I. A man, smelling as though he’d spent the past several days in the cargo hold of a Dutch East India Company trade ship inquires as to a book on “immediate response psychiatry.” I tell him the publication date of the book he wants is the tenth of February, as the computer screen indicates, and should you want to reserve a copy now we will hold it for you on the day it comes out. He doesn’t see why if he reserves it now, he doesn’t get it earlier than that—than the date it is released on the market PERIOD. As though the screen were some kind of Free Mason’s riddle, he leans in to have a better look. Really close. The pungent smell of nutmeg and curry…
II. A man and a woman, late thirties, early forties perhaps, literally prance into the children’s section dressed faintly like members of some kind of trendy, traveling bard-cabaret. Brother and sister I guess, though difficult to distinguish at times. Brother has on tight black jeans, woolly boots and a violet skull-cap and reminds me of an effeminate Cat-in-the-Hat. They are looking for a series of kids’ books called the Traveling Benedicts something-or other and as if on cue have a smug comment for everything co-worker Liz and I tell them. She wonders out loud to me if we are part of some candid camera experiment going on. They are entirely too giddy, and any form of happiness typically only stirs up resentment and paranoia in us book folk at that time of night. Sister reminds me of a witch. Not a bad one, necessarily, but not Glenda-like either; more like the flighty, bleach-blond, boozy pill-popper witch of the south (who wears too much make-up). It occurs to me that Dorothy in fact becomes the Witch of the South in Frank Baum’s world, and would pass the mantle to her daughter, and so on. Considering the lineage it all starts to make perfect sense…
III. A group of choral geriatrics decides to grace the bookstore with their broken renditions of a very, VERY Berle Ives Christmas, with an assortment of show tunes mixed in. My co-worker Sean and I have to set up the chairs at the forefront of the store’s upper level. Despite our insistence that we will take care of it, the “maestro”, an outspoken woman in her seventies or worse shows us how to set them up properly, dragging two interlocked chairs behind her, knocking over an additional two. The set has the feel and sound of a difficult childbirth, persisting for well over an hour. Customers in the store leave, while those at the door refuse to commit and turn around. Maestro is very lively and animated, dancing around and swinging her little composer’s wand, which I suspect she lifted from a Harry Potter activity book. Resentment overtakes me each time I see her head pop up over the shelves I’m stacking, not because of her ridiculous movements, but more for her ill prepared chorus of singers, a clear sign of her poor leadership, (or perhaps the huge collective lie she is responsible for concerning the old farts’ ability to sing. One of those.)
IV. A woman, incensed that, NO we do not offer gift wrapping services informs me that our other locations, as well as our competitors do at little table stations and would it really be going out of YOUR way to do the same? I tell her I can quadruple bag her purchase, spinning it in a special labyrinth of recycled holiday plastic if she is so inclined. She is not.
V. An older man asks me what I know about the NOOK, our new e-book reader. “Why it’s one of the two most vital components of a Thomas’s English Muffin, of course,” I tell him. His stare is like that of a shop front mannequin—artificially inviting, though mostly neutral and aloof. He goes on to speculate for a while about how the manufacturers will work out what he thinks are the glitches for a proposed NOOK-2 model. “Perhaps they will call that one the CRANNY,” I enthusiastically say.
VI. A couple inquire as to a book for their grandson; five years old and of course very “smart”. I point wife to Shell Silverstein’s classic “The Giving Tree”, metaphorically rich, touching, and simple from which there is a clear message. The memory of it warms her. Husband is not impressed and ignoring me tries to sell her on a book about a talking tractor and his friendship with a young deer. Rather than a children’s literary classic from a master he suggests a story about anthropomorphic FARM EQUIPMENT. “He’s a BOY-boy,” he tells me, “and into ‘BOY things’.” Don’t be disappointed sir, I quell the urge to tell him, but the deer, or half of him at least probably doesn’t end up over a fireplace at story’s end.
VII. A kid, about eleven or so excitedly enters the children’s section. His parents are very eager to leave, but he insists: “I know exactly what I want now, can’t I just run and go get it?” He walks through the archway entrance slowly and in awe as though it were the Stargate, points to book one of The Last Olympians on display, and asks me where the rest of Rick Riordan may be. I scan through TEEN, and then JUVENILE FICTION. No dice. “If your parents get on ya about taking too long, just blame it on me ok?” He nods. More rummaging. He points to Eoin Colfer’s extensive Artemis Fowl series: “Those were good too. I’ve read all of those.” He then spots what we are looking for overhead in JUVENILE FICTION SERIES (I mean, what the hell was I thinking?) Parents arrive. He pleads with his father for a set of all three sequels. “Remember how fast I read the first one?” What a surprise, the wishes of a child at Christmas time win out again. They leave.
A kid defies his parents’ demands that he hurry up. NOT in a Toys R Us. NOT in a Gamestop, or a Best Buy, but a bookstore. Through his best efforts he coaxes them into buying not a video game, remote control whatever, or DVD, but another book, the author of which he knows by both name and reputation. The smile lasts through the remainder of my shift.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Productive
In a conversation recently about what was most important to us and how we want our lives to play out, a friend mentioned how eventually she wanted to live someplace outside the country. This was nothing new for me to hear; we had both studied abroad in the same Irish city and not surprisingly we both wished we’d never left. So we’d discussed decisions like this before and what led us to them, but it was how she said it this time that got the gears moving:
"I would rather live in a foreign country. Where everything isn’t about money and productivity, but about living, and beautiful things...."
I equate productivity, being productive, with things like self growth, doing what things you have to do, following up on all the things you wanted to.
Waking up reasonably early. Cleaning up, maybe tending to the yard. Some exercise, probably. Maybe further a relationship you may have only just kindled with someone, or spark an entirely new one. Make a call to a family member or friend you haven’t talked to in months, maybe even over a year. Finish a book, or start one, the one you’ve been meaning to read. Gain some ground on a personal/professional endeavor; a sketch of a building if you’re an architect, a series of snap-shots if you’re a photographer. If you’re an aspiring writer like me, maybe peck away at a short story, poem, or the "manuscript."
(That’s an intimidating word, manuscript...)
Give something away you don’t need. Hack away the things that no longer serve you in any way, and continuously add something that does. Leave a footprint in the sand, a positive impression on the world, or in someone’s life. (Earning a living probably fits into this model somewhere.)
The brand of productivity my friend seeks, as many of us do, to liberate herself from is of the "assembly line" variety, concerned with figures, statistics, money and status.
Lately a lot of us have been in survival mode just trying to keep our heads above the water, seeking independence without drowning in debt and the cost of living.
In this country, you are what you own. For many, self-worth is Codependent on net-worth.
*Sigh* If you’re gonna be broke, ya better be cute… (I look at my receding hairline and shudder lately...)
