I Will Write What I Will Write How I Will Write It.

Posted on October 5, 2012 by randomyriad

Keep going pen moving

words no syllables forming

no screaming

rage only

Scratching, dead and

does not move making the illusion

of life pass away.

We travel into the spotlight sunset

raving and looning

extravagant claims on the never arriving future.

The next word is my future.

the next blink of a thought.

I am in the future passing into a mist,

already dead one hundred years.

So why do I fear every move?
 Each breath a life, each life on fire

with every exhale.

scorching the earth with my remnant air.

here is that tiny doorstep of breath before the yet to be opened door

I can open or wait for the other side to bloom forth into me

take me in the cradling petals that evaporate into soft air.

 

 

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A Little Distance and a Lot of Focus = A Bit of Light and Hope

Posted on September 15, 2012 by randomyriad

It’s easy to talk about bad years if they are past. 

But when you have to say who you are right at this very moment,

it’s hard to get more out than an uneasy silence.   

Herta Muller from the Appointment

I know my last post came out a little on the dark side. There are points in life that seem black, but when you take a little time and sort things out the black becomes a little grey and then little pin holes of light come through.  With some helpful conversations with some good friends and a few wise comments from some compassionate bloggers,  I now see the shadowed edges of the tunnel  forming.  I just needed to some more perspective and little more light to see my way forward. 

Last week I got some very bad news. My wife of 27 years told me that she no longer wanted to be married to me, and since then we have been trying to figure out what that means for our lives. After many gut wrenching and demoralizing discussions involving the ways in which she felt I had not listened to her or supported her. I had a slightly different take on these, but I could see her point of view (I can be very dense especially when I am under stress). From my point of view, I was making sacrifices to keep our family afloat and help her with her goals. My wife is a very take charge, proactive, organizer by nature, whereas I am a free flow, day-dreaming, stress avoiding type. Therefore, I always let her manage our finances and long term logistics, because I knew if I did it A) I would probably screw up left and right and B) she would be telling me how to do it right. She is an amazing and wonderful person and mostly responsible for our children making it to adulthood in pretty good shape. I have to say I have been a pretty good father too, but I am, as I said before, challenged in proactive department especially when things get busy or complicated. She was almost always half way to solving whatever problem at the same time I became aware that there was a problem to solve. I am in the end a overly sensitive and mostly inept man, who loves her a lot. I can see how she might want to see what her life could be without dragging me along. It just hurts like hell to see it that way.

We still love each other, but in her words “Things have to change”. She wants to live separately for a while, and I am slowly coming to terms with this. I can definitely see the validity of most of her point of view. My problems come from the lack of conversation, maybe I just wasn’t listening until she stated the situation in clear terms ( like I said before, dense) but, as I pointed out to her, we might have at least tried some counseling. Instead she enlisted a therapist in order to clarify things for herself. Obviously she is more clear on what she wants, but I think that after 27 years, there might be some point in figuring a way forward that involves both of us. I am beginning to feel a little optimistic that this will happen, though our relationship will have to go through some deep redefining rehab along the way. This terrifies and intrigues me. I have no idea what we will come up with in the end.

The situation I was reacting to seemed worse than the situation that actually existed, but that does not negate the question. I had to write about it to ease the stress and pain a little, and to get a realistic idea of how to proceed from that dark place. The Question I posed in the last post was kind of, but not completely, personal.The part about the pain was real enough, but it was also more generally about how amazing it is that people are able to face dark situations that threaten to envelop their whole existence in misery. When faced with overwhelming loss even though mostly I am frozen in the dark, my brain and body keep moving on autopilot while the emotional me figures out how to cope. When all of the atoms of my universe feel as if they are blown into violent flux, surprisingly, I continue as a cohesive organism. I may yet dissolve, but I most likely I will stabilize into some new pattern and move on into a less painful chaos.

When you are alive you must experience change. There is nothing you can completely count on except  around the next corner there is something obvious you are not seeing, and it is holding a big cream pie. Or somebody will let go of the rope and a piano will come crashing down. You will probably live through it whether you want to or not. Maybe in a little while you might be able laugh. I am looking forward to that time.

Posted in All part of the process, can't really complain but, developing relationships, discovery and recovery, Family, my life, paying attention, personal history, Questions and riddles, the end is the beginning, thinking in words | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The Question of The Day

Posted on September 5, 2012 by randomyriad

Why keep going when it makes no sense, when the pain is all pervasive and inescapable and not the kind that I can take a pill for that leaves me conscious? Why get up in the morning? Why go to bed when I feel like a rotten tooth broken down to the nerve and my mind is a rusty probe digging at it saying:  “Does this hurt?”

Why should I continue with this when I am just stumbling around in the mud doing prat falls over my own viscera? I am of no use to anyone in this condition least of all myself. If there was a way to cease to exist without messing up the world and causing more pain I would be considering it. But, our lives are connected in so many complex ways that anything I do to save me will result in the same pain for someone else. That is the reason,  at least for me at this point, for the continued face plants and endless nights. Right now I can see no hope for improvement. I have to go on. What else is there to do?

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Century #24: Arrival

Posted on August 19, 2012 by randomyriad

From the journal of Ryan Tucker

River Bend Academy of Art

8/21/1982

 

I have arrived, and settled into my room, which is small just big enough for an old military style metal bunk with a thin mattress and a small desk with an old wooden chair. There is a closet low built in drawers and dowel to hang clothes on. The bathroom is down the hall.

The room is narrow with the desk at the end opposite the door and in front of a window, which takes up most of the wall above the desk that looks out onto a courtyard. I can see most of the college from here. The ceilings are high and curved at the edges with fancy moldings that have been painted over in the stark white of the walls. I will have to cover the walls with paper and paint and draw. I will get lost in all this empty white.

