Some light streams in through the cracks between the blinds that cover my sliding balcony door. The Winco is a 24-hour store, and the soft yellow lights of the parking lot mesmerize me at times. I like the way the puddles catch the reflections, and send them off at odd angles on their way back up. I’ve lost a couple hours watching this more than once…with a beer, sitting out on the balcony. Every once in a while an occassional tire, shopping cart or shoe passes through those puddles and adds even more variables to the equation as I look on from my 2nd story vantage point, roughly 12 feet up and 10 yards out.
It’s 3:25 AM on a random weekday morning as I type this ‘intro’…and I find myself wide awake as usual at this time. I’ve got work in a few hours, but if I can’t sleep anyway I might as well do something productive with the time. I enjoy the night…the silence, and the lights off…I even see better this way.
It’s not about a class war. Or Iraq. Or terrorism. It’s not even healthcare or New Orleans or the next Katrina-like disaster. It’s not collapsing bridges or trapped miners. Not abortion or gay marriage, civil rights or liberties. Tax cuts for the rich and what’s left in the treasury going to Halliburton? No, not that either. Predatory lending and sub prime markets crashing? Loss of income? Fear of job loss? Loss of worker safety protections? No no no no no no no….
It’s simply this: Our governmental infrastructure is broken… it’s dysfunctional. Further, the government of the United States of America has turned its back on its citizens. Hey. I have a novel idea. How about stopping those causing the dysfunction? Yeah. Like an intervention called IMPEACHMENT. We must demand Congress does its job and uphold the Constitution. Restore our freedoms and Constitutional rights damn it! Start with, first and foremost, enforcing separation of church and state and creating an earthquake-proof secular government. Then let’s get rid of thought crimes straight away. And torture and spying on US Citizens.
Because really, I’m thinking a government that condones spying on its citizens and dismantling due process as it outsources military, education, medicare et al is a government of men and women not interested in health care or education or the military. They are interested in controlling us and giving all those private contracts to their buddies. Cha Ching. We need our equilibrium back. We need to restore our country by rebuilding our governmental infrastructure. Forget 2008. If we want health care and collapsing bridges repaired, then we have to find people to send to Congress who will start the hard work of restoring the functionality of the United States government.
This apartment is too clean, too sterile. Like it hasn’t been lived in enough, or at all for that matter…
De reir a cheile a thogtar na caisleain.
It takes time to build castles.
There are definitely some signs of life here, though…and in one case, remnants of a life. I saved the orange “funeral” placard that was on my front window during the procession that brought my best friend from the wake to his final resting place, a little fenced-in Catholic cemetary in Union County, New Jersey. Lots of trees, lots of green. Lots of places to sit and think. It’s best at night…the stars make no noise. A respite from the nastiness of the world.
I spent most of my last day in New Jersey there. I sat there, and I thought about…
… Do not stand at my grave and cry-
I am not there… I did not die…
Okay, so we’ll leave there then, man. We’ll go back to my place again, okay?
Rummaging through ornaments, I pick up three of my favorites. A trio of polar bears, made from a kind of velvet elvis-like material. They all have this innocent hey lady, where’s the hot chocolate and cookies look when really, they’re eyeing the red-lacquered wagon. And they do it every year … ha! One bear climbs in as the other two take up positions pulling and pushing the wiggly little cart across the window sill. It’s a sweet little vignette until the “it’s my turn to ride in the wagon” starts. But we’ve all been there…
The snowmen, generally a more gentlemanly bunch, find a place around a sparkly tree on a quiet sill away from the bears. Greenery gets hung around my fire place (as much make believe as the polar bears and snowmen), and I light candles in its pretend hearth. The collection of Santas, with big bellies and spindly legs, have gathered around the wood-cut fir to admire the fine glass sleigh parked there and piled high with packages. Christmas music is playing and this year, snow surrounds my little place.
There’s nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child. ~Erma Bombeck
I like make-believing. I especially like make-believing in Santa because he always has faith in what kids believe, seeing beyond wish-lists and into their innocent hearts. The right jolly old elf doesn’t just leave a doll or stuffed animal, but playmates who never tire of tea parties, building forts in forests, or turning sticks into swords . These rag-tagged companions never object to being dragged along on all the Lewis & Clark-like expeditions kids love to make.
i was going to write about what i imagine it will be like to live in leiden, the netherlands. but it’s been snowing all day and i have on christmas music. i’ve done a little decorating, have the candles lit, and poured a glass of red wine.
i’ll be out of this place in a few weeks. life or time or whatever it is keeps us moving… and we seem never to stop making changes. my nephew ryan turned 10 today. on christmas day, i’ll be 53. holy fucking moly.
but tonight, i’m happy. i love how snow quiets things down. slows things down. i love milky night skies and how moon glow backlights falling, floating drop_lets. i love snowstorms and being out with my dog. I love the way the snow catches in his fur and how he rolls on his back. i love the sun coming out after a big storm… and the glint and sparkle of the snow snow snow.