...
I think what it comes down to is filling the hours and minutes with as much learning, growing, and of course, sharing as possible.
Time is NOT money. I want to personally desecrate the grave-site of whoever coined that insipid phrase, because those who truly subscribe to that ethos do NOT actually utilize their own time—they monopolize the time of others.
I began working in a Barnes & Noble recently, and sadly my time, like the time of my coworkers, supervisors and managers is just a currency generating tool for a bunch of corporate fat-cats who sit in a board room somewhere in New York City and who definitely don’t give a shit about literature or spreading the "word" around.
It’s not just us either, but every consumer who walks through the big glass doors and consigns the minutes or hours of their day to that store. The customers always suspect they are being screwed somehow (though it doesn’t actually stop them from pissing their money away.) They are probably right, but they should channel their angsty frustration and collectively broadcast it to that Manhattan office building instead of slinging individual dirty looks, snide comments and other venom-tipped arrows in our general direction.
...
I’m not suggesting we boycott bookstores or anything in general. I in fact...love bookstores. If Glade made a "new book," or "wafting café aroma" scented plug-in, I’d have one in every outlet of my house.
Consider the suit-clad people in that conference room: even if their suede pockets are lined deeper than ours, in the end, their time isn’t theirs, and all time on this earth is small time isn’t it? With so much energy focused on financial and material gain, holes start to form.
Creative; spiritual; interpersonal; romantic.
Throwing money at a gaping void in life never was the best way to fill it. Besides, it runs out. Well, for most of us, anyway. Still there are a lucky few with inexhaustible trust funds, bankers whose alternate clientele include exiled royalty and arms dealers, and credit cards with platinum status that put Michael Jackson’s Thriller to shame.
Before you get envious, remember that they will continue to shovel that money through that black hole of little to no return like coal into an insatiable fire.
No, time is not money. What is done with it in the end, frugal or frivolous is inconsequential. Time is LIFE. How do you SPEND yours?
"I would rather live in a foreign country. Where everything isn’t about money and productivity, but about living, and beautiful things...."
I equate productivity, being productive, with things like self growth, doing what things you have to do, following up on all the things you wanted to.
Waking up reasonably early. Cleaning up, maybe tending to the yard. Some exercise, probably. Maybe further a relationship you may have only just kindled with someone, or spark an entirely new one. Make a call to a family member or friend you haven’t talked to in months, maybe even over a year. Finish a book, or start one, the one you’ve been meaning to read. Gain some ground on a personal/professional endeavor; a sketch of a building if you’re an architect, a series of snap-shots if you’re a photographer. If you’re an aspiring writer like me, maybe peck away at a short story, poem, or the "manuscript."
(That’s an intimidating word, manuscript...)
Give something away you don’t need. Hack away the things that no longer serve you in any way, and continuously add something that does. Leave a footprint in the sand, a positive impression on the world, or in someone’s life. (Earning a living probably fits into this model somewhere.)
The brand of productivity my friend seeks, as many of us do, to liberate herself from is of the "assembly line" variety, concerned with figures, statistics, money and status.
Lately a lot of us have been in survival mode just trying to keep our heads above the water, seeking independence without drowning in debt and the cost of living.
In this country, you are what you own. For many, self-worth is Codependent on net-worth.
*Sigh* If you’re gonna be broke, ya better be cute… (I look at my receding hairline and shudder lately...)
...
I think what it comes down to is filling the hours and minutes with as much learning, growing, and of course, sharing as possible.
Time is NOT money. I want to personally desecrate the grave-site of whoever coined that insipid phrase, because those who truly subscribe to that ethos do NOT actually utilize their own time—they monopolize the time of others.
I began working in a Barnes & Noble recently, and sadly my time, like the time of my coworkers, supervisors and managers is just a currency generating tool for a bunch of corporate fat-cats who sit in a board room somewhere in New York City and who definitely don’t give a shit about literature or spreading the "word" around.
It’s not just us either, but every consumer who walks through the big glass doors and consigns the minutes or hours of their day to that store. The customers always suspect they are being screwed somehow (though it doesn’t actually stop them from pissing their money away.) They are probably right, but they should channel their angsty frustration and collectively broadcast it to that Manhattan office building instead of slinging individual dirty looks, snide comments and other venom-tipped arrows in our general direction.
...
I’m not suggesting we boycott bookstores or anything in general. I in fact...love bookstores. If Glade made a "new book," or "wafting café aroma" scented plug-in, I’d have one in every outlet of my house.
Consider the suit-clad people in that conference room: even if their suede pockets are lined deeper than ours, in the end, their time isn’t theirs, and all time on this earth is small time isn’t it? With so much energy focused on financial and material gain, holes start to form.
Creative; spiritual; interpersonal; romantic.
Throwing money at a gaping void in life never was the best way to fill it. Besides, it runs out. Well, for most of us, anyway. Still there are a lucky few with inexhaustible trust funds, bankers whose alternate clientele include exiled royalty and arms dealers, and credit cards with platinum status that put Michael Jackson’s Thriller to shame.
Before you get envious, remember that they will continue to shovel that money through that black hole of little to no return like coal into an insatiable fire.
No, time is not money. What is done with it in the end, frugal or frivolous is inconsequential. Time is LIFE. How do you SPEND yours?
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
She is Love, (More Musings on Love, Part Two)
...and I do believe her when she speaks..
What is a soul mate? It’s a term that gets tossed around a lot, relegated now mostly to Nicholas Sparks novels and their subsequent film adaptations.
However, its origins aren’t found in some lake house in North Carolina, but somewhere near HERE:
Everyone possesses a soul. Our souls are like pieces to something greater: an origin point. Across time and history, when we die, our souls divide. Each half, or shard, or whatever you choose to call it enters into a new human vessel for rebirth. The process repeats. So, one then becomes two, which later on becomes four and in turn eight and so on. It’s easy to imagine this in terms of cell division, the blueprint by which the universe expands and grows.
It accounts for why the world’s population was by leaps and bounds smaller a hundred, five hundred, a thousand years ago.
Anyhow, moving forward: There are others, separated from us sometimes by oceans and time zones that carry in them a corresponding piece. There is a part of them inside which was once a part of us, a long, long time ago. We begin our search for this person from the very moment we are born.
"You complete me." That term never gets old. That’s because it’s as timeless as this migration of souls, this process of reincarnation.
That’s the story, take it or leave it. But whether conscious of it or not, we are always looking for something, for someone. It is a mechanism, awareness from deep inside that I believe is separate from, and supersedes conscious judgment and thought. It is that unexplained apprehension we feel; a void or emptiness we can’t fill; a primal call on some strange frequency beckoning us to migrate, like something out of a Jack London story. It is what responds to that special light behind the eyes of another.
