Loving Strangeness

I saw you today. I saw you in the woods sitting alone. You seemed reflective, but also a little hurt. As I approached, you looked up from the log in the clearing you were sitting on--the one by the small pond with the frogs. You looked up and your face screamed anticipation, hope, and reluctance all at the same time.

It was nice to see you--that was the first thing I thought. It was nice to see you sitting--looking so beautiful--in such a beautiful place.

"Hello."

"Hello you. Can I sit?"

"Sure."

"What is it you would like to talk about?"

"Love."

"I suspected as much.

So, I sat. I sat and spoke. I told you about what I had thought about in times I had time to think; times spent in less beautiful places."

"I met one. I met a woman--one that said she had met the One. Listening to her, I realized something about myself, and about love."

"Go on."

"Well, I used to agree with her. I used to think that someday I would meet the One--I would meet the One for whom I was destined--the only One--the One that was for me. I used to think I would meet the One that would give me the stability, the unity, and the identity of an unchanging, unlonging, settled soul. I used to think I would be converted and in doing so receive the salvation of earth--love. I used to think love was being converted to One--to becoming fully united with one--and letting our respective selves pass into a Selfsameness that surpassed words, surpassed all other relationships, and colored every breath of our interaction with the world."

"Okay."

"I will never love you that way; in fact, to do so would be to kill both of us. I don't want a love that takes my breath away, or yours for that matter. I don't want a love that is akin to death. I don't want the end of desire--the end of need--the end of longing."

"Okay."

"No, if I am going to love you it will always be as a stranger. You will always be a stranger to me--as strange or more as time goes on, no matter how long we spend together. You will always be strange to me--you will always be other. Instead of the One, you will be the Other. We won't be united. No. We will stay infinitely separate. The distance between us won't ever dissipate. No. We'll always be isolated little souls--treading in the sea of singularities. You will always be away--apart--altogether different. And, that is how I will love you. I will love you with a longing that will only stop when the possibility of myself stops. I will love you infinitely across a distance I know cannot be overcome, most of all, because it is an eternal one and I am so, so mortal. I will love you as a stranger in my home--in my arms--one I cannot, will not understand--comprehend--or grasp. I will love you as a blurred, bedazzling appearance I can't reduce, and therefore, one that demands my attention, my devotion, my interest in ways I can never fulfill. I won't love you as my One--I won't kill you or me. I won't love you as the One. I'll love you as my Other--as the Stranger inside me--the one crawling around--touching me in places I didn't know I had--places exhilirating and uncomfortable at the same time. I'll love you as one haunting me--calling me ever toward you. I'll love you as a foreigner inside myself--inside a land with precarious borders, and unknown topography. I'll love you even though I can't--even though eternity won't let me."

"Thank you for sharing. I appreciate what you have said."

"You are welcome."

The One

I met a woman today--one. I met one. She told me about the One she had met; or, at least thought she had met.

The one I met thought she had met the One--the only one, the one for eternity, the one that would be hers forever without a change, the one that would make her complete and let her begin living for the first time.

"Wow, congratulations. That is amazing."

"Thank you. It is all a bit much, but I am overwhelmed with happiness, joy--so many things I guess."

"How did you know he was the One? I mean how can one know they know the One? How does one identify him?"

"I don't know. There is no science to it--it isn't a matter of rationality, or of logic. Nope. It's a feeling you get deep inside--somewhere you didn't know you had--somewhere that hasn't ever been touched before. I guess you could call it that virginal soul deep down--the one deep inside."

"That is ironic to me."

"Why?" she said in disapproval.

"So, you mean to tell me, that to know that the one you have met is the One--he has to penetrate you first? It just seems counter-intuitive, that's all I am saying."

She didn't like this. She didn't like my talk of penetration and irony. So, she left. She didn't even finish her drink.

What is all this about the One? And, why is the One so deeply, deeply, penetratingly connected to love?

The whole time I was talking to that woman I didn't know if we were talking religion or romance; conversion or coitus; tongues or tongue.

Where did this come from--this myth of the One? Where does the desire for Him or Her or It come from? And, which one do I want? Which one of the Ones do I want--religion or romance? Do I want to be converted to the One of eternity, or captured by the One of romance?

Maybe, I don't want either. Maybe, it is ironically the opposite. I want to be penetrated--entered--filled--and thus, hopefully, in the end, unified with the One--with the Spiritual Groom. Maybe all I ever wanted was to be filled--in that virginal--vaginal place ones from Augustine to Eckhart to womanizers such as Kundera and Klima--have called the soul. Maybe all I want is to be filled forever--consummated by the consummate One--the One that will never leave me, will never change, will never break a promise, and never ever stop loving me.

Maybe I want to be converted to the One that stands in front of me--takes my breath away--and give myself--as best as I know possible to that One. Maybe I want to surrender me in order to gain a we that didn't exist beforehand. Maybe I want to convert--take vows--and never look back.

And, maybe, just maybe--these dual myths of the One are and have always been blurred into indistinction. Maybe, just maybe, they are the same thing.

I met one today--one that wanted the One. She was so excited. She was so happy.

The Big O

The big O, not the little one. The one that signifies not something--not something in the world next to me; but one that is other in a way I can't understand--can't comprehend--can't master: O. Of course, the big O conjures other thoughts--phonetically it makes one think of something else--an experience so unique it also requires to be signified differently. The big O--Orgasm. The big O--Other. Is there a similarity here? Is there a hOmOlOgy, or are the two Other to one another?

Let's start with the big O--orgasm. And, let's restrict ourselves to the big ones--the memorable ones--or, better yet, the ones that stop memory and language and thought for a second or two or more. Let's only talk about the big ones. I dare to say the big ones require an Other. Auto-affection won't do it.

It is a process--a building--an unlocking--a revealing--preparing--trying--coalescing--moving--hoping--expecting--and all sorts of other things. You and I, going somewhere we can't talk about. Trying to take the Other to a place where they are Other to even their own self--to a place where their own self is obliterated into a shaking mess of non-language. Trying to take an Other to a place they can't go by their-self--to a place of non-selfhood that is somehow an experience of selfhood. Trying to reveal to them their singularity--their irreplacebility--in that moment--in that second--their singularity--their absolute uniqueness. Trying to unlock and open their self so they can have it--feel it--experience it--even if only temporarily, temporally. Yes, trying to make them cum so they can come--to come by cumming?

