How here?
How here, looking over glass structures and the art and architecture, the angles and curves of lesser known folks, long studying and hustling until they landed the contract for the office park building #62, for the startup that got to take on building the "Oracle" building in Markham, Toronto?
How here, sitting in a fabric chair that ignores the past years' focus on back support (sitting will kill you!) on the eleventh floor above a small parking lot and construction?
How here, waiting to put in another day of work on a project to which I have devoted my recent life to create something amazing, how here in between thoughts of implementation, flow, customers and revenue?
How here in a well-worn undershirt, a garment I once thought left for older men only, now as well worn as any band t-shirt, how here with these sore limbs and red eyes?
How here, not by hand on paper but edited and typed out with page demarcations, by dull lamp light with shoddy wifi, watching a highway whose name, location, destination and importance are as foreign to me as its travelers?
How here, packing a bag to take my sixth flight in the last three weeks, how here putting together tolietries and preparing for the task of the 21st century's new security normal?
How here, still a little boy with glasses, spelunking deep into his own thoughts and emotions, looking for some gems in lieu of answers?
How here do I feel these tears come up uncontrollably and strong facing the specter of loss and of something so fucking wrong and so unfair to so many people?
How here do I grapple with the realities of this and the fallout and the blast radius, terms coined for nuclear attacks and easily adopted for this kind of experience?
How here is this dealt with by people who are stronger or more well-adjusted or "making it through" or whatever else?
How here, and knowing all of this and owning up to it, and getting ready for a different world with one fewer brilliant light and full of that much less pure love and honest goodness,
How now?
14.5.13
2.5.13
15.4.13
8.12.12
I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine so what purpose does this serve? How am I making it better and how can I scrape this rust off of a metal I have worn down to the atoms and refinished with stronger stuff? I'm in no hurry to change any of the other pieces that may be "wrong"--I have eliminated so much that needed to be stamped out and my level of success means not wanting to cut too much (optimization in this regard can be tricky; scale and deleterious elements often are inseparable and necessary relations). So now what? I was told that the things that got me here would not be the things that would get me to the next level so, here I am, what are the things that will help me reach that level? If I am ready to sign my name and submit this piece, what will you give me in return to pass the time--I'm all set with cell phone games and prosaic literature. I need something deeper if I'm going to... wait...
Wait.
Perhaps that's it after all. Perhaps I have carved this skeleton down to its minimum, I have inspected its areas and surfaces through injury and victory alike (and heard other cartographers reports) and now it's time to build. Now it's not time to just assume that I have these locations and compartments filled with the materials to build something meaningful but rather to pull out these items and to start building, not just mapping out the area but actually filling in the moat, completing the walls and building the fires that won't burn things down, just keep us warm through the chilly seasons.
I am happy for this.
I just wish I didn't have to mine things so deep or so distant just to get the kind of shiny bullshit that gives me a sense of accomplishment and help me understand my tether a little more effectively. Now I am free and sad to not have the work of the inmates.
Wait.
Perhaps that's it after all. Perhaps I have carved this skeleton down to its minimum, I have inspected its areas and surfaces through injury and victory alike (and heard other cartographers reports) and now it's time to build. Now it's not time to just assume that I have these locations and compartments filled with the materials to build something meaningful but rather to pull out these items and to start building, not just mapping out the area but actually filling in the moat, completing the walls and building the fires that won't burn things down, just keep us warm through the chilly seasons.
I am happy for this.
I just wish I didn't have to mine things so deep or so distant just to get the kind of shiny bullshit that gives me a sense of accomplishment and help me understand my tether a little more effectively. Now I am free and sad to not have the work of the inmates.
As time has gone by and I have set in my ways, moved from one act to the next and worried little for the cohesion in the writing--anything can be traced when looking backwards, there is always some reasonable regression between these data points--I have gained innumerable strengths from my change in perspective. My attitude, moving impossible distances from the timebomb of emotional duress that I harnessed into a threat to myself, hand on the trigger and forcing these artistic outpourings (the output of which now results in drastically reduced product as the gun is no longer to my head).