These beliefs precede many of the world’s existing religions, and are prevalent metaphors in several of them. (Think Adam’s rib, and that certain lady whom possesses it after it’s removed from him...That corresponding part both he and Eve share that was a piece of the original human design.)
"True love" is just that: our soul’s recognition of it’s counterpart inside of another. It is also the energy, the beacon, the waves we send out and the means by which we locate it.
For many, or honestly, for most, it never happens. Some dilute the importance of such a thing; a mere selling point for greeting card companies and romantic comedies. They con themselves into thinking it doesn’t exist, or they don’t need it. Still many others hold fast to this utilitarian viewpoint for all things. They weigh the value of their relationships with one another as though they were commodities, a process akin to buying a car:
"Well, we’ve been together this long, and we already live together; Well, she’s hot—I mean, she’s pretty hot, don’t you think?; Well, he can put up with me; She lets me do whatever I want; He has a great job and takes care of me; Well, at this point in my life...I probably can’t do any better...I’m almost 30, for heaven sakes! It makes sense, doesn’t it?"
NO. No it does NOT make sense.
"I just need a companion; a presence that fills the room..."— Then get a DOG, for Christ sakes. Or a parrot—those possess (albeit in a limited capacity) the power of speech.
Still some do believe. They believe so deeply and want it so much that they rush the process. Eventually, in their desperate quest to find it they project things onto people that never existed. Others know full well they aren’t there at all, but the idea is that it’s better than being alone. Right?
When actively looking for something it seems hopelessly out of sight. It’s a search for a gold cache in the black hills while the wind bites especially hard.
The Zen masters advise us not to seek, for all shall come to us; to enter every situation without expectations; to substitute thinking for doing, and reacting; to get back to us, to simply BE. This is sound advice, and it starts somewhere near here.
Part the first, I think...
By living without the censorship of self-conscious thought, we project a clear, complete version of ourselves. We are confident, motivated, inspired. We learn, live and grow. We are beautiful in this way.
Part the second is to infuse love into everything we do. If everything we do is done out of love, from cleaning to cooking, to writing to painting, to sculpting our bodies to clearing our driveways of old, wet leaves (that mostly aren’t ours in the first place, but anyway--) we send this power out as a signal, a beacon whereby our match can correspond, wherever they are.
I guess for those languishing alone, it’s about nurturing not just the hope but the faith that if our eyes and ears and hearts are always open, if we trust in the goodness of the world and dance to its music, we will find that person. If we lose them, we’ll find them again...
I Hope...
For those who have settled into loveless, empty, plateaued relationships, remember you are entitled to something much better. We really DO have everything we need to be happy on our own, I think, though some days, maybe even a good stretch of days, the solitude can become torturous.
There is a small upside to it all: there is more than one perfect match. In fact by this logic, we may have a few soul mates. In one lifetime, though rare, we may discover more than one other incarnation of our souls. If we let our own receptors operate, they'll sense it when it comes near. It’s important we don’t dull them with the banter of our minds, our anxieties, our bitterness, our crises, etc..
Never lose patience. Don’t be afraid to be alone for a while. Listen for the thunder. Remember, they are looking for us as well.
What is a soul mate? It’s a term that gets tossed around a lot, relegated now mostly to Nicholas Sparks novels and their subsequent film adaptations.
However, its origins aren’t found in some lake house in North Carolina, but somewhere near HERE:
Everyone possesses a soul. Our souls are like pieces to something greater: an origin point. Across time and history, when we die, our souls divide. Each half, or shard, or whatever you choose to call it enters into a new human vessel for rebirth. The process repeats. So, one then becomes two, which later on becomes four and in turn eight and so on. It’s easy to imagine this in terms of cell division, the blueprint by which the universe expands and grows.
It accounts for why the world’s population was by leaps and bounds smaller a hundred, five hundred, a thousand years ago.
Anyhow, moving forward: There are others, separated from us sometimes by oceans and time zones that carry in them a corresponding piece. There is a part of them inside which was once a part of us, a long, long time ago. We begin our search for this person from the very moment we are born.
"You complete me." That term never gets old. That’s because it’s as timeless as this migration of souls, this process of reincarnation.
That’s the story, take it or leave it. But whether conscious of it or not, we are always looking for something, for someone. It is a mechanism, awareness from deep inside that I believe is separate from, and supersedes conscious judgment and thought. It is that unexplained apprehension we feel; a void or emptiness we can’t fill; a primal call on some strange frequency beckoning us to migrate, like something out of a Jack London story. It is what responds to that special light behind the eyes of another.
These beliefs precede many of the world’s existing religions, and are prevalent metaphors in several of them. (Think Adam’s rib, and that certain lady whom possesses it after it’s removed from him...That corresponding part both he and Eve share that was a piece of the original human design.)
"True love" is just that: our soul’s recognition of it’s counterpart inside of another. It is also the energy, the beacon, the waves we send out and the means by which we locate it.
For many, or honestly, for most, it never happens. Some dilute the importance of such a thing; a mere selling point for greeting card companies and romantic comedies. They con themselves into thinking it doesn’t exist, or they don’t need it. Still many others hold fast to this utilitarian viewpoint for all things. They weigh the value of their relationships with one another as though they were commodities, a process akin to buying a car:
"Well, we’ve been together this long, and we already live together; Well, she’s hot—I mean, she’s pretty hot, don’t you think?; Well, he can put up with me; She lets me do whatever I want; He has a great job and takes care of me; Well, at this point in my life...I probably can’t do any better...I’m almost 30, for heaven sakes! It makes sense, doesn’t it?"
NO. No it does NOT make sense.
"I just need a companion; a presence that fills the room..."— Then get a DOG, for Christ sakes. Or a parrot—those possess (albeit in a limited capacity) the power of speech.
Still some do believe. They believe so deeply and want it so much that they rush the process. Eventually, in their desperate quest to find it they project things onto people that never existed. Others know full well they aren’t there at all, but the idea is that it’s better than being alone. Right?
When actively looking for something it seems hopelessly out of sight. It’s a search for a gold cache in the black hills while the wind bites especially hard.
The Zen masters advise us not to seek, for all shall come to us; to enter every situation without expectations; to substitute thinking for doing, and reacting; to get back to us, to simply BE. This is sound advice, and it starts somewhere near here.
Part the first, I think...
By living without the censorship of self-conscious thought, we project a clear, complete version of ourselves. We are confident, motivated, inspired. We learn, live and grow. We are beautiful in this way.
Part the second is to infuse love into everything we do. If everything we do is done out of love, from cleaning to cooking, to writing to painting, to sculpting our bodies to clearing our driveways of old, wet leaves (that mostly aren’t ours in the first place, but anyway--) we send this power out as a signal, a beacon whereby our match can correspond, wherever they are.