Vulgar? Perverted?

The Big O--both of them--you, standing opposed to me as one I can't comprehend, can't reduce, can't make my own. You are something in the world of which I am not master--something I don't know. I am something--something in the world I can't comprehend, and something I don't know, especially by mastery. Desire for the Other--for orgasm--for becoming one that is singular, non-objective, and irreplaceable--one that is eternal for having somehow escaped the temporality of solitude and the solitude of temporality even for a few seconds, moments, or hours.

You--Other--give me me. Me, your Other--I'll give you you. I'll give you what I don't have and receive a gift I know you don't own.

The Big O. I'll receive you. I'll try. I'll hope. I'll expect. Even if it never happens--if the cumming is no coming--the desire for it never ceases. Even if it never arrives, the big O, the big one, there is always trying--always hoping--always wanting--that is tragic and wonderful all at the same time.

Perhaps, it occurred to me, I was in some new space. I'd entered the place where oblivion was born. Or despair. And also understanding. Or perhaps even love--not as a mirage but as a space for the soul to move in. -Ivan Klima


I am in a new space. Well, I might have always been here. Regardless, I am aware of a new space--or trying to be. This is the where oblivion was born. This is the primordial lack--the deficiency on which I operate--the one that keeps me moving back and forward, keeping me always in between the behind and the ahead. I don't have a foundation to be-from. I don't have a future to be-toward. Thus, the abyss can lead one to think that this space is also home to despair.

But, for some, it is the opposite--it is the place where love is born--where love resides--where love is situated.

What's the lesson?

Love is movement. Love is flux. Love is longing. Love moves--always moves--between an oblivion and the threat of despair. Love is the possibility for hope despite the oblivion, and in the face of despair.

Desire

Pleasure itself . . . that which would accord us (to) pure presence itself, if such a thing were possible, would be only another name for death. -Derrida


Pleasure--the drive for happiness that Plato and others have spoken about--the drive for fulfillment--for enjoyment. What kind of enjoyment? The kind--the only kind--in which time is stopped and I am me--present to me--wholly me--altogether myself. The kind in which there is no more striving--no more pushing ahead--or looking behind--in which time doesn't lead one toward an end in nothing, or from a beginning from before memory. Pleasure--the drive to recreate one's self in a way that is whole, lasting, and permanent--the drive to find a place to rest away from the scattering effects of temporality. I want to be whole. I want to be permanent. I want to rest in something eternal, unchanging, and good.

Why is it the same as death? Death is that experience--that non-experience--the only experience of which we can try to speak--that is outside of time. It is the non-moment when time no longer pushes, or pulls, or anything. It is outside--it is me--stopped--forever. In this way, pleasure leads to pure nothingness.



. . . this desire carries in itself the destiny of its non-satisfaction. -Derrida

Thus, the desire for pleasure is doomed from the beginning. We strive--all day everyday--to find the center that will hold us in place--but the only one available is the abyss--the hovering abyss that awaits. Pleasure is the contradictory desire for death--to re-create ourselves permanently--to be outside of time--that is, to be dead.


. . . the desire for presence is . . . born from the abyss. -Derrida

So, what? Despair? Back to Camus and the absurdity? Back to nihilistic anarchy? No. Well, at least not for me. Why? Well, the void--the abyss--is all I have. And, I'd lie if I didn't said I didn't love the exquisite agony of the perpetual drive for pleasure. That exquisite agony of longing to be together--to find One that could make me me for the first time--to find one way of experiencing death--not my own--but the death of temporality--without destroying myself in the process. I love the coming together and the breaking apart. The building pressure--the anticipation--the insatiability that exceeds words--exceeds time--or, at least gives one such impressions. I would lie if I said I didn't love the desire--the structure of desire--that possesses me at every second, calling me toward the One I know isn't there, the One I won't find, but the One of which I dream for so fervently.

What I am interested in is the desire for the experience of the impossible. --Derrida

That desire--the one for the impossible--for a moment in which time is destroyed and I am not. Will it ever come? Of course not. Do I want it--can I feel it shiver through my bones at ever waking second? Of course. That is the point, the structure, and the tragic beauty of desire.

But who, sometimes, doesn't feign emotions in an effort to transcend the void that suddenly looms between them and someone they believed themselves to be on intimate terms with? It looks as if it's only possible to be genuine in a game in which you have more than one life. Or rather it is easier to achieve justice and authenticity in a game than in real life. --Ivan Klima

The void looms regardless. The void looms not because of a deficiency or lack left from a failed attempt at plenitude. No. The void looms as the condition for intimacy, effort, and transcendence themselves. The void looms between the two--it is the difference that makes me possible, and you too. The void looms between us--we long for an encounter in which it might disappear--even for a second--and thus feign emotions in an active tweak of the real--an attempt to forget in order to overcome. But, actively forgetting is not possible--we only forget those things we won't/don't try to forget. The void looms and it draws us near--draws us out--draws into places we really don't want to go--into places unlit and unsafe--into places vulnerable and new.

Did I say I hate the void?

I love the void. I love the movement of play the void spurs on in every moment. I love the waves crashing over, and over, and over--changing shapes--changing form--changing color--changing me. I love the difference and the movement. I love the perpetual activity and flow. If there were no void, there would be no moving--no coming together and breaking apart--no desire--no attempts at self-transcendence. All attempts at self-transcendence would be null and void.

I have only the void. And, so do you. I have only the felt absence--the sensed absence. And, I have it only passively. I'll take it (I have no choice), and let it take me into places--no, spaces--of which I do not know.

But who, sometimes, doesn't feign emotions in an effort to transcend the void that suddenly looms between them and someone they believed themselves to be on intimate terms with? It looks as if it's only possible to be genuine in a game in which you have more than one life. Or rather it is easier to achieve justice and authenticity in a game than in real life. --Ivan Klima

Feigning emotions? Why? in order to transcend one's self? In order to move past the void--to forget about it long enough to have an erotic experience with an-other? I hate feigning emotions. I hate pretending in order to transcend me. And, I despise the void.

