Pieces of my date book journal experiment of last summer.
June 2012
I have no idea how to write in this small space, but I am sure something will occur to me.
I talked with a man today about riding the bus in Mexico. He had the same experience.
He loves wine, fishing and catching his own food.
The pressure of miles of air stacked to the edge of space pushes my body into the mattress. To rise I must lift all of that atmosphere, bear the weight on my shoulders, feet and top of my head.
It had something to do with a flow of long brown hair being the same as a pitcher of dark red juice and the words of a swindling silver-tongued rogue.
Many electric chandeliers are sparking blue at the power button but refuse to light. She sits alone in the bar booth as I pass. I order a Squirt but find it is too expensive.
Is opportunity too expensive?
July 2012
Death Changes Plans
Once again we are traveling quickly and without any regard to what we want. Ken is dying, and we must travel, no sleepy days by the creek or languid walks along the beach, just moving our bodies to a different place.
Ken died. We were ready to go. Now we are in our limbo lives waiting for the next phone call. I am trying to sort out what is important. What difference does it make to plan? Life goes along anyway how it will and ends when no one is ready.
Mary and I drove down to Camano Island and walked along a rocky beach. If you were a geologist you could study that beach for a lifetime. What would we discover if every square mile of the earth were studied like that?
J. came over yesterday. We picked him up on our way back into town. He cooked good steaks on the grill.
I always feel weird calling work. Today I called and told Heather I would be coming to work today since we did not go to California. Charlie and I walked 7 miles around and over and back over Alabama hill. I decided that whatever I do now has to feel like a vacation.
Two Way Strands
I woke to the sound of dog claws clicking down the stairs, and got up to let Charlie out, Dvorak’s New World Symphony playing in my head, a passage that reminds me of waves or ocean travel.
Lately, I am randomly receiving glimpses of past feelings along with images and sounds, but none of these seem useful or provide any meaning to my present.
Every movement leaves a part of me some place I existed, like attaching web strands to every point as I move.
Summer Storm and Aftermath
Thunder bloomed, light and sound combined into a spreading vine among a turmoil of cloud, fading and flashing newly, the breath of a storm moving south over the hills.
I walked all the way to the falls and back over the overpass, the city laid out and bay glimmering in summer light, a muggy day after yesterday’s rain.
Anxiety simmered just below the surface of my day. I took the couch I had dismantled to the dump and went to work. I could not shake the feeling of dread. Out in the world the chances for mistakes multiply. I felt vulnerable. I made some mistakes, but none that altered my life much.
July Dreams
Villain in the System (a dream song to the English Beat’s Mirror in the Bathroom)
I went into town several times looking for Andrea and Angela, but they are always back at the farm.
Angela says,“Most heroes are not very heroic because they are everybody who stays through the hard winter. The ones who stick to what they know is right.”
A girl of 9 or 10 years sat alone during the reception waiting for her parents by the alter, a white satin drape of cloth with some large white flowers and lit candles on the floor in front of the curtains at the edge of the stage. A man rose to speak about his family. At first, She thought it was her father but changed her mind. I picked her up and held her as she cried. After a while, as I carried her around she began to smile and talk with people about her mother and father.
Mary and I at the sporting goods store returned large exercise balls still inflated even with gaping slashes. From there we could see the sharks coming up on the beach.
At the bottom of the device which was to fit on D.’s torso was a flesh attachment that had to do with the renal function.
We watched from the house as the girls moved around the fire. Smoke filled the room so we could only see the shadowy shapes of dangerous creatures slipping in with the magic.
A Curt Cobain rock opera about mundane life: a 3 cd set with discs that looked life 45 rpm vinyl records.
What was left?
In the madness of his skin and rags, he stretched out over the rocks and slept. When the warm sunlight pulled him back to life, he could hear water flowing down from the mountain. Feeling his way, he found the stream. He stripped off the hanging shreds of cloth and waded out into the life of a person he yet to become.
I led a group of 3 down a long hill and onto roof of a sunken house. We began sliding down the slippery moss covered wooden shakes. The others managed scramble back to the grassy hillside. I lay flat and tried to stop sliding, and just as I reached the edge I woke.
The sadness tree, about two feet high and made of blue and green plastic straws, increases the sadness until you don’t need it any more.
Balancing Life and Words
Reading and writing take me out of the world. I must struggle back into my life. But, if I don’t write, I lose track of who I am and where I am headed. Where is the balancing point? There must be music and art as well.
I have decided to take a more social trail in life. I will arrive early and stay late, not run away into music and drink. So many of my favorite writers are dead or old. Will I only read forgotten tombs of the ancient world falling into the dark swiftly?
It is all about anxiety and being locked in my skull.
Jobs
After I came back from the staff meeting Mary asked if I was going to get more hours.
“Maybe you need to find another job. We need more money.”
I don’t know what job she is talking about. I have all the jobs I can find.
Point of View
A woman ran past the ethnographer babbling to herself about the unfairness of men. A group of men pursuing her yelled at him to stop her.
“She’s gone mad,” they said.
“Why do you say that?” The ethnographer asked.
“She killed a goat.”
“But you killed many goats last week.”
“Yes, but she is a woman.”
The End of July
I walked around the lake behind a woman whose steady grace moved just on the edge of one too many bends ahead.
I am operating in closed mode as I am feeling very prickly and anxious. I am trying to plan something and carry out the plans already in motion.
Myriad Ways 