My worst impulse would be to talk about myself without the guise of fiction. It is always so much easier to talk about my own feelings through that particular tint, but in reality, I am only commenting on my own vision of reality. This particular prompt is forcing me to talk about an issue that is important to me both on the surface and deep inside. At first, I wanted to talk about sex or impulse or something exciting, but, in truth, what I really been thinking about lately is the lack of indelibility that is my existence. To me, I am the most important thing. I am all I have been and all I will be for the beginning and end of (my) existence, and I am scared shitless of that. Deep down, everyone wants to live past his or her years. And, what I can’t fully wrap my head around is that, outside of children, I will probably not have any effect on the future. I don’t count children directly because they are an amalgamation of my own being and that is more of a progressive action rather than an antidote to the question at hand. How do we leave our mark on the world?
It is entirely egotistical to hope to be remembered, and with an ever increasing population and so much history piling up in every nook and cranny of every local library, we are not left with many options. My train of thought drifts for a second and, in thinking, I find that it is far easier to live in history as an infamous character than a hero. It has taken an incalculable number of heroes to get to the point we are at now, but it is the ultimate villains that are discussed and remembered. I think this comes from the idea that we are in awe of what we both cannot comprehend and fear. In some way, an act of aggression or violence vastly outweighs altruism because of our inherent fear of injury. Maybe that is a lie. Maybe it’s just that evil doing is momentary where as piety takes a lifetime and nobody wants to have to dedicate a lifetime to anything anymore. A lifetime now is so much longer than it was a hundred years ago. Then, what is it?
If the ultimate purpose of living is to be alive, why do we waste so much time of effect. It would be much more proactive to just be the cause. I really don’t have any answers to these questions and I feel pretty silly about bringing this up at all. It’s just the first and most overriding series of thoughts that came into my mind when I got this prompt, and now I’m going to post this entry without editing it. For some reason, I think that is important.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Twist the spine
I used to fantasize about being a professional athlete. Refusing to believe that I had reached the age where professional sports of most any breed are well out of reach, I would still daydream, while on the elliptical machine at my gym, about being a world-renowned soccer player or golfer. At first, I began to notice that the rookie players were starting to look young to me. Then, I realized if I was playing in a televised game, the commentators would be probably refer to me as the crafty veteran as opposed to the young superstar… What has been long apparent to everyone else around me has finally hit home; the beautiful youth of my youth has developed crows feet and smile wrinkles.
For active people, I think the first moment of true mortality happens when your body fails you. For me, it was a cantaloupe. A pathetic, silly melon that nine times out of ten doesn’t taste all that good. My dad tossed me a cantaloupe at the fruit stand, and as I caught it, I heard a small pop. Agony, self defined as: an absolute inability to stand. And, that was it. No bone crushing hit punctuated by the absolute silence of the crowd waiting, breath collectively held, for my thumbs up as I was wheeled off the field. Just a scornful look from the Chinese woman buying honeydew and the relatively unaffected glances from the Latinos unloading the truck parked a few feet away.
Now, things are different. I can’t put my pants on with the same reckless abandon of my youth. And, I am now referred to as the “delicate flower” by the old men I play racquetball with on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But, don’t start feeling sad for me. I have managed to develop quit a pharmaceutical cache (thank you big, faceless HMO) and I have turned my attentions to less strenuous yet equally gratifying sports such as pool and darts. The truly hard thing has been to retrain myself to daydream about other things while on the elliptical machine. Now, I am a scientist madly working on a cure for cancer, or the coach of an upstart college basketball team. Granted, neither daydream is nearly as satisfying as the old ones, but I feel that with my age, a certain level of maturity needs to take hold, and that I should start dreaming about more realistic goals.
For active people, I think the first moment of true mortality happens when your body fails you. For me, it was a cantaloupe. A pathetic, silly melon that nine times out of ten doesn’t taste all that good. My dad tossed me a cantaloupe at the fruit stand, and as I caught it, I heard a small pop. Agony, self defined as: an absolute inability to stand. And, that was it. No bone crushing hit punctuated by the absolute silence of the crowd waiting, breath collectively held, for my thumbs up as I was wheeled off the field. Just a scornful look from the Chinese woman buying honeydew and the relatively unaffected glances from the Latinos unloading the truck parked a few feet away.