I guess for those languishing alone, it’s about nurturing not just the hope but the faith that if our eyes and ears and hearts are always open, if we trust in the goodness of the world and dance to its music, we will find that person. If we lose them, we’ll find them again...
I Hope...
For those who have settled into loveless, empty, plateaued relationships, remember you are entitled to something much better. We really DO have everything we need to be happy on our own, I think, though some days, maybe even a good stretch of days, the solitude can become torturous.
There is a small upside to it all: there is more than one perfect match. In fact by this logic, we may have a few soul mates. In one lifetime, though rare, we may discover more than one other incarnation of our souls. If we let our own receptors operate, they'll sense it when it comes near. It’s important we don’t dull them with the banter of our minds, our anxieties, our bitterness, our crises, etc..
Never lose patience. Don’t be afraid to be alone for a while. Listen for the thunder. Remember, they are looking for us as well.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
All The Love Gone Bad, (More Musings on Love, Part One)
"..Turned my world to black..."
(It’s been almost a month since my last post. I have no excuse; other than my center of abstract thought took a vacation and the more languid part of my brain covered his hours. My muse is fickle, and I’ve just generally been in a bit of a rut. For those that read, I’m grateful, and I will try and keep up in the future.)
In my life I’ve been treated to a Whitman’s Sampler of how the bonds of love and relationships are cheapened and perverted.
In my own family I’ve seen people settle time and again for second, third, or even places where medals aren’t usually handed out.
It’s been one divorce after another. Bickering, slandering; no evidence that anything higher, or stronger than enmity and hostility ever existed. Everyone literally hates everyone else. What they think they have is transparent and empty, and they jump from one person to the other, using them up and moving on. It’s as though their relationship with each other is no different than their relationship with a pair of shoes, or a rental car.
All around me, peers, friends, neighbors and still more family have been continuously unfaithful and abusive towards one another. Both ends lack any real sense of appreciation for, or understanding of the other. They are impatient with one another and selfish. They stare at every other passerby muttering "I wish..." They become estranged.
So, I know what love isn’t. But I know what it is too; the three magic words and the weight they carry. Sometimes you recognize a person by their scent, their taste, their voice; the tactile memory of their skin. In darkness, in complete and utter blackness you can find your way back to them. No measure of depth or breadth space or time could keep you from seeking that person's light.
When bathed in that light, each one of our faculties is set ablaze. With them we are constantly learning, and discovering new places geographic or otherwise. Everything we are, everything we offer shines and washes over one another.
Around them we are inspired, motivated. Their presence pushes us to try harder. Behind their eyes are this life and energy, as well as warmth and support and kindness.
With them we share the similarities, of course, but just as many differences. Maybe "differences" is the wrong word. I hate the term "opposites attract." There are no "opposite" forces, only complimentary ones. Two people compliment one another.
It’s a waltz: each one takes a lead, while the other feels out the steps and follows unselfconsciously, discovering and exploring and learning anew. Each one offers the other a new perspective, a new way of looking at the world, at something they may have missed, or a glimpse into something totally different. Over time, it evolves and matures, becoming as Bruce Lee observed "like coals, deep burning and unquenchable."
Then there’s the physical component.
Yeah. Sex.
Often called lovemaking by representatives of the R&B and Soul communities. I know. I was never too fond of the term either. Isn’t it just another PC, Billboard Top 40 term for sex, the overly Christianized canonization of fucking?
No. At least lately I don’t think so. Its sex in the context of love: Unselfish, often spontaneous, and untiring. It is to be so close, intertwined so complexly and deeply that neither person can tell where they begin and the other ends. Their breaths are synchronized; they know each others' rhythms, compliment their movements. They’ve memorized every curve. One pushes and the other pulls. One pulls, and the other pulls harder.
Think it can’t ever be this good? That I’m over-hyping it? Think sex is overrated? Then you aren’t doing it right.
If it all sounds rare, bordering on impossible to some, that’s because, well, it is. To find another who evokes all this inside is to catch a bolt of lightening in a glass bottle. Timing it just right; listening for it, reading it and being in the right spot because it never reveals itself there more than once. Then there’s having to courage not to flinch. It’s a lot isn’t it? It doesn’t always happen. But it can. And once in a while, it does...
(It’s been almost a month since my last post. I have no excuse; other than my center of abstract thought took a vacation and the more languid part of my brain covered his hours. My muse is fickle, and I’ve just generally been in a bit of a rut. For those that read, I’m grateful, and I will try and keep up in the future.)
In my life I’ve been treated to a Whitman’s Sampler of how the bonds of love and relationships are cheapened and perverted.
In my own family I’ve seen people settle time and again for second, third, or even places where medals aren’t usually handed out.
It’s been one divorce after another. Bickering, slandering; no evidence that anything higher, or stronger than enmity and hostility ever existed. Everyone literally hates everyone else. What they think they have is transparent and empty, and they jump from one person to the other, using them up and moving on. It’s as though their relationship with each other is no different than their relationship with a pair of shoes, or a rental car.
All around me, peers, friends, neighbors and still more family have been continuously unfaithful and abusive towards one another. Both ends lack any real sense of appreciation for, or understanding of the other. They are impatient with one another and selfish. They stare at every other passerby muttering "I wish..." They become estranged.
So, I know what love isn’t. But I know what it is too; the three magic words and the weight they carry. Sometimes you recognize a person by their scent, their taste, their voice; the tactile memory of their skin. In darkness, in complete and utter blackness you can find your way back to them. No measure of depth or breadth space or time could keep you from seeking that person's light.
When bathed in that light, each one of our faculties is set ablaze. With them we are constantly learning, and discovering new places geographic or otherwise. Everything we are, everything we offer shines and washes over one another.
Around them we are inspired, motivated. Their presence pushes us to try harder. Behind their eyes are this life and energy, as well as warmth and support and kindness.
With them we share the similarities, of course, but just as many differences. Maybe "differences" is the wrong word. I hate the term "opposites attract." There are no "opposite" forces, only complimentary ones. Two people compliment one another.
It’s a waltz: each one takes a lead, while the other feels out the steps and follows unselfconsciously, discovering and exploring and learning anew. Each one offers the other a new perspective, a new way of looking at the world, at something they may have missed, or a glimpse into something totally different. Over time, it evolves and matures, becoming as Bruce Lee observed "like coals, deep burning and unquenchable."
Then there’s the physical component.
Yeah. Sex.
Often called lovemaking by representatives of the R&B and Soul communities. I know. I was never too fond of the term either. Isn’t it just another PC, Billboard Top 40 term for sex, the overly Christianized canonization of fucking?
