fact #29

i am so sad and afraid. 

no ordinary love

laying around
drunk on a couch
in Memphis, Tennessee
listening
to a beautiful woman sing
and holding a grudge
against a man
i was once forced
to honor as a father
for the love of a woman
who had once been my mother
tears gather
in my throat
and i hold myself still
and i keep my mouth closed

if i could lift
that same pretty vowel

i would.

fact #28

the memory of laying on my mother's lap when i was 7 years old so she could scratch my back is still so close and clear. 

reminder

it's a diamond endurance to recognize the value of ones own efforts in an era when recognition for ones spent energy seems so vital an ingredient for continuance. 

but continue.

on my way to work in a rented car, i pass a hand-scrawled declaration in chalk on a low brick wall:

EVERY EFFORT IS BEAUTIFUL

months later, the truth of these 4 words echo back to me.

it bears repeating, 

even if only to myself: 

actions made in secret are no less real.

fact #27

i look up to note 9 years have elapsed and realize, inexplicably, i've somehow grown accustomed enough to the fact of my mother's death during the almost-decade long reality of her loss to have reverted back to my previous inability to believe in the actuality of my own mortality.

i'm back to being invincible.

despite the iffy disk in my back. despite the collapsing arches of my feet. despite the sadness that will sneak up on me and twist my spirit, like a bully pinning my arm behind my back, until i SAY IT! SAY IT, LOSER! i'm worthless and i wish i were dead.

is this de-evolution?


i return today, like a child, to being utterly convinced that death is for other people and has absolutely nothing to do with me.  i'm going to go on living forever, youthful and vibrant.  or at least until the ripe-old age of 100.  and i'm going to look and feel beautiful for the vast majority of my entire century.  and never shit my pants and never go blind and definitely never lose my mind.

this, despite having numerous, actual examples in my life everywhere to the contrary. in fact, i can pretty well expect all three of those unwanted circumstances to come for me, repeatedly, if not chronically.


my inability to accept myself as a mortal being is perhaps a signifier of youth. and at 39 years old, i'm not mad at believing and feeling myself to still be young.  i tend to welcome most moments of being told i'm young and that i don't know shit. at least insofar as philosophy and spirituality are concerned.  because it is the case that i'm old enough to hear things like that and understand that it's true. 

a place in the middle, then, i guess;  my youth, a slippery, slipping thing.

this is both good and bad.

"good" insofar as this reversion to believing myself invincible denotes a hard-won acceptance and level of healing in regard to my mother's early death. i spent quite a number of years reeling from the shock-wave of her passing, not realizing in any meaningful way at the time that i was exploding/imploding/collapsing/all of the above, spending too much time swiveling on bar-stools ordering yet another tequila neat (another and another), feigning bravery and fooling a lot of people that i was Tough Stuff when, really, i just wanted to curl up on the floor of the shower and melt down the drain along with the tears said tequila was (at that time) holding back.

it is "bad" in that i am acutely aware of the increasing need to take the passage of time a bit more seriously yet in many ways i don't.  there are moments throughout any given week in which i behave with the same capriciousness and laziness as a child. and as i've just noted, my moments of recklessness have been more about achieving oblivion (escapism) than relishing in the curiosities of the world, celebrating, or seeking adventure.

i wonder, though, if this reversion to disbelief might not somehow be a necessary, or at least helpful,  ingredient to being truly adventurous? and in a more wholesome and whole-hearted way than my "adventurousness" has previously displayed itself? the belief that i've got time is a realistic show of hope and a normal mode of faith in the ongoingness of my present-day living situations. the abandonment of fear of death, in any overt way, seems necessary if one is to maintain enthusiasm for walking into certain battles or when confronting certain challenges. it is exactly my belief that there will be a tomorrow that lets me not feel as if i've mis-spent my time today by practicing guitar or reading a book or by having given myself the slow hours in which to write these very words.

i say that as if these things are only ever a retreat into the warm folds of pleasure.

i have languished over these words, returning again and again throughout the day to polish and trim, cut and paste, tweak and massage and otherwise wrangle my vocabulary, taking care to say what i think i mean and figuring out how to say it well. it isn't necessarily only pleasure i am feeling and it certainly isn't leisure. writing requires a dedication and focus that can only really be summed up as "work." the fact that i love this type of work does not disturb its identity as work.

similarly, learning is not always a pleasure and growth is often painful. building a new skill takes dedication regardless of desire.  the requirement of repetition is often arduous, not to mention totally fucking boring at times. but because i believe time to (still) be on my side, i pursue my own growth and development, trusting i will be granted a new day, somewhere down the line, in the far-off future, to relish in the fruits of skills i do not yet possess.

while writing these lines, i stop to read. i reach for my mentors and muses instinctively. i learn as i go. the words pile up; some fast, some slow.

this is not to say that i do not fear squandering time. i do. very much. in fact, i'd say i have a massive fear of squandering time. and opportunity. and ability. and talent. and youth. and energy. etc. etc. etc. and due to the (sometimes) overwhelming weight of these fears, i have spent many years either placating them with half-hearted and feeble efforts in an attempt to seem productive or just as often straight-up running the fuck away from these fears by hopping from bar-stool to bar-stool to sickbed.

occasionally, i have faced up to my fears by simply acknowledging they exist and actually focusing my time and attention on the things i truly love. lately i've been getting better and better at doing just that despite the arduousness of re-defining the word "productive." i've become slowly convinced by the culture at large that so many of the things i love are a waste of time. art, music, cuddling, to name a few. re-defining productivity requires self examination and questioning: which actions/activities fall within the scope of productivity? as someone who cares very much about literature (the reading and writing of, and the general goodness it accomplishes in the world), how is it possible that i've second-guessed the productivity of spending an entire day reading a book? especially when i remember the fact that, historically-speaking, it hasn't been all that long since teaching a female child to read became remotely socially acceptable? and especially when considering the fact that there are actually, today, a pretty large handful of places around the globe where it still isn't?

but today is my first of two days off. i move back and forth from bed to kitchen to bed, making coffee and reading further into the two books on my nightstand. i while away this first day of my weekend between pages of printed words and sips of warm, sweet, creamy liquid, quietly chiding myself for being "lazy," "selfish," "unproductive," and even "childish." shouldn't i have at least put the laundry away first? talk about having no belief in my own mortality. who the fuck prioritizes putting the laundry away when confronting the irrefutable knowledge of the inevitability of their own demise? an asshole, that's who.

so here i am, coming back around to how my unbelievable disbelief is a good thing: because an adult person who never succeeds in putting their laundry away is an asshole, too. i'm not advocating never putting ones laundry away. there's a necessary balance that i'm hopeful i can strike. with another free day coming on the heels of this one, and with every reason to believe i will see it,  my laundry can wait in the name of all things creative and wonderful and joyful.

then suddenly, there it is:

the shudder.

that horrible, grinding, glittering fear that there will never be enough time...

not enough time to read all the books i am so easily and gladly lured to.  not enough time to scribble the morning away, cataloguing my own roving thoughts and hopes. not enough time to learn to play harmonica.  not enough time to get better at having sex during day-light hours a bigger priority AND still get the fucking laundry put away.


if something's gotta give, it's gonna be my socks and underwear.