i love the way a house can smell warm when you come back inside. oh… and sometimes it’s so nice to curl up into blankets and take a nap. not really sleep though, but how you feel in those perfect moments between sleeping and waking.
i decided i should take some pictures of my little cottage-like apartment, with my few christmas decorations and the abundance of snow outside, and show you all where i am right now and where i won’t be for much longer.
and yet, right now i’m so fully here. not fully grasping deconstructing all of this. walking away from each part is an odd thing. how it all changes and the things that held you in orbit have disappeared. and you walk away. energy going forward in light years or heavy years. the drag of memory, holding you still. making you think you’re still where you’re not. it will all melt like the snow outside. the landscape. the way it looks right now. it will never be that way again.
big chest-heaving sigh.
and i’m up in five minutes and maybe i’ll just keep writing this in the comments. as i chase after myself. as i try to let go and grab onto something new, all at the same time.
hey. here i am. that’s funny now. here i am. until i melt away.
Yes, that’s correct, I’m one of those anal retentive writers who believe in spelling and capitalization and punctuation and grammar. Links lend credibility and context.
Sometimes people mistake my style for stream of consciousness. They would be surprised to learn that almost everything is outlined and constructed. What I do is tell stories, like Garrison Keillor or Mark Twain or Dashiell Hammett. Because most of them do in fact come from personal experience while they have a middle, they seldom have a firm beginning or end; though I am always trying to make a point.
In the beginning. Where is that exactly? First the Earth was formed, then the dinosaurs came and Jesus rode them like ponies. Homer started his poems in medias res and at the beginning we are on the shores of Troy or Ithaca and have the great relief for the rest of the tedious tale that our hero makes it that far at least, so we have no serious concerns for his welfare.
Much of the rest may seem mere wandering flashbacks but because the reader has peeked ahead they are assured they will eventually get somewhere.
So every essay is also all about process as long as you learn from it.
Here I’ve been experimenting with form, trying to write shorter, and more political, and shorter AND more political. An ideal Front Page piece will have 200 to 500 words and at least one graphic or blockquote for visual interest. That’s about 4 or five paragraphs. Not much time to get to the point.
Although I had lived, and hiked, and backpacked in the Southwest for twenty or so years, encounters with rattlesnakes were pretty rare. If one sees snakes at all, they’re usually stretched across a trail or road. I had sure never encountered one where it posed a problem, like crawling into someones sleeping bag. The closest anyone I knew ever came was when I was hiking with my nephew, he once sat on a large large rock that had a rattler underneath. When it rattled, he moved. This is generally considered appropriate behavior. He might have been maybe a little too excited, and ran much farther than he needed to, but the move-away–leave-it-alone strategy is all one really needs to do in most cases. The people that do get bitten are usually young, drunk, and male.
Most people in rural areas with great hideouts like barns and woodpiles, will usually handle rattlesnake encounters with matter-of-fact blowing them away with a shotgun.
I somehow got a job at a nature sanctuary near a small town and moved there from Tucson. I had been a volunteer for a few years and Jerry, the manager, finally had the funding to hire some help. Meetings with rattlesnakes increased.
“What is a LEADER?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“A LEADER isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. It’s realizing that every experience develops some latent force within you.1 You begin to understand that vision is the art of seeing the invisible2 so that when you want to build a wagon, you don’t gather the other toys to collect wood or assign them tasks, but rather you teach them to long for ways to traverse the endless immensity of the backyard.3 Then you become a LEADER.”
before my 16th birthday, my dad took me out for dinner. he said he figured it was time for the “sex” talk. whoo boy.
so we’re at dinner and i say, dad i know about sex… haven’t had it yet, but like i know about it.
he says i only wanted to tell you this one thing: don’t ever let anybody fuck you. if you want to fuck them, that’s fine. but don’t EVER let anybody fuck you.
holy shit. what did he just say?
and then we both started laughing.
my father gave me one hell of a gift: the knowledge and confidence to own myself. to own my decisions. to be my own person.
yeah, you own yourself and you give yourself… don’t ever let anybody take anything you are unwilling to give.
but when you let go, let giving yourself be a completing act. because it’s love we all want, so make it about loving somebody.
then sex is a playground, an archeological dig. it’s absurd, a comedy, a vacation of hours… it’s making poetry in grunts and groans. it’s about that slow reveal… the getting there…
maybe, when we stop letting others define us
maybe, when we stop letting life define us
maybe, when we start defining ourselves
we’ll stop creating worlds in which we hate to live
Facts… silver bullets in the war against the ignorant, the uninformed, and the intolerant.
Facts. That’s all we need. Forget love, faith, religion, God, even reason or logic. It’s all about the facts. Why can’t these damned neocons and wingnuts just ACCEPT the fucking FACTS???
