sprouting a thought...

The answers are never as simple as we hope they’ll be nor as complex as we expect them to be. Most importantly we already know the answers; we just seem to forget, a lot. This is not a self help book, unless you want it to be, this is a story, a journey, an attempt by one woman to understand why she is here and why her existence is significant.

We over think everything. Of course, life is not a straight and narrow path. Often times you make pit stops, take an exit you think is promising or just plain pull over and take a nap, take a drink, get out and scream at the top of your lungs that you’re just not getting it. At some point we’ve all felt like we’re just spinning our wheels, moving but not really getting anywhere. And so we give up. Gas is too expensive. The road’s going to end at some point and probably anti-climatically. Everyone surrenders their waking life, you have to. We all need a rest. This manifests itself as the point you reach in your day or in your week or in your life when simply detaching from the world seems like the most comfortable and painless option. It’s the zombie-like feeling you get when commuting back from a long day at work. You’ve got that million mile stare, eyes agape, gulping down sensory information without cognitively chewing, ingesting images because part of you has punched the time clock on reality and all you can hope for is that your body will manage on its own. You need a break. You’ve disappeared then. These little, or in some cases, large chasms between reality and dreaming or the subconscious and conscious or between waking and sleeping, can sometimes feel like a death from the present. What you are left with is a floating feeling; you are a balloon that has lost its string and is making a rapid run for the Pacific and when it finally touches down and plants itself on the surface of that great water, you can’t remember how you got there or why. There is some sort of block, there is something that must be confronted but perhaps it’s easier to lay face down in the water and slowly embrace the moment of sinking. And this is all fine for a day or a week or maybe a month, but what happens when you’ve been hiding for a year, or two or ten or a lifetime? At some point, in fact, at many points, you are given a choice: remain eyes closed, floating on a vast and frigid ocean or release, wake, gasping and struggling for new air.

You see, I’m just like you, only my departure from life lasted for fifty years. I had somehow entered a strange no-where place, neither in the clouds nor on the ground, just a sort of uncontrollable floating. It was as if my body had been parsed into sand and the crashing waves of the world and of my own psyche kept me forever suspended, not quite here, not quite there. I spent more than half of my life in between sleeping and waking because I was afraid of what lurked at either end.

We are all looking for an explanation, a reason, a purpose. How is that we came to be? The How is greatly debated: a seven day odyssey or a big bang. Perhaps an egg cracked open somewhere or someone hit this earth in the right-side back pocket of the universe and we collected in the deep, infinite darkness of some seedy bar in Nebulous 5. I’m not so much concerned with the How, I’m stuck on the Why. Why are we here? And when I cannot answer for the entire human race, I bare my teeth and look hard into the creases in my forehead, I spoon out the blackness from my pupils and spread out my iris. This body must have come with an instruction manual, and somewhere in the beginning there must be an explanation for my existence. I feel that life is one of those things that you slowly uncover and then, if you’re lucky, you die at the ripe old age of almost getting it. The alternative is to answer Rod Stewart’s wish, that is, being able to know what we know now, when we were younger. However, if you knew everything by the time you were twelve there wouldn’t be much point because you wouldn’t believe yourself, you’d keep searching anyway. Perhaps that’s the purpose, to search for a purpose. Who knows? Yet, we are all on a quest to find the answer, to uncover the truth as to our existence. Why? What difference do I make?

There comes a time when you must decide whether or not you want to continue to be a part of the world or to leave. This is the story of my waking. It hasn’t been an easy or comfortable journey but it is meaningful and when you’re at the end of your days, what more can you really hope for? You just want to make a little sense of this life and hope that your being here not only meant something to you, but meant something to others. And perhaps, most importantly that when you depart, you will be missed. Maybe that is the purpose in and of itself. To connect to others, to build relationships, to be.

the mood of the month

i've been living tumultuously lately. not by choice, that's for sure. you know me, a deep sea diver, not exactly a white water rafter. but sometimes we just can't control the sea we are on. and so...

i'm kicking against the current, day dreaming away most of my reality. i got laid off a few days ago. it feels like i just can't catch a break. so now i'm unemployed again. i tell myself it's a good thing because now i have more time to work on the book i'm writing. i told you that i'm writing a book right? well, i'm writing a book. i also have two new addictions: sake and chelsea handler. they pair very nicely. it helps me forget how tired i am getting fighting these violent seas. i just must be careful that i don't black out and drown.

ah, but my situation is not that dire. i do, however, feel for my poor dejected, little blog...so malnourished. it's been weeks since it's seen anything of any real promise. but i've been distracted lately. i'm so caught up in how things just don't seem to be working. but something must change. the current will switch eventually and hopefully i'll be on top once again...one can dream.

this space is blank

the clouds outside are panting like dogs; i feel the slobber of their playful intent. but i'm inside writing. this is serious. i'm very serious.

i've run out of pages in my old journal so i need a new one. of course i'm picky, so not just any journal will do. where's my coffee? too quick down the hatch. i'd like a cabin on a hill in some romantic, no place holler. but i won't get one for a long time. if i become famous one day maybe. suppose i'll just have to settle for the word 'holler', use it in my day to day so people can keep asking me everyday where i'm from.

big project!

to the folks that read this blog, i want to thank you for sticking with me and commenting when you can. it really helps me to improve my writing. i also want to let you know that my absence from this blog has not equated to an absence in writing rather i am working on something BIG. the short story, "the letters" which you can glimpse from a post by the same name in october of 2010, is being fleshed out at i type. today, i just put all the pieces together so the bones are set. i'm very excited because what i thought would be a short story is really growing and i believe has a chance to be fairly good.