The level of focus and analytical approach I have achieved has served me in so many ways but I can't help but feel like it has put some emotional or psychological DMZ between us. And perhaps a moat around my sandcastle was appropriate, ultimately, but it doesn't change the fact that it's strange because it's a location I recognize and words from a script I have read, if not memorized, if not written.
"...and throw away my misery, it never meant that much to me--it never sent a 'get well' card."
And I guess that's what this comes down to. I still play music, albeit less, and I love just as much now as I ever did but I have created in my life a place for it to live where I don't feel the constant tension and pressure to "make it all work." But with that I have created some type of mixed media brocade that only you and I would understand but now we don't get to talk about it, and that sucks. That knowing look used to mean something, but now it just means something has passed, and what could be more barren than a glance across distance? I miss you, and what does that say about the world I own and the words that I so comfortably let on. Even the way that I think has changed, so the way I tell stories comes with new vocabulary and different angles--I'm watching the corners and you're not hearing the same songs. Now things that we did are new and changed and I wonder if they could ever mean as much in this new language or if our translation issues are what causes this to dissolve after left in just water for weeks at a time--the pH seems to be neutral for all of the loss--perhaps the neutral bit is the killer.
***
To be free, to let go of these preludes in the drawing room, to not obsess over appearances or bracelets and what they portend or seek to diminish, I have earned this moment and delight in the freedom. I release from my culpability for Koln and look out over a mess that has long since been sorted out through years of chewing the scenery. They asked me when I jumped out of the plane what the occasion was, and they didn't believe me when I said it was a period, it was closing the statement that I just don't care anymore, that I am free and that I refuse to be defined by a series of persons that I was, or activities I engaged in, or behaviors that came out after an hour or genetic defects that I battled with broken bottles and unblinking eyes. I am free, finally. I'm not free of the everyday, or worrying about the same things that you would imagine, about work and friends and family, I still inhabit a uniquely overreaching introspective place, but there is so much more that I know better than to question and so much more still that I have owned as part of this life. I cannot control other people, they will make their choices and their actions do not define me nor do they say anything about my capabilities. I will make it and you will too if you just try to stay focused. It can be exhausting, but it's much less exhausting than constantly trying to paint over these spots that just refuse to stay covered. Leave the wood bare and sail, the ocean is rocky but consistent and you know how to use a rope and tying knots comes down to knowing your system.
***
A fractional equation in which the the range gets infinitely closer as the range approaches zero but never reaches it--a horizontal asymptote. That ultimately becomes our relationship with this part of life and a cycle of thoughts that fall out when the dryer is opened, warm and clean, only to be put back in one week later after a few wears. Every day I am closer to being untethered by these needs and collapse back into the comforts of gravity and a soft breeze.
The level of focus and analytical approach I have achieved has served me in so many ways but I can't help but feel like it has put some emotional or psychological DMZ between us. And perhaps a moat around my sandcastle was appropriate, ultimately, but it doesn't change the fact that it's strange because it's a location I recognize and words from a script I have read, if not memorized, if not written.
"...and throw away my misery, it never meant that much to me--it never sent a 'get well' card."
And I guess that's what this comes down to. I still play music, albeit less, and I love just as much now as I ever did but I have created in my life a place for it to live where I don't feel the constant tension and pressure to "make it all work." But with that I have created some type of mixed media brocade that only you and I would understand but now we don't get to talk about it, and that sucks. That knowing look used to mean something, but now it just means something has passed, and what could be more barren than a glance across distance? I miss you, and what does that say about the world I own and the words that I so comfortably let on. Even the way that I think has changed, so the way I tell stories comes with new vocabulary and different angles--I'm watching the corners and you're not hearing the same songs. Now things that we did are new and changed and I wonder if they could ever mean as much in this new language or if our translation issues are what causes this to dissolve after left in just water for weeks at a time--the pH seems to be neutral for all of the loss--perhaps the neutral bit is the killer.