The void follows me--haunts me--at every step; every breath. I live from it, in it, and through it, yet it dominates me in a way that is oppressively inescapable. I want nothing more than to escape it--fulfill it--remedy it--but I am afraid time won't allow that to happen.

In the meantime, I'll hope, pray, and want--nothing more and nothing less.

Collecting Connections/Connecting Collections

And surely we throw ourselves into erotic pleasures above all in order to remember them. So that their luminous points will connect our youth with our old age by means of a shining ribbon! So that they will preserve our memory in an eternal flame!

Life, it seems, is a moving between eternities. It is a stretched out continuum highlighted by points which link us--or at least give us the impression of linking us--to some sort of encounter with the infinite. And, of course, many times--most times--this happens in the throes of erotic desire. Life, it seems, is temporality lived out between the illusion of the infinite, and its infinite hope. This is who we become--not the continuum, but the points along the way that leave our memory seared with the mark of something more, something beyond. These encounters take us beyond ourself and thus, in some tragic way, end up defining us.


And take it from me, my friend, only a word uttered at this most ordinary of moments is capable of illuminating it in such a way that it remains unforgettable.
-Milan Kundera

In those moments, our lives become eternal. Within seconds, we build an image that becomes the irreplaceable, singular unity of the otherwise temporal existence of everyday life.

Shall we collect them? Mark as many points on that continuum as possible in order to create a storehouse of memories of the infinite? The hopeless quest of infinite memories? Or, shall we connect? Shall we connect intimate, fiercely, ferociously--attacking the moments, the seconds, the breaths with the impossible dream of destryoing them? The dream of timeless victory--timeless connection?

They say for me that I'm a collector of women. In reality I'm far more a collector of words.
-Milan Kundera

Regardless, there will always be words to speak about them--whether the connections and collection remains plentiful or few, vulnerable or superficial.

When I can't write anymore I'll die. But I'll die loving. -Ivan Klima

And surely we throw ourselves into erotic pleasures above all in order to remember them. So that their luminous points will connect our youth with our old age by means of a shining ribbon! So that they will preserve our memory in an eternal flame! And take it from me, my friend, only a word uttered at this most ordinary of moments is capable of illuminating it in such a way that it remains unforgettable.
-Milan Kundera

Desires. Eros. What of this? Can it truly be linked to memory? Can this primordial, insatiable force within really be a matter of remembrance? Yes, and we can see why when we realize how closely memory is linked to confession. Confession is the enacting of memory--its emptying out. Confession is like dumping out the piggy bank to see what and how much lays inside. Why? Why do we confess? Why do we remember? Why do we recount endlessly in our minds vacant theater the memories of our erotic pleasures--our most intimate encounters? Why do prophets and apostles speak in words about their intimate encounters with the Word?

It seems life is a matter of words. It seems life is a matter of perpetually remembering and hoping for encounters--for moments--seconds--when we will experience that which is beyond words. As it stands, we know any words we thus use to describe it--the erotic pleasure so strong, so deep, so forceful that it makes us convulse and shake in wordless pleasure--the revelation so clear, so powerful, that it causes us to convulse and shake in wordless prayer--will fail. Words never can describe that which is beyond words, nor can they reach the Word.

Life is thus frustratingly and paradoxically always a matter of more words--of spinning and freeing the words that stem from those deep, confessional, vulnerable encounters with someone, something beyond ourselves. If there are words, we are still here to hope. If there are words, we will always try to get to the place where they will no longer be necessary, and, above all, hope we can stay there forever.


They say for me that I'm a collector of women. In reality I'm far more a collector of words.
-Milan Kundera

I don't want to tell you a story. I don't want to engross you in a narrative with a beginning and thus with an end. I don't want a happy ending, nor do I want a tragedy. I don't want to leave you on your seat, or in tears, or angry beyond words. I don't want you to lose yourself in the time of my narrative--in the time of the narrative--only to have to re-emerge again when the pages run thin and the night gets dark. I don't want to change your life. I don't want to you to change mine. I don't want to invent characters with idiosyncracies, or a setting with character and vibrance.

No.

I don't even want an audience. I don't want an ear, or many ears, or fans, or readers, or you.

Episodes

I had a dream the other day, Old Man; you were the main character. I was walking along the boardwalk, when I came upon you laying in the sand. Blood dripped from your abdomen down your stomach, criss crossing your legs. You were in visible pain, but onl sobbing. I expected screams or wails, but you provided only quiet sobs. I came over, and asked you what happened.

"Don't worry about it."

What? You need to get some help, some attention.

"Don't worry about it. The help will come. The help is not what I am worried about."

What?

"Look at me, I am so embarrassed. Look at me, my insides are hanging out everywhere. You know how embarrassing this is?"

What?

"Look. Everyone can see me--everyone can see me spilling out of myself. You know what they can see? Everything that is supposed to be mine; everything that is supposed to be my own--my workings, my functioning, my breathing, my existence. It is all spilling out now. And, because of that, they can see my secret--they can see my shame."

What?

"Everyone can see my secret--I didn't put any of this here, and more than that, I don't know how any of it works. I am not in charge of myself, nor do I control myself. Look at me, a sad old man laying in the sand, his self gushing out of his chest onto the cold, unforgiving concrete of this boardwalk. Look at me, the myth of my autonomy is shattered--I'm nothing but bleeding, pulsating guts; nothing but spilled open and embarrassed."

I took some sea water to try to wash his wounds, but it didn't help. It only hurt more, he said.

I had a dream the other day, Old Man. You were telling me about all kinds of gibberish, and I was playing your game.

Incoherent Words

No words?

Where have they gone?

Have they really left me? Or, have I concealed them--hidden them--run from them in a way that makes their absence conspicuously intentional?

Time itself--the Transcendent--calls--let them have you. Lay down on the stone tablet to be broken into fragments--trajectories of desire--and let the words shard all over the page. Time calls and demands the words. Time calls in place of the Word, demanding speech--demanding an attempt--a try at it all.