No. At least lately I don’t think so. Its sex in the context of love: Unselfish, often spontaneous, and untiring. It is to be so close, intertwined so complexly and deeply that neither person can tell where they begin and the other ends. Their breaths are synchronized; they know each others' rhythms, compliment their movements. They’ve memorized every curve. One pushes and the other pulls. One pulls, and the other pulls harder.
Think it can’t ever be this good? That I’m over-hyping it? Think sex is overrated? Then you aren’t doing it right.
If it all sounds rare, bordering on impossible to some, that’s because, well, it is. To find another who evokes all this inside is to catch a bolt of lightening in a glass bottle. Timing it just right; listening for it, reading it and being in the right spot because it never reveals itself there more than once. Then there’s having to courage not to flinch. It’s a lot isn’t it? It doesn’t always happen. But it can. And once in a while, it does...
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Over The Cap
It’s very chilly out today, and gray, and has been raining on and off, adding to the dampness. Trees look like gaunt figures with pointy, rigor-mortised limbs. The last of the "pretty" foliage has fallen from all the branches, and most of it is now that yellowy jaundice color, or burnt flaky brown. And getting soggy.
(Refer back to my first blog post about the migratory patterns of these leaves at this time of year...)
Yes, November is definitely in the chair. I know it should be no surprise. The weather the past several days was warm even for October’s good taste, but if ever there was any doubt, just look outside. He has taken the spot; October has long abdicated and November is in the middle of his grim, sometimes misunderstood tale.
(And I want no ‘rubbing in’ from those San Diegans out there. We KNOW. It’s ALWAYS sunny in a whale’s vagina.)
At any rate, if I’m looking to scapegoat anyone for the gravity and tone of this post, it may as well be the month, the wet gray mare he rode in on, and his chilly tale... And the tomb-like dampness of his breath.
I read something yesterday in a local newspaper. I can’t adequately call it a column, but a Q&A section devoted to the seedier, more taboo issues in love and relationships. People write in anonymously under special acronyms and ask "The Expert" for advice on things. Some concerns have been:
A girl weighing the evidence and ruling that her boyfriend may be fooling around with his best (male) friend and what that ‘might mean’.
Another had to do with a young, straight man wondering if it’s normal that he can only ejaculate with the aid of rectal stimulation.
...
I swear to you all, up and down, that was NOT me.
I read these mostly for entertainment, though the columnist does offer pearls of real wisdom from time to time. Browsing through the latest issue, I stopped at a man whom, enduring almost 20 years of little to no sexual contact with his wife, asked if he, if everyone, was entitled to an active sex-life.
The reply he got was that no one is actually entitled to that, that we all have the "freedom of consensual sexual expression" and that we need to "find, marry or rent a willing sex partner."
He then stated that unfortunately many would not find it, that some people are just unlucky or, in his own words, unfuckable.
You take these things for what they are, but those words stopped me dead, and made the room a bit colder. A recurring anxiety cropped up then that’s become difficult to shake.
Is it possible that some people are just destined to live unsatisfied, and unfulfilled, despite their best efforts? Are there just some people that are cosmically earmarked to live in some kind of social caste system; a serfdom that life oppresses onto them wherein upward mobility is impossible?
The context spans far beyond sex. (For the record, I in fact deem myself quite "fuckable.") There seems to be restrictions on everything; a predisposed salary cap.
They lose so others can win; they live poor, so others can have everything; they have their hearts broken repeatedly, so others can find their soul-mates; they are told no, and are continuously made an example of so others know just how good they have it.
It’s not something I want to believe. I want to be wrong. For the first time I actually savor the thought of being proved wrong.
Pounding my fists with desperate fury like a man under a frozen lake, I am constantly trying to break through this barrier. I don’t walk around with a sense of entitlement, but I believe I’m worth the complete extent of my happiness.
Like a white-knight on a spiritual quest or pilgrimage, I use every opportunity I can to prove myself. I fight hard to make my life all I imagined. I arm myself with ideals like chasing dreams, and trusting what my heart tells me. I am, as Paulo Coelho calls it in The Alchemist, "Writing my own personal legend."
But maybe I’m delusional. Out of time, and out of place, like a modern Don Quixote in rusty, antique armor and a bent lance about to lose what little he has left of something, making a pathetic fool of himself in the process.
Or, maybe it was just Friday, The 13th and this is just a lingering tale of horror November is weaving from his seat. One so frightening I can’t tell the difference between what’s real and what isn’t. Such suspension of disbelief is paramount for any potent scary story.
Maybe it's just Early winter doldrums. That must be it..
(Refer back to my first blog post about the migratory patterns of these leaves at this time of year...)
Yes, November is definitely in the chair. I know it should be no surprise. The weather the past several days was warm even for October’s good taste, but if ever there was any doubt, just look outside. He has taken the spot; October has long abdicated and November is in the middle of his grim, sometimes misunderstood tale.
(And I want no ‘rubbing in’ from those San Diegans out there. We KNOW. It’s ALWAYS sunny in a whale’s vagina.)
At any rate, if I’m looking to scapegoat anyone for the gravity and tone of this post, it may as well be the month, the wet gray mare he rode in on, and his chilly tale... And the tomb-like dampness of his breath.
I read something yesterday in a local newspaper. I can’t adequately call it a column, but a Q&A section devoted to the seedier, more taboo issues in love and relationships. People write in anonymously under special acronyms and ask "The Expert" for advice on things. Some concerns have been:
A girl weighing the evidence and ruling that her boyfriend may be fooling around with his best (male) friend and what that ‘might mean’.
Another had to do with a young, straight man wondering if it’s normal that he can only ejaculate with the aid of rectal stimulation.
...
I swear to you all, up and down, that was NOT me.
I read these mostly for entertainment, though the columnist does offer pearls of real wisdom from time to time. Browsing through the latest issue, I stopped at a man whom, enduring almost 20 years of little to no sexual contact with his wife, asked if he, if everyone, was entitled to an active sex-life.
The reply he got was that no one is actually entitled to that, that we all have the "freedom of consensual sexual expression" and that we need to "find, marry or rent a willing sex partner."
He then stated that unfortunately many would not find it, that some people are just unlucky or, in his own words, unfuckable.
You take these things for what they are, but those words stopped me dead, and made the room a bit colder. A recurring anxiety cropped up then that’s become difficult to shake.
Is it possible that some people are just destined to live unsatisfied, and unfulfilled, despite their best efforts? Are there just some people that are cosmically earmarked to live in some kind of social caste system; a serfdom that life oppresses onto them wherein upward mobility is impossible?
The context spans far beyond sex. (For the record, I in fact deem myself quite "fuckable.") There seems to be restrictions on everything; a predisposed salary cap.
They lose so others can win; they live poor, so others can have everything; they have their hearts broken repeatedly, so others can find their soul-mates; they are told no, and are continuously made an example of so others know just how good they have it.
