is in numbers
counting breaths and smiles and powerful moments
which are all powerful if i’m breathing and smiling
when the lyrics of this song hit hard, i tune into the tune.
i feel sunlight burn through my skin (although it’s quite dark in here now)
and i burn
it sucks not to burn for anything, really!
i didn’t yell this time
i sang!
and even though i try not to sing, as i can’t carry a song to save a life,
damn, i sounded so very good!
so, that’s it. i’m out of words and melodies, but fucked am I if I don’t sing!
someone called my grandfather died at 5 am
i know his name and I know he was colorblind
i remember his crystal eyes from a black and white photograph
where he is the background
i wonder how many times he has touched me
or if he had ever asked.
i hope this soul journeys well and finds what it can
i have known a true love and the measure of a (wo)man
no one can tell me i should have cried at 5:01
journey well- another man is gone
* These bullets are not not aimed at anyone.
* I reach for this poem as a choice of weapons
* against the leveling process of my own ignorance:
….
* Look up coward in the tree of meaning
* And at the root of definition there will always be
* An image of yourself
* a self portrait of a mass
* For cowards do not travel alone.
* You come in 2’s and tens
* Empty eyed herds
* Swords mightier than pens
* You come always armed,
* Spiked tongues, haphazardly language fling.
….
It’s very odd how disappointment and elation can come packaged in the same moments sometimes. Maybe I have been focusing more on experiencing the moment lately, but I feel that the universe is trying to tell me something about the value I assign to myself and the things that effect me. Over three years ago, I had discovered that I misplaced (ok, LOST) two photo albums that were irreplaceable. One was of my mother’s childhood photographs, the other of my own. All of the images were black and white, incredibly intimate, and a very accurate glimpse into my personal history. I was devastated by this loss.
….
I cried and stayed up nights torturing myself, feeling as though I had betrayed my family by my carelessness. I looked everywhere to no avail. I had turned my psyche and all of my things upside down in hopes of being relieved form this burden of worry and the feeling of loss. I went to a psychic not too long after that who told me that I need to let this thought go. I need to accept the loss of these albums, and only then will they find me again. I asked for her assurance that they will once more be mine, and she assured me that it will take a long time and that I have to “let go” first.
….
Now, at that time, I didn’t know the definition of letting go. I was still in school, and the concept of acceptance seemed to elude me. I believed that strength came from changing your world and not accepting anything for what it is. I fought with every bone in my body to be great. At everything. Simultaneously. I had to excel in my work, my thesis, my friendships and relationships. I had to know everyone, get along with everyone and being spurned or rejected was out of the question. I had to have a smile, be outgoing and optimistic. Eternally successful with no time or room for a breakdown. The stronger I was, I felt, the more love and praise I deserved.
….
Earlier today Winslow and I were talking about the true definition of letting go, and of acceptance. Many people think that it entails literally letting a thought or emotion not bubble up to the surface. That you just let it float away without letting it flow through you. It has taken me years to understand that it is quite the opposite. Part of letting go is acceptance, and part of acceptance is being a witness to your insides. Why should we not feel loss? Or pain? Or anger? We should. I think of it as a wild garden. Everything is tangled together and growing out of control. It is easy to just pull it all out and throw it off to the side- to weed it out of consciousness. But if you do that, the garden has a vehicle to spread. The plants you have tossed aside will sprout again and the tangles of wildflowers will just continue to spread on your internal landscape due to the quick fix. But if you take a moment and observe the garden, watch it change, and witness each element within it, you will eventually see the value and unique beauty of each flower within it. You will learn to distinguish between the various lifeforms within the tangle, and maybe even clean it up a bit so that the wildflowers grow healthy and graceful. I’d like to think our experiences and the emotions they bring forth are much like that garden. It doesn’t make sense to yank it all out, but to take a moment and value it for what it is.
….
I got an e-mail from an old friend a few days ago. He informed me that another friend found my albums in a room of a big house on Hessler Street in Cleveland which I had rented for a few months over three years ago. He was wondering what the best way to return them to me was.
….
Winslow and I came to the conclusion that relationships are so very similar to this way of dealing with loss. So often we hold on for dear life to something in the past- a feeling, a sense of security, a happy time and assign it to someone. This is why we look up old relationships, desire to rekindle what was. This is much like the effort I had put into finding my abums. I had really only found them once I had accepted their departure from my life and their value to me. If we constantly focus on what could have been and what we had and lost, how can we possibly see the beauty in what we have and who we are now?