___

I saw you today--in trying and trying some more. I saw you today and wished you all the best. I saw you today and hoped you could smile despite Time's call. I saw you today and you hurt me. But, I don't blame you. I don't think it was your fault. No, I blame time. But, here I am, answering its call. Here I am, possessed by the words. I saw you today--what should I do about it?

___

Words, words, words. Break me open and let it loose--let them loose--let them free.

You and I and Words

Was it you who spoke the words that things would happen but not to me
Oh things are gonna happen naturally
Oh taking your advice I'm looking on the bright side
And balancing the whole thing
But often times those words get tangled up in lines
And the bright lights turn to night
Until the dawn it brings
Another day to sing about the magic that was you and me

Things will happen. Things are happening. And, yes, naturally--they have to happen this way. What's natural about the situation? I don't know. I don't know. Looking on the bright side? Yes. I think so. At the moment, the bright side is that there are words--lots of them. The words spew forth, yes, naturally. It's like there is no fabrication involved anymore; they are there, always. Dawn? I don't think the words will bring the dawn--I think the words keep the hope of dawn alive. There is a difference; an important difference.


Cause you and I both loved
What you and I spoke of
And others just read of
Others only read of the love, the love that I love.

Yes, we loved--both of us. But, we didn't speak of it. We didn't speak of it and that's the reason that we can only read about it, just like everyone else. Others read the words--the natural ones--that flow from what we both loved--from the non-thing that gives rise to all these words. If we had spoken about it, it woudln't exist. If we had spoken of it, others wouldn't have to read about it; but more importantly, it wouldn't be ours--it would be something altogether different.



See I'm all about them words
Over numbers, unencumbered numbered words
Hundreds of pages, pages, pages forwards
More words then I had ever heard and I feel so alive

Yes, the words are unencumbered. They come without burden or restriction. In fact, the words are the burden. The words are the burden of every day, every second. The words plague me. I have to work to crack myself open--to puncture every hidden space to bring those words to light--to let them breathe--to make them earn their existence. The words are coming, and the words are the burden. Almost out? No. Not even close. The words seem endless. And, thus, so does the burden.


You and I, you and I
Not so little you and I anymore
And with this silence brings a moral story
More importantly evolving is the glory of a boy



The silence? Don't get it confused. There are words. There will always be words. The silence doesn't signify the absence of words. No, the silence signifies the inability--my inability--despite the endless burden--to speak of what we loved. In this way, the silence is the reason for the words. The words are the silence.


Cause you and I both loved
What you and I spoke of
And others just dream of
And if you could see me now
Well I'm almost finally out of
I'm finally out of
Finally deedeedeedee
Well I'm almost finally, finally
Well I'm free, oh, I'm free


Others dream of it, but I am not so sure I don't either. But, don't worry, make no mistake, I'm not free. The words are free. The words come with ease. But, if the words are free, I am the opposite.


And it's okay if you have go away
Oh just remember the telephone works both ways
And if I never ever hear them ring
If nothing else I'll think the bells inside
Have finally found you someone else and that's okay
Cause I'll remember everything you sang

I know, it has to happen naturally. I know. I know that the silence--even if it doesn't mean the absence of words--might mean the absence of ringing, and even singing. I know the bells will sound for you again--you know how to sing too well, to call too well, and to play all too well. But, that doesn't mean the words will stop. It doesn't mean a double silence. No, the words will always come--keep coming--gush forth onto the page. With those words--with every letter--comes the hope of inseminating the page--the hope that someday the page will give birth to what we sang of--what we loved. It is admittedly a hope against hope. But, like I have explained, even if the words are free, I am the opposite. The words have me--possess me--so they'll keep coming, into a dawn that is nowhere--no how--in sight.

One more

Excuse me please, one more drink
Could you make it strong? Cuz I don't need to think.
She broke my heart, my grace is gone
One more drink and I'll be gone

Excuse me, not to interrupt--but one more. Yes, one more will do it--I'm already dizzy and this one will take me to the edge. What edge? The one where thought stops. I'll go over the edge where my body will finally force my thinking--my concepts--my brooding--my analyzing into submission. Excuse me, just one more, that is all I need.

Why? Well, my heart is broken. Wait. That is too strong. Or, maybe it is too cliche. Why? Maybe because my salvation--the means of grace--has left? I don't know if that is it either. Why? I think it is this: knowing the hope of that salvation was doomed to fail from the beginning; knowing there is no grace for the temporal space which my heart--my-non-self--occupies. I guess I know that my longing for grace was equivalent to my longing for pardon from my condition--the temporal one. I wanted to be pardoned from it--cured of its disease--made whole through unity with another. Is that why it involves my heart? Yes, sir, it is. Thank you for asking. I thought maybe that was the means by which I could be pardoned. I thought maybe her and I could confer upon one another the grace of salvation through moments of incision, confusion, and, yes, the disappearance of thinking. When thinking stops, time has no hold. Yes, I know. When thinking stops you are dead. They are similar. But, I think I thought that salvation could--would--bring time to a stop without killing me.

So, one more drink. One more is all I need to beat down the circle and fall asleep. One more and I'll be okay until the sun rises tomorrow. One more, and I'll be gone. One more and I'll move, but I can't promise I will move on.

Episodes in the Smoke-Filled Coffee Shop:

He said, "So what's the big deal about this one?"