It’s not something I want to believe. I want to be wrong. For the first time I actually savor the thought of being proved wrong.
Pounding my fists with desperate fury like a man under a frozen lake, I am constantly trying to break through this barrier. I don’t walk around with a sense of entitlement, but I believe I’m worth the complete extent of my happiness.
Like a white-knight on a spiritual quest or pilgrimage, I use every opportunity I can to prove myself. I fight hard to make my life all I imagined. I arm myself with ideals like chasing dreams, and trusting what my heart tells me. I am, as Paulo Coelho calls it in The Alchemist, "Writing my own personal legend."
But maybe I’m delusional. Out of time, and out of place, like a modern Don Quixote in rusty, antique armor and a bent lance about to lose what little he has left of something, making a pathetic fool of himself in the process.
Or, maybe it was just Friday, The 13th and this is just a lingering tale of horror November is weaving from his seat. One so frightening I can’t tell the difference between what’s real and what isn’t. Such suspension of disbelief is paramount for any potent scary story.
Maybe it's just Early winter doldrums. That must be it..
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Serialized NOW
Bill Shakespeare once said that the whole world was a stage…
Walking out of the Yale Art Gallery several weeks ago, my uncle commented on how he was beginning to see the world around him more and more as a play.
The actions of everyone contributing somehow as choreographed parts in some grand, ongoing pageant. I guess your mind may take things to that level after an hour and a half of a modern art exhibit called "Continuous Present," a series of modern pieces emphasizing among other concepts the passage of time, and cause and effect.
On our way around the corner of York and Chapel St., we passed through the gravitational center of a conversation, or what was more like an informal interview between a pair of Yalies and a street-hewn local. In passing, and from over our shoulders, we saw another student directly across the street, trying not to be obvious, with a camera recording the whole thing. My uncle and I, still very much internalizing the art we had just viewed walked right through this exchange without realizing it (or, at least I didn’t realize it), and hence right through the filming. It was about here he made his observation.
He then, the spontaneous photographer that he is, snapped a unique photograph of a young black woman, probably also a student, waiting at the corner passively negotiating one of her iPod’s many play-lists, seemingly unaware that she was juxtaposed to the white, twenty-something male, very professional looking and very animated, pantomiming the subtle nuances of his cell-phone conversation. From that distance we couldn’t hear the particulars of this conversation—he was like a silent film actor.
People came and went, holding bags of things and coffees. Construction rumbled on across the street. And in the background of my uncle’s photograph well across the street, if you look close is the head of a man, his features blurred partly by a screen door, his eyes fixed directly on the lens of my uncle’s camera, and no doubt studying him as he shot the picture.
There is a distinct rhythm in the bustle of New Haven since Yale's been back in session. I've never been around at this time to really experience it.
I think the world around us is a production put on daily; it’s a play with ever changing scenes, spanning countless acts, an endlessly cycling cast of characters and taking place on a proscenium stage that’s as large as the context you choose to live in; your world, your own social circle. Where you:
exercise, go to cash your check, attend class, work, eat, get coffee, fish, bike, roller blade, surf, feed the pigeons, swim, grocery shop, cow tip etc...
There is a cue for everyone to enter, I think. Multiple ones maybe even, at many different times. Listen close enough with your eyes, ears and yes, even your nose, and you’ll realize your cue. They come around a few times, so, don’t worry if you miss the first call. But it’s important to be poised near the stage, listening and ready.
Tunnel vision can really hinder that. With regards to myself, my attention was always turned inward at these times, to a spot where something was missing; a vacant spot I couldn’t fill; someplace empty, where I wondered why there was nothing instead of outward to where there was everything, or at least a great deal of things. Walking around like I had been, I was a lone audience member apart from it all, rather than a player in it.
But perhaps we voluntarily balk at the opportunity to enter at certain times, and who could blame us. Duels are usually a bit over pronounced and gratuitous. Attention seekers pollute the air with their trite, self-aggrandizing soliloquies and I refuse to grant them any. And what serious actor wants to perform in some gaudy Masque, dancing under intrusive iodized lights amid a decadent array of brightly colored clothes, Our view of one another filtered through the false masks they don?
It’s true that in order for artists to internalize what they see, and project a representation of it through their work, they must take a scrutinizing stance just outside of it. Being so immersed in something we don’t truly see and understand its many parts, and can’t adequately address a problem therein. Being so saturated in it, we may become a part of this problem. Most work, a painting, sculpture, novel, etc...functions to identify a problem, societal or interpersonal, and maybe proposes a way to solve it.
But this can become a trap I think, if we allow it. Over time, a mechanism is sprung that takes over as habit, and it confines us to, as Paulo Coelho eloquently states in his novel, Brida, "The worst torture humankind ever invented for itself: Loneliness."
We can learn so much more by being a part of the production than ever we could as just a discerning audience member. Being a part of something unique going on also beats the pants off the role of that griping critic who sits alone up in the balcony somewhere, constantly searching for flaws in the performance through the lens of his stuffy theater binoculars.
I find that the more verbs I fill my daily existence with I expand and diversify my contexts, hence the grander the scale of the stage, and the greater my role in the production.
If you have to stand outside of it for a while and wait, then wait patiently, and never forget the beauty of it that draws you back in.
Walking out of the Yale Art Gallery several weeks ago, my uncle commented on how he was beginning to see the world around him more and more as a play.
The actions of everyone contributing somehow as choreographed parts in some grand, ongoing pageant. I guess your mind may take things to that level after an hour and a half of a modern art exhibit called "Continuous Present," a series of modern pieces emphasizing among other concepts the passage of time, and cause and effect.
On our way around the corner of York and Chapel St., we passed through the gravitational center of a conversation, or what was more like an informal interview between a pair of Yalies and a street-hewn local. In passing, and from over our shoulders, we saw another student directly across the street, trying not to be obvious, with a camera recording the whole thing. My uncle and I, still very much internalizing the art we had just viewed walked right through this exchange without realizing it (or, at least I didn’t realize it), and hence right through the filming. It was about here he made his observation.
He then, the spontaneous photographer that he is, snapped a unique photograph of a young black woman, probably also a student, waiting at the corner passively negotiating one of her iPod’s many play-lists, seemingly unaware that she was juxtaposed to the white, twenty-something male, very professional looking and very animated, pantomiming the subtle nuances of his cell-phone conversation. From that distance we couldn’t hear the particulars of this conversation—he was like a silent film actor.
People came and went, holding bags of things and coffees. Construction rumbled on across the street. And in the background of my uncle’s photograph well across the street, if you look close is the head of a man, his features blurred partly by a screen door, his eyes fixed directly on the lens of my uncle’s camera, and no doubt studying him as he shot the picture.
