite number of factors that had to align in order to produce such a moment: a moment in which Ritchie Valens life and death were reduced to merely two sides of a flipping coin.
We’ve all experienced it. We go back inside for our forgotten car keys and narrowly miss a fatal accident ten minutes later. It makes us wonder, if only for a minute (lest we lose our minds altogether), what sort of forces are at play in our lives. Is it all just luck and chance? Do we really have anything to do with it? Do the stars just simply align, pulling us into place like marionettes?
Having been forced (and choosing) to do a lot of self-reflection in recent months, I have reached a few conclusions. But most things have simply become more and more indefinite.
I often find myself overcome by emotions that seem to ambush me and leave just as quickly. I frequently find myself standing, utterly alone in the living room and feeling disheartened. Alone. Achingly sad. Lost.
As I always do when I feel this way, I begin looking for something more/different/better/away from here.
When Courtney and I separated, one of my first thoughts was “if I’m still single in the summer, I’m going into the Peace Corps.” Read: if I’m still feeling as unattached as I am now, I’m running.
Of course other options come into play. I miss school. I’d like to return for my doctorate. My therapist suggested Doctors without Borders. They employ therapists and require a 6-12 month commitment instead of a 24-month one… but also require prior out-of-country helping experience, which I don’t have. All things that I want to do.
I had a rash thought: I’ll flip a coin. Heads I go back to school, tails I leave the country. I considered this for a bit, wondering if I could actually commit to following through with whatever path the universe handed me. Or if I would just keep flipping until I got the answer I wanted.
If only Richie Valens had had that opportunity.
The truth is, either heads or tails would make me a bit sad.
On one side, I would be leaving.
And, with my life and the lives of my friends being what they are at this time and place, I realize that if I were to disappear and return in two years… everyone I know would likely be gone. Nearly all my friends are on the verge of some great transition- graduating from school, applying to school, getting married, etc. I think about the time and effort I’ve put into making Boston my home and I feel wistful. I feel homesick before I’ve ever even left.
And then I think about how utterly disconnected from humanity I still feel. How alone I feel, even after have done all this work. And I feel discouraged. And like starting over.
My therapist was not supportive of my Peace Corps idea. She agreed that the work would be great for me, but “I think you underestimate how lonely you would be.”
“I think you underestimate how lonely I’ve always been,” I said.
On paper I’m the ideal candidate, really. I want nothing more than to devote my life to learning about the world and helping others. I have no ties- family, relationship, pet, or other. And the Peace Corps agreed. I applied and they said, “can you leave in three months?” Admittedly, this startled me a bit. I ended up needing more time to sort out debts, and my relationship with Courtney was just beginning.
I’m well aware of how terrible it sounds to make “if I’m single” even a factor in this equation. It sounds like some sort of personal ultimatum, or… I don’t know what it sounds like, but it smacks of desperation.
The truth is, if I were to make a list of all of the things I want for my life, first and foremost would be finding “the one for me.” Yes, it’s cliché. It feels distastefully sugary to say sometimes, but I know that if I met someone who I thought there was even a slim chance of something real with, I wouldn’t give that up. No matter what.
It’s maddening because love is the one thing I can’t *make* happen. I can’t control whether I find her, or whether she even exists. I can control traveling the world and working the jobs I want, living the places I want to live and acquiring all the things I want to acquire. But I can’t control what’s #1 on my list.
But I suppose that’s also why I would never walk away from a chance to have love: because you can’t know when or if the next one will come. With the rest of my desires, I can and will make my own opportunities. With love, I’m at the whim of the universe.
On the other side of the coin, I can continue to better myself in the U.S. of A, furthering my education and making a better life for myself and family down the road. It's not like there aren't millions of opportunities for community service here. But then fear creeps in. Fear that, honestly, what I’m hanging around waiting for might not be out there. Yes I’m a hopeless romantic, but I must be realistic and acknowledge that there is a chance I may never meet her. It's possible.