Free from he absurdity and nauseating superabundance of ordinary existence. Just as a circle carries its own definition within itself, so the existence of a piece of music lies beyond the world of accidental and contingent physical existence. If you broke the record, or tore up the score, the song would still be there. It is beyond existence, in the sense that nothing that hapens in the ordinary world of real objects can possible touch it.
….
spent three days on the mountain
I could spend three more
there, three hours I spent by that creepy river
all three hours, I sat in awe
water playing drums against my core
quieting mist, jungle tour
the greenest moss, openness pour
and then I got stuck.
not in the poem, although that too.
fell in the stream and let chill brew.
thought was arrested and I just knew
deep in my soul, this river hole
that I inadvertently stumble upon was true.
….
I certainly have no intention of being dramatic about this, as it seems so simple and
straightforward post-redux, but I do want to say that I owe an apology. To whom I
don’t know, it may be to the universe, it may be to the city, it may be, most of all, to
myself. I often wonder if people go away to have epiphanies (or mini-awakenings, I
suppose), or whether they actually go away in order to come back. Whether the
place of return feels like home or not, it can take days, weeks, a few good reads, a solid exchange of ideas to ground your experience and make it relevant. And so, we’re back from our second weekend trip to Mt. Greylock.
….
With that said, Winslow and I had a moment of honesty today as part of the
digestion of things plaguing us repeatedly whenever we get back to this apartment.
I was musing at how frustrated and angry I feel so often, and how anxious, and how
victimized. I don’t want to leave the apartment for any number of reasons, but while I am here, I feel trapped. It’s like I am missing something and it makes me angry because I just don’t know where to look for it. I, in fact, make every excuse to NOT go out and look for it. Mainly, I am so very much looking to the future as my salvation, I am waiting for it to rescue me and experiencing every emotion of a victim. Hopelessness, uselessness, anger, fear…
….
Well, as they say, the future is now. Yes, I am in an unwelcoming and unsuited environment, but hell, I am still me. I still find joy in people, places, and ideas. I am still hungry for the new, for art and words, and health, and beauty, and….*sigh* love. I have so much more right in front of me than millions of people will know in a lifetime. New York may not be MY place, but I am ME here nonetheless. How could I have shelved my freedom and my joy until tomorrow? Only to see my own misery reflected back at me here and now. Tomorrow isn’t even real yet, so how self-righteous of me to see it as a mecca.
…
I wake up every morning in a clean, warm bed. I am next to a beautiful and brilliant man who loves and accepts me. I have the love of my family and (dog lady moment…) the pure love of my animal. I have forgiveness, I have friendships to develop and discoveries ahead. I have the ability to eat healthy, to be active, to drink clean water… Most importantly, I have this power right here. Of words, of images, of communication. I can share all of these discoveries, strokes of luck, all of these warm thoughts. I can give myself and those I care about that gift. Why waste it? Why wait for everyone else to fall in line? I am not the prisoner I thought I was. I think I may have held myself hostage long enough to wonder about making a break for it.
….
June 17, 1784
My letters will have shown you how lovely I am.
I don’t dine at Court, I see few people, and take my walks alone, and at every beautiful spot I wish you were there.
….
I can’t help loving you more than is good for me; I shall feel all the happier when I see you again. I am always conscious of my nearness to you, your presence never leaves me. In you I have a measure for every woman, for everyone; in your love a measure for all that is to be. Not in the sense that the rest of the world seems obscure to me, on the contrary, your love makes it clear; I see quite clearly what men are like and what they plan, wish, do and enjoy; I don’t grudge them what they have, and comparing is a secret joy to me, possessing as I do such an imperishable treasure.
….
You in your household must feel as I often do in my affairs; we often don’t notice objects simply because we don’t choose to look at them, but things acquire an interest as soon as we see clearly the way they are related to each other. For we always like to join in, and the good man takes pleasure in arranging, putting in order and furthering the right and its peaceful rule. Adieu, you whom I love a thousand times.
Laid before me were the young and the old,
trees mercilessly slain.
And still the thunder beats its chest,
and its lightning still wanting to claim more death,
Her teary eyes still pouring vengeful sweat.
This mourning mother whose babes we had snatched,
blinded by clouds of hate, sees only to impale.
….
I am in her range and prey to be spared
careful not to disrupt, yet I dare not stop
For there’ s a thirsty urgency
no water on top
where my family lays.
….
….
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
….
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverge in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