Now, things are different. I can’t put my pants on with the same reckless abandon of my youth. And, I am now referred to as the “delicate flower” by the old men I play racquetball with on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But, don’t start feeling sad for me. I have managed to develop quit a pharmaceutical cache (thank you big, faceless HMO) and I have turned my attentions to less strenuous yet equally gratifying sports such as pool and darts. The truly hard thing has been to retrain myself to daydream about other things while on the elliptical machine. Now, I am a scientist madly working on a cure for cancer, or the coach of an upstart college basketball team. Granted, neither daydream is nearly as satisfying as the old ones, but I feel that with my age, a certain level of maturity needs to take hold, and that I should start dreaming about more realistic goals.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Distorting time
A cricket jumps off of the picnic table in the back yard. It lands in the dew soaked grass and disappears.
A cricket jumps off of the picnic table in the back yard. Gray clouds of varying darkness pass over the sun. A train passes by, slowly. It lands in the dew soaked grass and disappears.
A cricket jumps off of the picnic table in the back yard. Gray clouds of varying darkness pass over the sun. She walks from the porch to the waters edge. A layer of mist hangs above the still water. A train passes by, slowly. It lands in the dew soaked grass and disappears.
A cricket jumps off of the picnic table in the back yard. Gray clouds of varying darkness pass over the sun. She walks from the porch to the waters edge. A raven with a beetle in its beak, watches. Wet pollen and pine musk in the air. A layer of mist hangs above the still water. A train passes by, slowly. It lands in the dew soaked grass and disappears.
A cricket jumps off of the picnic table in the back yard. Gray clouds of varying darkness pass over the sun. She walks from the porch to the waters edge. A raven with a beetle in its beak, watches. Drops of blood make a path from the bathtub out the back door. A scream is caught in the china cabinet. Wet pollen and pine musk in the air. A layer of mist hangs above the still water. A train passes by, slowly. It lands in the dew soaked grass and disappears.
She jumps off of the picnic table in the back year. Gray ravens of varying darkness block out the sun. A path of blood makes its way from the porch down to the waters edge. In the bathtub, a cricket. The air screams of wet pollen and pine musk. China mist hangs above still waters. A train of dew soaked grass slowly disappears.
This is how it will begin, with a cricket.
A cricket jumps off of the picnic table in the back yard. Gray clouds of varying darkness pass over the sun. A train passes by, slowly. It lands in the dew soaked grass and disappears.
A cricket jumps off of the picnic table in the back yard. Gray clouds of varying darkness pass over the sun. She walks from the porch to the waters edge. A layer of mist hangs above the still water. A train passes by, slowly. It lands in the dew soaked grass and disappears.
A cricket jumps off of the picnic table in the back yard. Gray clouds of varying darkness pass over the sun. She walks from the porch to the waters edge. A raven with a beetle in its beak, watches. Wet pollen and pine musk in the air. A layer of mist hangs above the still water. A train passes by, slowly. It lands in the dew soaked grass and disappears.
A cricket jumps off of the picnic table in the back yard. Gray clouds of varying darkness pass over the sun. She walks from the porch to the waters edge. A raven with a beetle in its beak, watches. Drops of blood make a path from the bathtub out the back door. A scream is caught in the china cabinet. Wet pollen and pine musk in the air. A layer of mist hangs above the still water. A train passes by, slowly. It lands in the dew soaked grass and disappears.
She jumps off of the picnic table in the back year. Gray ravens of varying darkness block out the sun. A path of blood makes its way from the porch down to the waters edge. In the bathtub, a cricket. The air screams of wet pollen and pine musk. China mist hangs above still waters. A train of dew soaked grass slowly disappears.
This is how it will begin, with a cricket.
Simple Subtraction
Fogging Over
On a colder than normal morning
a fishing boat
has gone missing.
It should be there
in the gray, blue dawn light
bobbing near the curved horizon.
The anchor chain
lies serpentine
On the ocean floor.
And, an empty boat is making its way,
pulled by the current
towards the far off island of Madagascar.
On a colder than normal morning
a fishing boat
has gone missing.
It should be there
in the gray, blue dawn light
bobbing near the curved horizon.
The anchor chain
lies serpentine
On the ocean floor.
And, an empty boat is making its way,
pulled by the current
towards the far off island of Madagascar.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Remember those quiet evenings.