"Well, she was a walking balance in purity and desire. You know? There was something pure--something consciously naive--something selfless. I trusted her. I really did. She was younger than me, but I don't know if that was it. She was one of those people that is born with an old soul, and because of it stays young and uncorrupted much longer than most of us; maybe forever, I hope so anyway. Yet, she was a fanatic for desire. She bathed in it; slept in it; let it permeate her every thought and movement. She was ravenous and insatiable. I'm not just talking about the bedroom either, Old Man. I am talking about allowing desire to overtake you in a way that splits you open at the core, leaving you to be overwhelmed by existential absurdity and the height of ecstasy. She had that. She let it have her. Desire carried over into everything she did--every way she related to me. It would dominate our conversations of love, religion, literature, people, and death. Desire would waft in the air of all these places; intoxicate the water that nourished our relations--every word, every phrase, ever word, every wink. And it all carried over into our love making--into passionate, expressive, verbal and non-verbal, deep, painful, open love-making. The kind that leaves you breathless for days. The experience of coming so close to someone else's soul--so close to the infinite abyss that they don't know how to give you directions to because they have never experienced it--never seen it--never known how to explain to anyone something they know they know is not there. We would come to the peak--to the edge--of that infinite--of that mixture of two untouchable spaceless, atemporal realms. In those moments--in those seconds--I hoped so hard, so expectantly, so wishfully. In the moments and days afterward I wept over the impossibility--the absurdity--of such an endeavor. Why so broken up? I guess alot of it is knowing I'll never know how she did it--how does one balance such naivete, such kindness, such purity with the waves and waves of desire that pour over and in every second? How can desire permeate every parcel of her Being while she stays so young, so beautiful, so exquisitely generous? How can the absurdity of Being not corrupt the Good? She's a walking non-answer to this question, and that's why there is no just forgetting her, it, all."

"Okay, son, sounds like a mouthful. You need another drink?"

I didn't respond.

Transitions

There is that constant transition--the one which births language again and again, day after day--that transition from me to an-Other (imagined or not, but mostly the former). I am trapped as a wave between two nodes that I don't think truly exist. Down in me--in the infinite that holds nothing--there is a crying--an urge--a desire--so before me and so ahead of me that I can't put into the words--cannot birth into the child of this longing. The world will never see it, and neither will I. This child--my word--is inadequate for carrying the space from me to anywhere else. But, words always are--that's why we turn time and again to either the Word, or that which we believe is beyond words (love). Sometimes, we even put the two together. Despite the inadequacy, that desire never leaves. Most days, times, moments, we hope--expect--through that desire. This day--this moment--it has absorbed--overtaken--submerged--not the desire--but the expectation.

Response? I don't know. I guess I'll do what is familiar.

Dancing in the play of images, logos, and ads--losing myself in a circle of sounds, one with a catchy beat and lots of smoke. Filtering in and out of a crowd sheltered in semi-darkness; a crowd longing to peak at the light only through the filter of perpetual shadow--covering--dark. Finding solitude and solace amongst those hidden, undisclosed spaces. The ones not exposed to either the light, nor to infinite. What more do you want? What more would one--could one--think to do?

Miss

I am missing. I am missing one. One is missing me. Does it really matter? Yes. What is both parties agree? Even better.

Stopping? No.

Love? Perhaps.

I miss. I am missing. Is that your fault or mine? Is there anything either of us can do about it? Probably not.

So, let's miss--miss one, and allow one to miss us, so as to fulfill our selves and hope for something different. Missing means desire is unfulfilled. Missing means we still hope, even when we know hope isn't appropriate. Miss without thinking; miss without reflection. Just miss and don't stop to ask what it means. Time--as it does--will take care of the rest.

Missing

Miss. To miss. Missing.

I am missing.

We automatically think of the active sense of this sentence--I am missing. I miss something. I miss someone. I had something--experienced something--and not it is gone. Thus, I miss it.

I am missing.

I miss.

Do you miss something that was present and now gone? Or, are you missing from yourself? Have others sought for you with no success?

I am missing.

Could it be both simultaneously?

I miss you. You miss me. Is this union? No. Fulfillment? Of course not. Desire for something beyond--something out of reach--something unattainable? Yes. Maybe that is the beauty of missing. Maybe that is its tragedy also.

Maybe. Probably. Hopefully.

Options

Together or separate? Which is better? I don't think either work, and I don't like either option. Is permanent liminality possible? Can we be perpetually caught between separation and companionship? How am I to love you without leaving you either lonely or still--one is solitary, the other silent. Would you rather be alone or not speak? Would you rather bathe in a self-hood without target, anchor, or direction out of which to create, cultivate, and process; or stay still in a silent stillness akin to death? Are these really the only two options? I hope not. But, I know not. I'm sorry. I wish I could do better.

So, what does all that mean?

It means that despite the cliche nature of it all--I wish I could be your hero. I do. I wish I could take your breath away and willfully permit you to take mine. But, I am afraid that would smother all the gray areas about you, and about me, I find so desirable. I am afraid that decision would smother the desire that spurs both of us on--that means we are the mutual heaven-makers for the other. I want to give you what I don't have. I want to receive from you that which I know you don't have. But, would giving it mean the end of it all--of that circle of desire that gives us the temporal fragmented lives we enjoy? Would it mean death? I couldn't bear the thought of killing you, even if I wasn't existing to realize what I had done. So, I won't. So, I'll stay here in the ambiguity of the circle. Please don't hate me for it.

Take my breath away; this equals love. Love is willfully giving one your breath? Willfully submitting to the finality of having no breath--of death? Strange, don't you think? So, Freud was right, the death-drive is intimately related to the experience of pleasure.

What should our response be? I don't know.

I do know that death seems to be something in which I do not want to wallow; something that repels me. If Freud was right, I think Heidegger was right too--instead of reveling in death, why don't we revel in dying so as to revel in life? Let us revel in the ambiguity, the indefiniteness, the uncanny experience of waiting for an end that is so foreign, so other, we don't really know how to think about it. In short, let us revel in the dying, not death. Let us relate, communicate, and try in a space which emanates gray, while providing the place for endless movement. Let us move in between poles--between the desire for love (death) and the bliss of finite freedom.

I can be your hero baby? Really?

A friend told me once that there are no heroes. I don't know if that is true. What I do know is that it is more fruitful to hope for the impossible, unexpected, unthinkable hero--the one that can provide love apart from death--than to rely upon, or hope for a hero within the field of our experience. The lab 'hero' should be reserved for those that provide us with the presence for which we hope, without the death which we fear so absolutely, so definitely.

Love and Space

"I can be your hero baby
I can kiss away the pain
I will stand by you forever
You can take my breath away" -Enrique Iglesias, et al.