so thank you for being patient and as soon as i get a good draft, i will post this little/BIG project of mine. thank you again for your support!

the death of a bum

i barely knew the man, but i knew he existed. at any given moment someone, somewhere is disappearing, is in the throws of a slow or quick expiration. some fade, some fall out, some dissolve. some are simply cut out, taking with them the little bits of this world that surround their bodies. whether or not we think about it, we all know that somewhere, someone is dying. and i barely knew the man, but i knew he had, at one time, existed.

but bums are like that, right? their permanence is a magic trick, one designed to confirm our even more permanent place in reality and to perhaps, justify our existence as nonexpendables. but as we all know, someone, has to be expendable. there is always a price to be paid. taking the magic trick metaphor, bums are white rabbits pulled from a top hat, and we, in the audience, all stare and say, "what a way live, being pulled out of hats by your ears"! but we don't wonder about what happens after the show, what happens when we leave. rabbits will always exist in that very necessary way because we expect their existence in the magic show routine. and so it is with bums. we expect them in the routine of our lives, as much a part of the landscape as a street light. there we find them, crouched low in the nooks and crannies of any city. and it doesn't quite matter the individuality of the particular bum, rather, just his or her presence is needed to assure you that the world is spinning as it has been for centuries. don't worry, all is right with the world. show me a rabbit and i'll clap and say, thank God that's not me.

of course, there are differences between rabbits and bums. rabbits haven't any control over their environment or whether or not they will be pulled from a hat. and bums, to some extent may not have control over their situation either. of course, this depends upon your school of thought. i'm not here to judge bums or rabbits. i am here to say that i barely knew the man, but i knew he existed and i am struck by his death.

bums like hookers are cut out all the time. like excess fabric or dangling strings, most times, the body, or collective, moves around perfectly content without them. there is no mourning for these straggly pieces, not usually. however, there are times when your path, very literally, intersects with theirs. this is how it was for me. each day at work, i passed the same bum. he always told me hello and asked how i was doing. i always replied, good, good and went on my way. the interaction was so routine that it was as second nature as breathing. then, yesterday, i took my same path to work but i did not hear a hello. sometimes he was preoccupied and so i thought nothing of it.

when i was walking back later, i saw police gathered by his humble home--a stack of paper bags and a worn blanket--he was nowhere to be found. the police were putting yellow tape all around his little corner. as i continued on a local man asked me about what was happening. i didn't know. the bum was, apparently, his brother-in-law and he had read in the paper that morning that the bum had been killed. killed. the bum was an older man and on medication; he was "lolo" said the son-in-law. the old man liked to drink and so perhaps he had a little too much, said something to the wrong group of young men, and they then proceeded to "pound him out". of course, this is only speculation and the police, i'm sure will launch an investigation or at least make it look like an investigation. but a bum is just a rabbit right? does it really matter?

i was struck by his death, not in the sense that it was completely out of the realm of possibility, but because he had become a steady fixture in that little segment of my day and suddenly that fixture had been cut away. i had no reason or explanation for his death. to say i felt sadness would be a lie i'd tell myself to feel like i was a better person. no, his death made me remember the impermanence of everything. the unexpected nature of life. the seemingly reason-less world. the magician held up the rabbit, but it was limp. it was dead. in the audience we held our applause and checked our hearts. were our hearts still beating? if there is no rabbit, what will replace it? and will anything replace it? and will we still be at a magic show and will we still be audience members? someone might say that one less bum on the street is a good thing, but it's funny how quickly a connection can be made and how loose it can be and how, most importantly, it still means something. the son-in-law seemed sad and i was sad for him. not for the bum, but for this man to whom the bum was somebody. i walked about the rest of my day in a daze. this disconnected and confused blog is all i have to offer of the experience, as i said in the beginning, i barely knew the man, but i knew he existed and because of this this nobody was somebody to me.

bic pen?

here's the thing: i waited for you but you left me on the curb, chewing on this bic pen, trying to slurp the ink, maybe you left some of your think in there. i sat up in bed, an accomplishment in and of itself, holding the pen between my fingers like i found the feather of an angel's wing. i try to smoke it, but i couldn't get the damn thing lit. the bic pen of course. i lost the cap a while back. have you seen it? maybe you took it with you. it'll never be whole again, without a cap it'll dry out twice as fast and die well before it's time. without a cap it'll ink everywhere. sometimes i wake up and realize that my life's not going anywhere and that i'm no better than this chewed up bic pen. you used to write with it everyday. everyday. everyday until you stopped. sometimes i wake up and realize that all the blood's left my body, the whole bed is soaked with it, one hundred percent plus ninety-nine. i used to know what i was talking about.

here's the thing: i've been out driving, coast to coast looking for you, for what you wanted, and where i should be so that i'm apart of that journey. seems like i'm always taking the wrong damn road. i'm trying to live up to what you want to be, you understand? but it's hard down here in the real world. there's all sorts of mundane realities to deal with. the bic pen is a drum stick and i beat it against my steering wheel. we're not here. i'm drumming in a different scene for us. at least we have gas i think. i put the pen to my life and draw in a little more ink. i feel faint. so this is art and this is living. how very savage. i push the gas pedal to the floor and chug up a steep hill. the engine's hot and laboring. i know exactly how you feel...