The power went out in our house on the cliff in Santa Barbara. A tropical storm had been battering the coastline for the past couple of days, and finally, our section of the power grid went down. I remember thinking at the time that I wanted to have family time with my roommates. Two of them had fallen into relationships, and we had been seeing less and less of each other as the year had progressed.
Night fell, and we lit candles and sat around the living room talking and reading each other interesting facts from the reference books we had on our laps. Jacque Cousteau’s epitaph is “Jacque Cousteau has returned to the silence”. Reno, Nevada is further west than San Diego, California. I walked into the kitchen to get another bottle of wine, and when I turned, the flickering candlelight slipped in through the doorway, followed by my friends’ voices and laughter, and I felt happy.
Hours later, the two roommates with significant other left to spend the night elsewhere, leaving me and Brit to fend for ourselves. We ended up going downtown to the bars, looking for girls. A few hours later, we came back to a dark and empty house, drunk and alone.
Night fell, and we lit candles and sat around the living room talking and reading each other interesting facts from the reference books we had on our laps. Jacque Cousteau’s epitaph is “Jacque Cousteau has returned to the silence”. Reno, Nevada is further west than San Diego, California. I walked into the kitchen to get another bottle of wine, and when I turned, the flickering candlelight slipped in through the doorway, followed by my friends’ voices and laughter, and I felt happy.
Hours later, the two roommates with significant other left to spend the night elsewhere, leaving me and Brit to fend for ourselves. We ended up going downtown to the bars, looking for girls. A few hours later, we came back to a dark and empty house, drunk and alone.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Cut a Vital Connection
Sometimes I fantasize about running away. One morning, I will get up, pack my car and drive off to somewhere else, maybe Oregon. At first, people won’t realize I’m gone. Then, after a couple of days, they will start to ask questions. But, by then it’ll be too late. My cell phone and email will have been discontinued, and there will be no way for anyone to get into contact with me. That’s all. One day, they will wake up and I will be gone.
I find this daydream funny for a number of reasons. First of all, I care more about the reaction people will have to my absence, then the new life that I will be leading in a far off city. Knowing that, I have come to understand, that it is not being absent from people that I dream about. The kernel of gratification that I would reap from this disappearance would be lost because, after all, I would not be around to experience the reactions.
Knowing this, I dig deeper. Is it the desire to feel needed: to know that I will be missed? Why do I have to go to such an extreme to feel desired?
More to the point though, why am I afraid of people knowing me?
I think of interpersonal relationships as being vital because other people remind me of who I really am. I can spend hours, days even, in a fantasy land, spinning off into the stratosphere. But, each time, I get pulled back to reality be someone or someone else. My friends and family are my grounding points, and without them, I would be able to live in the blissful ignorance of my own imagination. They remind me of my human folly: the desire to be loved, the mistakes that I make. The people that populate my life remind me that I am human.
I find this daydream funny for a number of reasons. First of all, I care more about the reaction people will have to my absence, then the new life that I will be leading in a far off city. Knowing that, I have come to understand, that it is not being absent from people that I dream about. The kernel of gratification that I would reap from this disappearance would be lost because, after all, I would not be around to experience the reactions.
Knowing this, I dig deeper. Is it the desire to feel needed: to know that I will be missed? Why do I have to go to such an extreme to feel desired?
More to the point though, why am I afraid of people knowing me?
I think of interpersonal relationships as being vital because other people remind me of who I really am. I can spend hours, days even, in a fantasy land, spinning off into the stratosphere. But, each time, I get pulled back to reality be someone or someone else. My friends and family are my grounding points, and without them, I would be able to live in the blissful ignorance of my own imagination. They remind me of my human folly: the desire to be loved, the mistakes that I make. The people that populate my life remind me that I am human.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Abandon Normal Instruments
The first thought would be to re-contextualize certain objects. A wall clock becomes a plate. A book is now a coaster. Then things get a little bit more strange. Paintings slide off of the wall and become oil iridescent puddles on the hardwood floor. A guitar screams like a murder of crows. I have a vision of a man being lowered down onto a stage. He is sitting in the crook of a crescent moon, playing the guitar. I have another vision. His father is the captain of a ship. He and the ship are both lost at sea, under a blanket of stars. The compass will not work. They are too close to the North Pole, or if that doesn’t work, the water is magnetized. The captain uses the stars to navigate. What makes the scene so much sadder, though, is the knowing that the stars are actually Christmas tree lights, and the lights are being used in place of spoons.
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