"Man is reluctant to accept that his life has come to a conclusion in that most important respect, that his hopes have been fulfilled. He hesitates to look death in teh face, and there is little that comes so close to death as fulfilled love." --Ivan Klima




Born without a choice. Thrown without a word. Running towards nothing.

These conditions--those of existence--equal isolation. They result in alienation not only from one's self, but also from all others. Is it possible to not be alienated from others when you are alienated from yourself? In this case, alienation equals isolation. So, at bottom, we hope to find ourselves. And, we think we'll find it with another. It is as if our desire--the one we didn't choose--the one with no beginning--is somehow instinctively directed at another as it searches for itself. It bellows silently--"If you overcome isolation, you will overcome alienation." It drives us to believe that if one can have an encounter, they be will his or her self for the first time.

This is why death and love are so similar. This is why death and love are always blurred to indistinction--why completed love is indistinguishable from death. Why would else would love involve one person taking another's breath away? In any other context taking someone's breath away means ending their life. Death is the end of desire; fulfilled love is meant to amount to the fulfillment of all desire. The problem is that it is in the hope--the space--where desire moves that life is lived.

Alienation is a fact of existence we owe to time. Isolation is a fact of existence we might owe to death. Love isn't overcoming either of these. Love is recognizing one's interior infinite within, moving in, within, and between the endless space in which the insatiable desire for fulfillment dwells and the infinite abyss in an-Other. Love--eros--Revelation--is never a substantive, nor can it be configured in the past tense. Love is a verb we can conjugate only in the present because it signifies the endless quest for presence--the quest, doomed to failure, to give the present of presence to an-Other and thus to receive it in return.

"Perhaps, it occurred to me, I was in some new space. I'd entered the place where oblivion was born. Or despair. And also understanding. Or perhaps even love--not as a mirage but as a space for the soul to move in." --Ivan Klima

Stretching

Stretch me out. Stretch me out in the in-between--in the interim that perpetually lies between longing and completion. Stretch me out--pull me and push me--back to where I never was, toward where I'll never be. Stretch me out, and let me lie in the ambiguity--let it run all the way.

This is where I hope from? To? From my natality to my mortality? From the immemorial institution of my desire to the end I'll never know?

Stretch me out and leave me here. I don't want to fix it. I don't want to exit--I love the desert of the surreal gray. I love it as much as I will ever be able to love anything. I want to wallow, if just for this moment, in the indiscretion of not-knowing. Leave me here and don't suggest a solution. Leave me here, and if you are going to stay, at least stay silent.

Encounters

At the bottom of all our hopes lies a yearning for encounter. -Ivan Klima

What depressed me were certainly not doubts about the rightness of my choice, but the knowledge that I'd made a decision once and for all. I suspected that for me the most blissful prospect was not so much having the person I loved permanently by my side as a need, from time to time, to reach out to emptiness, to let longing intensify within me to the point of agony, to alternate the pain of separation with the relief of renewed coming together, the chance of escape and return, of glimpsing before me a will-o'-the-wisp, the hope that the real encounter was still awaiting me. -Ivan Klima


At the bottom of all hope--that endless circle, the one like all circles--without beginning and without end--is the desire for an encounter. It is the desire to know an-Other, and more importantly, to be known by an-Other. What is strange about this desire is its whence--its originless origin. We fight, scratch, claw, paradoxically, even to the death, to be recognized as an irreplaceable, singular one. Without one's irreplaceability, they are as good as dead--a subhuman entity incapable of true living. Without one's singluarity we are just a machine carrying out meaningless functions within a mechanical world. "NO!" Even the non-believing souls cry this--bellow it from a hidden place--"I am more."

This desire--the one for an encounter--is born out of this fierce defense of singularity and irreplaceability. It is that singular, non-replaceable infinity that longs to be found. It is like an egg waiting to be pierced by that one--one in a million--one of trillions--swimming head--to be punctured so as to give birth to life. We believe--in a place so secret not even we have access to it, from a past we were not privileged with experiencing, in a present we did not choose, in a future we will never see--that if we can have one encounter--if even one eternal moment --that life will be born; life will be experienced; we will become what we supposed to be all along.

But, what is paradoxical, excruciatingly paradoxical, about this desire--this circle--is that it is its spinning that makes life possible. If the circle doesn't spin there is no desire for encounter simply because there is no "is". If the circle stops moving the conditions for any encounter are vanquished. Yet, as long as the circle spins--as long as that desire burns within one's soul--searing scabs and scars along the outer membrane of the secret space--the place where an encounter might take place--it will long to be understood, to express, to try to explain the secret that has no words.

Escape and return. Longing and fulfillment. Yearning and rest. This is the cirlce. This is the pendulum in which desire swings.

To choose once and for all? To claim I've had an encounter? What kind of fool would I be to make such a claim?

A greater fool for never trying? A greater loss for never trying to somehow lead another down the winding, impossibly hidden, spaceless space of the infinity in which I reside?

I can't answer that. Can you?

Thus, it is no coincidence that eros and revelation are two sides of the same coin. Revelation--the Word being communicated. Eros--communicating something so secret--so precious--so vulnerably personal--without words. Both involve the uncovering of the Infinite. Both claim to lead to an encounter--to a meeting that couldn't, wouldn't otherwise be possible. Revealing the Word with special words, and revealing one's self with no words. Revealing--physically and not. All of it is in hope for an encounter. And, both spawn words--writing. Which is itself the only way to life--the immortal kind, that is.

When I can't write anymore I'll die. But I'll die loving. -Ivan Klima

Scabs and Scars

Scar. Scab. Scab. Scar. One comes sequentially after the other, and not exclusively. Scabs lead to scars; but, other things lead to scars too. With scabs however, it is a matter of only a replacing the "r"--the "are"--with the "b"--the "be". Strange, don't you think? That the constant pain of healing flesh morphs into the constant reminder of hurt and pain with only the change of "r" to "b". The change happens when the present--the presence--of "are" is changed to the general--the universal--the "be", being, to be. "I am" to "to be". The particular--the scab--the trace of pain--of a mark (even in which the memory of the blow--the incision--or the scrape has been lost) is one short consonant--one short constant--from the universal inadequacy and impossibility of healing. Time means scabs heal. Time means there will always be scars.

