This is just to say
Monday, August 11th, 2008I love my life. It's so warm, and so sweet.
Blessings on those who've forgotten me. To forget me is to move beyond me, and there is so, so much beyond me. I can't wait to see it.
Archive for the ‘personal’ Category
and so
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008Maybe the Quakers are right, and deep inside each of us is an ineffable light that burns without moving, like a pilot light. What we know about the universe might be described as a combination of what our senses tell us, what our minds deduce, and what some deeper part of us discovers through various mysterious processes, intuition, divination, entanglement with some nonprovable but very definite aspect of reality. But even that deeper part isn't exactly the light - it's more like a nebulous self that floats inside the body, that wears the body like a costume. Maybe the light is the combination of all these things, and maybe it's something else entirely - some fixed connection to the harmony of things. When I think of it, I envision it as a teardrop-shaped thing, pale gold, living inside a little cave in my body. I sense it as my true and complete self, almost entirely hidden from the world because it's so fragile and childlike. It's so immersed in wonder that it almost feels naive - it trusts everything, marvels at everything, and has no inherent knowledge of evil. I love it, I want it like air, and I feel sorry for myself that I can only experience it in little glimpses and find it so hard to share it with others.
But I've been so lucky in this life. When was the last time you lay in bed with someone you really loved, and felt that little cave in you open like a hand? When was the last time you lay there and felt that light in another?
doll-drums
Wednesday, June 4th, 2008And so, the ho-hum. It's rainy and hot here, and the air is the consistency of hot butter. I'm in the ether constantly, working, chatting, learning, adrift.
Today's work was the drafting of affidavits, mucking through meetings, some lovely programming (objected-oriented polymorphism to handle data sets in different ways), and Saint Nectaire. Saint Nectare is a French cheese that has been made since the eighteenth century, and was the favorite of Louis the such-and-such. Because the packaging says it contains hints of mushrooms and hazelnuts, I taste hints of mushrooms and hazelnuts. I'm an American, after all, and advertising means a great deal to me.
Poems forthcoming, as always. Life and work forever forthcoming, a great wave, something as endless as the building of a Russian cathedral.
Oh, and this: I have not changed in that I continue unendingly towards what I love. But I have changed in that what I love no longer promises to destroy me.
and this
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008There were times when you believed no one could love you, and then they did. You believed no one could understand your rich internal universe, and then someone did. And times when you believed no one hurt you more, then someone came along.
Imagine what will happen tomorrow. So much wonder and hurt has been set aside for you that you can't possibly explore it all in this life. It waits for you. Would you give up wonder to never be hurt again? Would you give up hurt to never wonder again? Would you live, in spite of what that means?
daydreams
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008We punish ourselves and others so often for daydreaming. Get your head out of the clouds, Mom says. Be practical, Dad says. Daydreaming is antithetical to industry, production, waking life in the western world.
I suspect there are many kinds of animals that daydream, but there are only two I'm certain of: humans and cats. I've known many crazy cats, but the worst of them have always been the ones who have truly lost their minds - they cry all the time, need lots of attention, are afraid of everything or angry at everything. The surest way to make a cat this way is to lock it in a room with no view. Cats need a view of the outside world - they need to see birds, squirrels, people passing, clouds drifting by. Later, when they go after that piece of string, they can play at the notion that this string is actually that bird, or that squirrel. To the cat without a view, a string is just a string.
Every string contains a bird, every mind contains a daydream, every person contains a multitude. They are facts as certain and constant as gravity. You may have gotten your head out of the clouds, but look: the clouds are still there. Imagination, like faith, is never lost - but with hard work, it can be abandoned.