There is a distinct rhythm in the bustle of New Haven since Yale's been back in session. I've never been around at this time to really experience it.
I think the world around us is a production put on daily; it’s a play with ever changing scenes, spanning countless acts, an endlessly cycling cast of characters and taking place on a proscenium stage that’s as large as the context you choose to live in; your world, your own social circle. Where you:
exercise, go to cash your check, attend class, work, eat, get coffee, fish, bike, roller blade, surf, feed the pigeons, swim, grocery shop, cow tip etc...
There is a cue for everyone to enter, I think. Multiple ones maybe even, at many different times. Listen close enough with your eyes, ears and yes, even your nose, and you’ll realize your cue. They come around a few times, so, don’t worry if you miss the first call. But it’s important to be poised near the stage, listening and ready.
Tunnel vision can really hinder that. With regards to myself, my attention was always turned inward at these times, to a spot where something was missing; a vacant spot I couldn’t fill; someplace empty, where I wondered why there was nothing instead of outward to where there was everything, or at least a great deal of things. Walking around like I had been, I was a lone audience member apart from it all, rather than a player in it.
But perhaps we voluntarily balk at the opportunity to enter at certain times, and who could blame us. Duels are usually a bit over pronounced and gratuitous. Attention seekers pollute the air with their trite, self-aggrandizing soliloquies and I refuse to grant them any. And what serious actor wants to perform in some gaudy Masque, dancing under intrusive iodized lights amid a decadent array of brightly colored clothes, Our view of one another filtered through the false masks they don?
It’s true that in order for artists to internalize what they see, and project a representation of it through their work, they must take a scrutinizing stance just outside of it. Being so immersed in something we don’t truly see and understand its many parts, and can’t adequately address a problem therein. Being so saturated in it, we may become a part of this problem. Most work, a painting, sculpture, novel, etc...functions to identify a problem, societal or interpersonal, and maybe proposes a way to solve it.
But this can become a trap I think, if we allow it. Over time, a mechanism is sprung that takes over as habit, and it confines us to, as Paulo Coelho eloquently states in his novel, Brida, "The worst torture humankind ever invented for itself: Loneliness."
We can learn so much more by being a part of the production than ever we could as just a discerning audience member. Being a part of something unique going on also beats the pants off the role of that griping critic who sits alone up in the balcony somewhere, constantly searching for flaws in the performance through the lens of his stuffy theater binoculars.
I find that the more verbs I fill my daily existence with I expand and diversify my contexts, hence the grander the scale of the stage, and the greater my role in the production.
If you have to stand outside of it for a while and wait, then wait patiently, and never forget the beauty of it that draws you back in.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
A Gift to Myself, for All
It is sometime in the late afternoon as I write this. I don’t normally do this sort of thing.
It’s my birthday today—sometime after eight p.m. on this day twenty-four years ago I made my grand entrance, DRUG FREE I’m told, which is how I remain to this very day.
For the most part.
It’s my birthday, and I’m blogging. No real plans to speak of for later. That surprise anyone? Well it shouldn’t.
I am a writer. Is it a bit presumptuous to call myself that at this point? You have to be published first, don’t you? Or at the very least have won an award or two for what you’ve written. Or am I only really a writer once I receive my first paystub? I’m still wrestling for a foothold in the publishing industry. Still crafting a platform. Still filling my hard drive with half-finished stories and prompts, poems, and late night idle thoughts and essays. If I’m paid for anything I write, I’m not sure where they’re mailing the checks. Is something relegated to a mere hobby until you are paid for it? Or is it not still what defines you? Isn’t it still therapeutic? Isn’t there still some kind of problem existing either in me or in the world that I illuminate or solve through my words?
At any rate, I will continue to make up and imagine things, and write them down, and hopefully someday many will read, and enjoy them. (Possibly even BUY them...) In addition, writing helps me to impose some small measure of order and organization to the chaotic tempest that is my inner mind.
(Picture a huge tornado whirring around, maybe an F4 or something. Got that? Right, now imagine all the crap, the myriad randomness spinning around in it amidst the dust and lightening: trailers, farmhouses, cows, street signs, wrinkled grandmas in their rockers exhilarated for the first time in years, octopi, Carl Jung, the rings of Saturn, a samurai and a cyborg locked in mortal combat, a stylishly clean shaven Knight’s Templar behind the wheel of an orange two-seater hot rod, a magical talking carp who grants wishes—don’t worry about his breathing, the mystical lake he swims in is also present—and the occasional half to mostly nude woman…)
In the chocolaty center of this funnel cloud of ideas, places and things is the storm’s eye, the nerve center that works to fashion a context for all these machinations.
Need a visual? Imagine that scene in the final Matrix film where stoic hero Neo walks into the bleach-white room full of security screens depicting all facets of human life. Here he is greeted by a neat and dignified looking older gentleman resembling Sigmund Freud—the ‘Overseer.’ What you would find is basically that, except the walls of my room are a speckled Crayola mishmash, and replacing Sigmund monitoring the outer shell is an ADD afflicted twelve year old with a mop of tousled hair, darting around from screen to screen in spaceship sequined pajamas.
Organization isn’t something I do particularly well…
My college diploma came yesterday in the mail. I haven’t actually opened it yet, though I am expecting a cover letter on the inside that reads like some variation of the following:
“Happy birthday Adam, and a thousand salutations and congratulations from us to you! Enclosed here in this big square of Federal Express cardboard is a sheet of the highest quality parchment, adorned with Latin calligraphy and signatures from “highly distinguished educators” signifying you are a Bachelor of the Arts [great, a bachelor in some other venue…], and have attained, through the culmination of four years of dedicated study, a base understanding of the English Language’s literary traditions, from it’s Anglo-Saxon roots right on up to the American Contemporaries and every stop in between!
Feel special? Well, you should—this piece of paper cost more than a big screen plasma television, Playstation3, platinum engagement ring, new hybrid car, and season Yankees tickets…COMBINED! That’s right! Think of it as currency for your livelihood and future; a voucher entitling you to recognition in any professional setting that values a creative and expressive mind, the advancement this fine culture through the arts and letters, as well as the propensity to be a bit loquacious.”
…
……
For the record, I feel a great sense of pride and satisfaction when I think of that diploma. It is proof of something that I am the first in my family to achieve. It doesn’t necessarily mean that I am more educated, or smarter than most. What it proves is that four years ago, I made the decision to undertake a responsibility. I decided on a path of knowledge and personal growth and was lucky enough to come to the understanding early that I had to be my own guide. I took what I needed. Learned about what I needed to learn about, and even amidst the undergrowth of gen-ed requirements and other superfluousness, rounded myself according to my vision.
At the path’s end, you were all waiting.
I walked out and greeted you. You cheered, mostly…I had made it.