And it would be twice the tragedy if in ten years, at age 38 I had neither found my partner nor done the things I dream of doing. I hadn’t traveled or humbled myself to others less fortunate than I. I hadn’t opened up my heart and pushed my boundaries and intellect to the brink, facing everything that feels uncomfortable and scary by assimilating into completely foreign worlds. Ideally, I do this with someone. I have a love, a partner there with me who is just as excited to explore these things as I am.
I have a home that I bring with me.
Sometimes it seems that both my heart and head agree that I can’t wait. Sitting and waiting for I-don’t-know-what has gotten me nothing but older. And these days, I’m not even sure I would know what I’m waiting for if I saw it. My brain tells me to live my life, go after what I want, and let everything else come when and if it comes. But it’s so hard to relinquish that control- even when it is a facade.
Whether I’m here or I’m far, far way, I’ve focused my life on trying to give as much as I can to others, and trying to bring as much good as I can into the world. That won’t change. One thing I have realized about myself in recent years is that it’s no longer critical for me to be famous or “important.” I just want to help.
When I boil down my job and all my training, my life’s work is startlingly simple: I sit with others while they hurt.
This is noble enough I suppose, and I am good enough at it. It certainly serves a purpose and is much-needed. There is so, so much pain in this world. But I think I’ll always be someone who expects more from myself. More accomplishment, more contribution, more purpose, more satisfaction. Do I flip a coin and take off running, driven full-speed in that way that I’ve been known to do? Or do I wait for the future to happen, trusting that the universe has the flipping coin?
Tonight I just sit with my uncomfortable expectations of “more,” looking at a long and unfulfilled bucket list, praying for more clarity.
Initially, Holly was set to fly, as usual, with his back-up band: Waylon Jennings and Tommy Allsup. The accompanying acts (Valens and the Bopper) were scheduled to take a bus on to the next stop in Minnesota. However, because Richardson (the Bopper) had been ill and was not up for a lengthy bus ride, Jennings relinquished his place on the three-seater plane. Valens and Allsup determined who would get the final doomed seat by flipping a coin.
In the mid-90’s Peter Boyle starred in a classic episode of the X-Files entitled “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose,” in which he played a man obsessed with this tragic story. He commented, far more eloquently than I, on the truly infinite number of factors that had to align in order to produce such a moment: a moment in which Ritchie Valens life and death were reduced to merely two sides of a flipping coin.
We’ve all experienced it. We go back inside for our forgotten car keys and narrowly miss a fatal accident ten minutes later. It makes us wonder, if only for a minute (lest we lose our minds altogether), what sort of forces are at play in our lives. Is it all just luck and chance? Do we really have anything to do with it? Do the stars just simply align, pulling us into place like marionettes?
Having been forced (and choosing) to do a lot of self-reflection in recent months, I have reached a few conclusions. But most things have simply become more and more indefinite.
I often find myself overcome by emotions that seem to ambush me and leave just as quickly. I frequently find myself standing, utterly alone in the living room and feeling disheartened. Alone. Achingly sad. Lost.
As I always do when I feel this way, I begin looking for something more/different/better/away from here.
When Courtney and I separated, one of my first thoughts was “if I’m still single in the summer, I’m going into the Peace Corps.” Read: if I’m still feeling as unattached as I am now, I’m running.
Of course other options come into play. I miss school. I’d like to return for my doctorate. My therapist suggested Doctors without Borders. They employ therapists and require a 6-12 month commitment instead of a 24-month one… but also require prior out-of-country helping experience, which I don’t have. All things that I want to do.
I had a rash thought: I’ll flip a coin. Heads I go back to school, tails I leave the country. I considered this for a bit, wondering if I could actually commit to following through with whatever path the universe handed me. Or if I would just keep flipping until I got the answer I wanted.
If only Richie Valens had had that opportunity.
The truth is, either heads or tails would make me a bit sad.
On one side, I would be leaving.