The dorm manager is a stout middle-aged East Indian woman with an expressive face and seems very kind and flustered, the kind of person who is always worrying about other peoples problems as much as her own. I am sure she knows all the secrets around here.

“You should call me Ms. B. I could tell you my name, but you will never pronounce it right anyway,” She said laughing, “So why should we both be put through that test. My late husband who was also from India and a very intelligent man, could never get it quite right. So why should I expect more from you.”

 

“It is not the Waldorf Astoria, you know, but it’s not a bad place to live for a while,” she told me as she opened the door to my room. “And, you know, there is no room service.” When she smiles, which is often, her whole face crinkles up.

 

There is nobody else here. They are either still away on break, or not arrived yet.

 

The air is dry and the sky cloudless and pale with smog around the edges. This is a flat place. To the east are hazy foothills and the faint outline of mountains. To the west about 30 miles, the smudge of ragged hills rise beyond which is the coast and San Francisco. I hope to get over there and see some art galleries and just look around before I get too busy.

It is just after 1:00 in the afternoon and it is very hot in here. The window is open but there is no breeze. I feel like I am sleepwalking. The long train ride made sleeping difficult along with the shock of new surroundings makes me feel as if I have traveled into another dimension. I look down on the courtyard and I can see very little that would date past the 1950’s.  There are a couple of “modern for the ‘50’s” two story buildings, where the studios and classrooms are.  The dorms are like early 1900’s barracks, 3 story “U” shaped buildings. Though obviously meant for more upscale clientele when they were built but have settled into a more low-rent quality, as if they have developed low self-esteem.

I can’t decide whether to go out exploring or sleep. I think I will get some sleep, and then maybe go out exploring. I will feel a little more adventurous if I am more alert.

 

10:00 pm

 

After I woke up from my nap I decided to go for a walk. As I was leaving Ms. B, let me know that there is food in the kitchen to use as long as I clean up after myself.

 “You would not believe the mess in here sometimes,” She told me eyes wide and finger wagging. “So if you not going to clean up, please eat somewhere else. But I know you are a considerate boy. I can tell,” she finished off with a wide crinkly smile. Her gestures and facial expressions are so exaggerated, but also sincere in the way she does not take herself too seriously. I have no doubt though that I should stay on her good side. I am sure she has her ways of keeping good boys in line.

I just stood there and nodded with a stupid look on my face. I never know what to say to people.

I walked on the paths around the college and found one up to the top of the levee. I looked out over the river for a while. Sitting there in the heat sketching the far bank as the shadows stretched, I wonder If I will meet people who will stretch me like Bella, or are easy to hang with like Dex or Maggie. Bella is always talking and jumping around so that I always felt 2 steps behind. For the first time I feel like I am on my own path. But I am pretty sure that will change when other students start showing up.

 

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Century #23: Listening For Visions

Posted on August 11, 2012 by randomyriad

From the Journal of Lita Hopkins

6/12/37

Mr. Papandreus, the shepherd, and his wife, Nika, live up the hill. I hear his pipes as he and his youngest son play and sing the sheep down to the pens in the evenings. The young man’s voice carries softly twined in the whispering pipes. No words defined but the sound of a human voice and music of breath among the rattle of the olive branches in the evening breeze and the unending wash of the waves from below.

This couple has raised 5 children, 4 of whom have lives of their own scattered about the island. They often gather at the sprawling house, that undoubtedly started as a small cottage only to be expanded as the family grew. The youngest, Niko, still lives there and is often seen  fishing in lagoon at night with his carbide lamp and spear. He is a head taller than his father, who is not a small man. The wife keeps the house with the help of a young woman, whom she treats with gentle disdain. If I understand the arrangement (but it’s possible I have it all wrong) she is the daughter-in-law in training. If so it seems a good system for the continuation of a simple life in which weather and health are the only major concerns. The young son and his wife will take on the running of the farm and household and care for the parents as they age. I wonder if this arrangement applies to the particular situation or if it is more broadly traditional and followed down through centuries.  Are we, unwittingly, the carriers of infectious concepts that will transform these lives from their simple forms into those of more complex modern arrangements?  I doubt that our ideas of how to live are superior or better suited to this place. We are creatures of a wider world and probably not the better for it.

6/15/37

I have been reading to the children from Bullfinches Mythology. In the preface two poems are quoted. One, Thomas Moore‘s ” the Song of the Hyperborean,” which I read as part of my studies from a volume in my fathers library. I have written to ask him if I could borrow this and some other books which I remember reading as a child, such as Peter Pan and the Wind in the Willows, which I could read aloud to the children.

The other poem is Milton’s “Comus” which I have here among the volumes that Charles worked on at the press. I have been reading Milton and though much of it is beyond my haphazard education, I am inspired by the language. The sounds and rhythms produce such visions. Milton was blind. Maybe this is how he saw his world in his his mind. Maybe his world was not dark, but lighted with such word picture songs. I am so hasty and slothful in my writing, but perhaps if I were blind it would induce me to create visions of language upon which to feast my mind’s eye.

I read some Milton to the children. The older two listened politely for a while and asked to be excused to build their fort under the olive tree in the courtyard, a major undertaking of engineering, in which they have utilized crates and branches and all manor of odds and ends. I believe if I could stand by and jot down their conversations as they build I would have a marvelous book of tales. With a few nice illustration, it might be good enough to publish. What would they would think if I read their own words back to them?

Little Annabelle is content to doze and listen for a while longer, but in the end drifts off into napping. I wonder what mischief the poets visions make in her dreams.

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