It was a path that several had doubted my ability, for whatever reason, to walk in the beginning. They then doubted my motivation for being there, and the practicality of just what it was I was taking away from it. Of those several, some still wonder what I am going to “do” with it. Is it enough to get me through? Will it open doors? Were my efforts all in vain, fruitless?
Yes.
No.
I don’t know.
And frankly, I don’t care.
The course I am on currently is one I set myself. I stand at the helm. I steer the rudder. I am headed for new, exotic worlds, each one vastly different from the other, beset on all sides by uncharted, stormy waters.
I’ll show them to you. With whatever evidence I return with, I will tell you all about them.
I am ever exploring. Discovering. I write. It’s what I do, and it’s what I will continue to devote my life to until I can no longer navigate those waters.
Or until I lose half my vocabulary to age and dementia, and my mind as a result. Though I may be more fun then, wont I?
Maybe someday I'll take everyone's advice and aspire towards "a real job." One of those more "respectable and focused careers."
I am going to close this with what I could have begun it with, and I do hope everyone listens to it. It is the voice of my favorite author reciting his “Writer’s Prayer.” It is short, and simple and covers every real blessing a writer need take with him/her. Hang around for a minute through the bongos and tambourine rattling, and he gets to it, don’t worry.
(And I am aware of the irony of his first statement…)
http://neilgaiman.net/sound/01-a-writers-prayer.mp3
It’s my birthday today—sometime after eight p.m. on this day twenty-four years ago I made my grand entrance, DRUG FREE I’m told, which is how I remain to this very day.
For the most part.
It’s my birthday, and I’m blogging. No real plans to speak of for later. That surprise anyone? Well it shouldn’t.
I am a writer. Is it a bit presumptuous to call myself that at this point? You have to be published first, don’t you? Or at the very least have won an award or two for what you’ve written. Or am I only really a writer once I receive my first paystub? I’m still wrestling for a foothold in the publishing industry. Still crafting a platform. Still filling my hard drive with half-finished stories and prompts, poems, and late night idle thoughts and essays. If I’m paid for anything I write, I’m not sure where they’re mailing the checks. Is something relegated to a mere hobby until you are paid for it? Or is it not still what defines you? Isn’t it still therapeutic? Isn’t there still some kind of problem existing either in me or in the world that I illuminate or solve through my words?
At any rate, I will continue to make up and imagine things, and write them down, and hopefully someday many will read, and enjoy them. (Possibly even BUY them...) In addition, writing helps me to impose some small measure of order and organization to the chaotic tempest that is my inner mind.
(Picture a huge tornado whirring around, maybe an F4 or something. Got that? Right, now imagine all the crap, the myriad randomness spinning around in it amidst the dust and lightening: trailers, farmhouses, cows, street signs, wrinkled grandmas in their rockers exhilarated for the first time in years, octopi, Carl Jung, the rings of Saturn, a samurai and a cyborg locked in mortal combat, a stylishly clean shaven Knight’s Templar behind the wheel of an orange two-seater hot rod, a magical talking carp who grants wishes—don’t worry about his breathing, the mystical lake he swims in is also present—and the occasional half to mostly nude woman…)
In the chocolaty center of this funnel cloud of ideas, places and things is the storm’s eye, the nerve center that works to fashion a context for all these machinations.
Need a visual? Imagine that scene in the final Matrix film where stoic hero Neo walks into the bleach-white room full of security screens depicting all facets of human life. Here he is greeted by a neat and dignified looking older gentleman resembling Sigmund Freud—the ‘Overseer.’ What you would find is basically that, except the walls of my room are a speckled Crayola mishmash, and replacing Sigmund monitoring the outer shell is an ADD afflicted twelve year old with a mop of tousled hair, darting around from screen to screen in spaceship sequined pajamas.
Organization isn’t something I do particularly well…
My college diploma came yesterday in the mail. I haven’t actually opened it yet, though I am expecting a cover letter on the inside that reads like some variation of the following:
“Happy birthday Adam, and a thousand salutations and congratulations from us to you! Enclosed here in this big square of Federal Express cardboard is a sheet of the highest quality parchment, adorned with Latin calligraphy and signatures from “highly distinguished educators” signifying you are a Bachelor of the Arts [great, a bachelor in some other venue…], and have attained, through the culmination of four years of dedicated study, a base understanding of the English Language’s literary traditions, from it’s Anglo-Saxon roots right on up to the American Contemporaries and every stop in between!
Feel special? Well, you should—this piece of paper cost more than a big screen plasma television, Playstation3, platinum engagement ring, new hybrid car, and season Yankees tickets…COMBINED! That’s right! Think of it as currency for your livelihood and future; a voucher entitling you to recognition in any professional setting that values a creative and expressive mind, the advancement this fine culture through the arts and letters, as well as the propensity to be a bit loquacious.”
…
……
For the record, I feel a great sense of pride and satisfaction when I think of that diploma. It is proof of something that I am the first in my family to achieve. It doesn’t necessarily mean that I am more educated, or smarter than most. What it proves is that four years ago, I made the decision to undertake a responsibility. I decided on a path of knowledge and personal growth and was lucky enough to come to the understanding early that I had to be my own guide. I took what I needed. Learned about what I needed to learn about, and even amidst the undergrowth of gen-ed requirements and other superfluousness, rounded myself according to my vision.
At the path’s end, you were all waiting.
I walked out and greeted you. You cheered, mostly…I had made it.
It was a path that several had doubted my ability, for whatever reason, to walk in the beginning. They then doubted my motivation for being there, and the practicality of just what it was I was taking away from it. Of those several, some still wonder what I am going to “do” with it. Is it enough to get me through? Will it open doors? Were my efforts all in vain, fruitless?
Yes.
No.
I don’t know.
And frankly, I don’t care.
The course I am on currently is one I set myself. I stand at the helm. I steer the rudder. I am headed for new, exotic worlds, each one vastly different from the other, beset on all sides by uncharted, stormy waters.
I’ll show them to you. With whatever evidence I return with, I will tell you all about them.
I am ever exploring. Discovering. I write. It’s what I do, and it’s what I will continue to devote my life to until I can no longer navigate those waters.
Or until I lose half my vocabulary to age and dementia, and my mind as a result. Though I may be more fun then, wont I?
Maybe someday I'll take everyone's advice and aspire towards "a real job." One of those more "respectable and focused careers."
I am going to close this with what I could have begun it with, and I do hope everyone listens to it. It is the voice of my favorite author reciting his “Writer’s Prayer.” It is short, and simple and covers every real blessing a writer need take with him/her. Hang around for a minute through the bongos and tambourine rattling, and he gets to it, don’t worry.
(And I am aware of the irony of his first statement…)
http://neilgaiman.net/sound/01-a-writers-prayer.mp3
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