And, with my life and the lives of my friends being what they are at this time and place, I realize that if I were to disappear and return in two years… everyone I know would likely be gone. Nearly all my friends are on the verge of some great transition- graduating from school, applying to school, getting married, etc. I think about the time and effort I’ve put into making Boston my home and I feel wistful. I feel homesick before I’ve ever even left.
And then I think about how utterly disconnected from humanity I still feel. How alone I feel, even after have done all this work. And I feel discouraged. And like starting over.
My therapist was not supportive of my Peace Corps idea. She agreed that the work would be great for me, but “I think you underestimate how lonely you would be.”
“I think you underestimate how lonely I’ve always been,” I said.
On paper I’m the ideal candidate, really. I want nothing more than to devote my life to learning about the world and helping others. I have no ties- family, relationship, pet, or other. And the Peace Corps agreed. I applied and they said, “can you leave in three months?” Admittedly, this startled me a bit. I ended up needing more time to sort out debts, and my relationship with Courtney was just beginning.
I’m well aware of how terrible it sounds to make “if I’m single” even a factor in this equation. It sounds like some sort of personal ultimatum, or… I don’t know what it sounds like, but it smacks of desperation.
The truth is, if I were to make a list of all of the things I want for my life, first and foremost would be finding “the one for me.” Yes, it’s cliché. It feels distastefully sugary to say sometimes, but I know that if I met someone who I thought there was even a slim chance of something real with, I wouldn’t give that up. No matter what.
It’s maddening because love is the one thing I can’t *make* happen. I can’t control whether I find her, or whether she even exists. I can control traveling the world and working the jobs I want, living the places I want to live and acquiring all the things I want to acquire. But I can’t control what’s #1 on my list.
But I suppose that’s also why I would never walk away from a chance to have love: because you can’t know when or if the next one will come. With the rest of my desires, I can and will make my own opportunities. With love, I’m at the whim of the universe.
On the other side of the coin, I can continue to better myself in the U.S. of A, furthering my education and making a better life for myself and family down the road. It's not like there aren't millions of opportunities for community service here. But then fear creeps in. Fear that, honestly, what I’m hanging around waiting for might not be out there. Yes I’m a hopeless romantic, but I must be realistic and acknowledge that there is a chance I may never meet her. It's possible.
And it would be twice the tragedy if in ten years, at age 38 I had neither found my partner nor done the things I dream of doing. I hadn’t traveled or humbled myself to others less fortunate than I. I hadn’t opened up my heart and pushed my boundaries and intellect to the brink, facing everything that feels uncomfortable and scary by assimilating into completely foreign worlds. Ideally, I do this with someone. I have a love, a partner there with me who is just as excited to explore these things as I am.
I have a home that I bring with me.
Sometimes it seems that both my heart and head agree that I can’t wait. Sitting and waiting for I-don’t-know-what has gotten me nothing but older. And these days, I’m not even sure I would know what I’m waiting for if I saw it. My brain tells me to live my life, go after what I want, and let everything else come when and if it comes. But it’s so hard to relinquish that control- even when it is a facade.
Whether I’m here or I’m far, far way, I’ve focused my life on trying to give as much as I can to others, and trying to bring as much good as I can into the world. That won’t change. One thing I have realized about myself in recent years is that it’s no longer critical for me to be famous or “important.” I just want to help.
When I boil down my job and all my training, my life’s work is startlingly simple: I sit with others while they hurt.
This is noble enough I suppose, and I am good enough at it. It certainly serves a purpose and is much-needed. There is so, so much pain in this world. But I think I’ll always be someone who expects more from myself. More accomplishment, more contribution, more purpose, more satisfaction. Do I flip a coin and take off running, driven full-speed in that way that I’ve been known to do? Or do I wait for the future to happen, trusting that the universe has the flipping coin?
Tonight I just sit with my uncomfortable expectations of “more,” looking at a long and unfulfilled bucket list, praying for more clarity.
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