Transitions

There is that constant transition--the one which births language again and again, day after day--that transition from me to you. I am trapped as a wave between two nodes that I don't think truly exist. Down in me--in the infinite that holds nothing--there is a crying--an urge--a desire--so before me and so ahead of me that I can't put into the words--into the child of this longing. This child--my word--is inadequate for carrying the space from me to anywhere else. Words always are--that's why we turn time and again to either the Word, or that which we believe is beyond words (love). Sometimes, we even put the two together. Despite the inadequacy, that desire never leaves. Most days, times, moments, we hope--expect--through that desire. This day--this moment--it has absorbed--overtaken--submerged--not the desire--but the expectation. Response? Dancing in the play of images, logos, and ads--losing myself in a circle of atemporality, one with a catchy beat and lots of smoke. Filtering in and out of a crowd sheltered in semi-darkness, a crowd longing to peak at the light only through the filter of perpetual shadow--covering--dark.

Episodes

Just then, Saint Augustine wandered back into the Smoke-Filled Coffee Shop. His beach shorts dripped sand on the floor as he sauntered over to us. The venerable Saint had been lying on the beach too long, as his face and neck (left revealed by the V-line of his white Big Dog tank top) were bright red. As he sat down, MP took another bite of his croissant, letting out another orgasmic sequence of sounds. "Ignore him," I said. LN proceeded to fill in SA on our conversation. He listened for a while, seemingly taking it all in as she told him about solitude, and language, and death, and the rest. Then, he excused himself.

After a bit, SA returned with an iced coffee and appeared ready to talk. "You're are right, to a point. All of those experiences--those experiences of finding one's self where their self ends--are solitary. I know firsthand. But, I think there are intermediate states--experiences that stand in between that loss of self, and the mundane everyday dispersion we all know so well. These states parallel death and ecstasy in that language is at least partially suspended, or at least unnecessary.

"Hmmmm, that's good. So good. Oh wow, god that is amazing." MP was enjoying his breakfast once again, and had obviously distracted the poor Saint.

"Please, pay no attention to him." TL said.

"Yes, please continue," I told him.



Gathering himself, he went on. "You see, there are times when you sit with people in mourning--times you enjoy the presence of others after the death of a friend, or a family member, or during some other form of tragedy. There are times when that loss--that hurt--that pain-seeps into the fiber of all of you in a way in which you share it. It is endemic to all of you, in that instance, within that space. The phenomenon has struck you in a way that permeates every thought, every breathe, every passing second. And, in those times, you can catch seconds or moments when you sit with others--silently--and share a space that is secret--one that you couldn't explain or show or introduce to anyone else--even if you wanted to. It isn't death--and it isn't even the complete suspension of language--but it is one of those rare human times where being together doesn't involve speaking to one another."

At this, he took a sip of his coffee and itched his now worsening sun burn.

"But, that isn't all. You can have the same sort of experience for altogether contrary reasons. Think of those times with good friends, maybe before you have to scatter and leave one another to return home or move on with life or what not. Think of the times you sit and share a meal, have some wine, and let the evening pass from sunset to warm summer darkness. Think of how the world floats away--the cares, the worries, the tomorrow--even if just for a moment. Think of the way you laugh so deep you all cease thinking and cease speaking as the laughter invades you. Think of the times you sit, silent, enjoying the few breaths of satisfied existence--in warm air, after good food, among people in the world you don't have to speak to in order to communicate with. It is at those times that selfhood and presence don't have to be solitary, but they are always temporary, and always fleeting. There is no planning either type, no holding onto them, and no formula to create them. They are events that happen to us, together, which fall out of our control. They are events that have us, possess us, and thus reveal ever more clearly that those few breaths of being-together--of Ostian community--are not ours. That is, we are not our-selves--we are always given to ourselves."

"Oh god. Hmmm. Ohhhh. That is good." MP finished his scrambled eggs and bacon.

Episodes in a Smoke-Filled Coffee Shop

Sitting on the shore of a semi-deserted beach, watching the sun rise over another day of concealed chaos, wondering if I can turn the wonder off long enough to enjoy a loud silence apart from myself. Listening to a voice I know I will never know is there, knowing it probably isn't; allowing the heaviness of the meaninglessness to seep in to scurry off the naivete, without allowing it to stop my breath. Trying to reach the impossible balance in a place that doesn't exist wherein "I" stop--language stops--thinking stops--consciousness stops--where it fades into a backdrop with no center--the Idyllic with no Idea.


Thinking. Language. Thoughts.

Representations. Concepts. Intentions.

Wandering back to the Smoke-Filled Coffee shop so as no to too get lonely, only to find myself resenting the bodies all around me. I unexpectedly ran into friends--good friends--the kind that involve memories, laughter, smiles, and nostalgia. We sat. We talked. MP, TL, and LN were in good form, and soon the conversation led to "things of meaning."

I told them, "Religion and philosophy are concerned with Presence and Time. We desire--long for--hope for a time when time will cease--when it will stop--hold still--and "I" will be present. We long for that time when the world disappears--when thinking--language--representation--concepts--all stop and me and myself are finally one in a way that no longer requires process, development, or further journeying. We want time to stop, but we want to be present when it does."

MP took a bite of the full breakfast he had ordered: "HMMMMMM. Oh yeah, ohhh. It's good."

We ignored him.

TL chimed in, "I think you're right. This is what the myth of love is about; this is what the mythology of sex describes. We want to find ourselves in one--find one that can make time irrelevant--hold our identity stable so that there is no flux--no danger of it being taken away--permanence. In sex, the world disappears for a moment, or a couple if you are lucky. The room spins until it finally no longer exists. Time wisps away until you don't know how long has passed. All that you know is your body and their's--you are present only to them, and thus, to yourself. Time and space cease, the world liquidated into the breathing, feeling, overhwelming pleasure--and the climax. You are dead. There is unspeakable--inexpressible--silent experiences that transcend time and space. In those moments, there is no thinking--no language--no "self." No, the self ceases and thus, for a few moments, you are free to become your true "self".