***
To be free, to let go of these preludes in the drawing room, to not obsess over appearances or bracelets and what they portend or seek to diminish, I have earned this moment and delight in the freedom. I release from my culpability for Koln and look out over a mess that has long since been sorted out through years of chewing the scenery. They asked me when I jumped out of the plane what the occasion was, and they didn't believe me when I said it was a period, it was closing the statement that I just don't care anymore, that I am free and that I refuse to be defined by a series of persons that I was, or activities I engaged in, or behaviors that came out after an hour or genetic defects that I battled with broken bottles and unblinking eyes. I am free, finally. I'm not free of the everyday, or worrying about the same things that you would imagine, about work and friends and family, I still inhabit a uniquely overreaching introspective place, but there is so much more that I know better than to question and so much more still that I have owned as part of this life. I cannot control other people, they will make their choices and their actions do not define me nor do they say anything about my capabilities. I will make it and you will too if you just try to stay focused. It can be exhausting, but it's much less exhausting than constantly trying to paint over these spots that just refuse to stay covered. Leave the wood bare and sail, the ocean is rocky but consistent and you know how to use a rope and tying knots comes down to knowing your system.
***
A fractional equation in which the the range gets infinitely closer as the range approaches zero but never reaches it--a horizontal asymptote. That ultimately becomes our relationship with this part of life and a cycle of thoughts that fall out when the dryer is opened, warm and clean, only to be put back in one week later after a few wears. Every day I am closer to being untethered by these needs and collapse back into the comforts of gravity and a soft breeze.
11.8.12
Coats and Mirrors
Back room behavior as a kind of charade, a gesture backed by light to make a shadow on the wall of some indie club, Beauty Bar perhaps, full of illicit deals and handshake moments that go out of focus just as the morning comes into focus. Moments that grab tightly onto the feet, wax through the hands and paint a rose colored filter over eyes to keep out the records and to spin the story: this is life, these are people and times you will remember, this is what it's all for. You work and live for these moments, this drink, this dance, this kiss, this rainstorm, this bus ride, this run, this story. Paying a nominal fee to a series of vendors to provide stories that expand in some spectral scope, some arcane measurement that can be pushed to various directions and edges with fingernails and the warp of groupthink and groupact. The brush of an arm. A glance you recognize. A look that you can't be certain of and everything you can.
All of these, shadows on the wall, then the light goes out and then it's just gestures in the dark--there is no vision here or guide and what was fun becomes just a hazard, people running into each other, the grand parade becomes a rush for the exits and some never make it out while those that do just look for a new venue. This is just another line in the journal. This will entertain my friends.
And if not, if these things aren't the drivetrain of the engine, then where are you telling the cab to take you? And what do you expect to see when you get there? And to whom will you tell the stories that you had, and with whom will you have them?
What inspires you? What gets you up and doing the things you promise? Why do you stay up the extra hour that could be spent asleep after complaining about the lack thereof all week?
I used to fit 25 hours into 24 but now I can hardly tell the time without seeing the edges of the movie--life is my Brechtian moment, dragging me out of the moments that I used to so easily indulge. Like most of life's surprises, it's not bad, it's just hard. The cost of admission is so high and I think I can do better--but what does that mean for the people I used to be?
All of these, shadows on the wall, then the light goes out and then it's just gestures in the dark--there is no vision here or guide and what was fun becomes just a hazard, people running into each other, the grand parade becomes a rush for the exits and some never make it out while those that do just look for a new venue. This is just another line in the journal. This will entertain my friends.
And if not, if these things aren't the drivetrain of the engine, then where are you telling the cab to take you? And what do you expect to see when you get there? And to whom will you tell the stories that you had, and with whom will you have them?
What inspires you? What gets you up and doing the things you promise? Why do you stay up the extra hour that could be spent asleep after complaining about the lack thereof all week?
I used to fit 25 hours into 24 but now I can hardly tell the time without seeing the edges of the movie--life is my Brechtian moment, dragging me out of the moments that I used to so easily indulge. Like most of life's surprises, it's not bad, it's just hard. The cost of admission is so high and I think I can do better--but what does that mean for the people I used to be?
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