"The problem," LN said, "is that it is always fleeting. Eventually, the room comes back--you see your shirt on the lampshade, your partners knickers on the windowsill, and you stare at the ceiling as the world, as language, as time, and space filter back--forcing yourself to vanish once again. You stare at the ceiling, breathing heavy in someone else's arms, wondering why it can't last forever and why the stopping always has to stop."

"It's the same with death," I said. "Death brings the end of language and yourself. Death, sex, love, and union with God--they aren't all that different. They all long for an experience of self--a permanent, whole self--in a phenomenon that requires the self to die--to cease--in order to experience it. And you know what else: they are all solitary endeavors."

I told them how Buber and Levinas taught me that love requires two people to ignore the rest in order to enter into a worldless vision of their selves. I told them how Heidegger taught me that death is always only my own--and thus, I am always alone. Mystical visions--union with God--are solitary journeys that involves one single soul.

Why does self-presence require the death of the self--the time where language--consciousness--thinking are no longer? And, why does it always involve the disappearance of the world--why does it have to be so lonely?

I don't want to tell you a story. I don't want to engross you in a narrative with a beginning and thus with an end. I don't want a happy ending, nor do I want a tragedy. I don't want to leave you on your seat, or in tears, or angry beyond words. I don't want you to lose yourself in the time of my narrative--in the time of the narrative--only to have to re-emerge again when the pages run thin and the night gets dark. I don't want to change your life. I don't want to you to change mine. I don't want to invent characters with idiosyncracies, or a setting with character and vibrance.

No.

I don't even want an audience. I don't want an ear, or many ears, or fans, or readers, or you.

Episodes in a Smoke-Filled Coffee Shop

SA left me thinking a bit. Thinking about "things that matter" as they say. Thinking about the circle--the ring--the one that centers around nothing (like all circles I guess).

I sat and sipped my espresso. I sat and looked at the bodies scurrying about under the guise of the ubiquitous sun beating down on the shiny beach. I wondered if it was still possible to "confess" like the Saint had done. Was it still possible to find the place that doesn't exist? Possible to see the cut inside of me where the circle with no space started?

It's funny, you know. Funny to think these thoughts in this electric world; funny to know that as I think them my audience is both infinite and nothing all at once. Who will read it? Who reads it? Probably no one--probably not enough people to count as someone. Yet, who reads it? Everyone: my-self, the thoughts, the interior that is neither inner nor outer, the Other I confess to, the one that hovers over me with an all-knowing gaze--I am torn open and available to all. I am brought within a matrix of an infinite sea of information--the identities and ipseities of the confessors melting into one transcendent source of unavoidable gaze. There You are--looking into me. Here, "I" am, unable to look away, and more, unable to stop writing--to stop confessing--to stop telling You of the utter lack I feel in every breath.

It's funny, you know. This transcendent matrix of digital flows that we all confess to--the one available to all those seeking salvation--all those seeking rest--all those wandering in the desert of interiority. Come, all you who are heavy burdened--find your rest here.

I guess that is the only rest we have left. I guess we can hope to rest in thee as nodes in a changing network--one in which we are thrown about--incised--exposed-vulnerable--and ultimately, just like the venerable Saint, always left wondering when the tears, the blood, the desire, and the hope will cease turning inside the ring--the spaceless space--and come to a full stop. Will it be in death or in You? I guess we'll never know.

Episodes in a Smoke-Filled Coffee Shop: SA

I saw Augustine one day. He was drinking a latte. After a minute filled with hesitation, disgust, admiration, and total bewilderment--I walked up to his window-side location and asked if I could join him. The Bishop was actually quite fashionable. He told me how global warming would be the end of us all. We discussed how Internet had changed our perceptions of reality, communication, and such. He told me why he thought Obama wasn't as revolutionary as we might have hoped.

After a bit of enjoyable conversation and surprisingly comfortable laughter, I asked him about his confession--the famous one. I wanted to know if he felt like it did any good--did it help? "Were you able to stop being such a question to yourself?" I asked. "Were you able to find the rest you were looking for?"

He was a bit caught off guard I think, and then a bit guarded. He thought. He mumbled. He looked. He breathed. Then, he told me, "I didn't find any thing in particular. I was confessing to a God who already knew everything about me--what good could that do? He didn't learn anything. Did I? Well, I didn't learn my "self" if that is what you are wondering. I didn't collect myself into the eternal rest I was looking for. But, I did find something else. I found the spaceless space. I found the place inside of me where I am not. It's a place hidden--I won't say it's deep, because it is spaceless, this space. I won't say it's hidden, because a spaceless space can't hide. I won't say it's secret, because it is a place where I don't exist--how can I keep a secret I don't know? But, I found it. I found the place inside of me that is no place, no space, no circle, no ring, and no time. At first I wanted to fill it; to fulfill it. But, over time, I realized a timeless, spaceless place can't be filled. Then, I wanted an answer. I asked God how he put it there? How he put himself there, in me, in a place where I am not. God didn't answer. I tried to remember why and how it got there, but my memory had no recollection of any of it. How do you find a place inside you that isn't a part of you? A place where you don't know? A place where knowing doesn't help?"

All of this was getting to be a bit much, so I told him I had to go to the bathroom. In the urinal I actually pissed a bit on my belt, but not too much. I was hoping for two things: a) The Saint would be gone when I got back, or b) he wouldn't see the piss on my jeans.

When I returned, he was still there. I didn't get a word in edgewise when he started again.

"With that confession I learned something, but I didn't learn it about me. I learned something I don't know and something for which there is no answering--even from God. I learned about the space, that is not part of me, that makes time go. It makes temporality--your life--every instant--absent. I met the motion, the circle, the place, the space, the temporal, Time. I met the one that makes every now disappear as soon as you try to say it. I met the space where the present slips away into the past and the future never arrives. I met the emptiness that makes the absence of your life continue to run."

"Wow," I said, thinking about dinner. "Was it worth it?"

"Worth, I don't know. I'm not sure worth matters in this non-place. But, I tell you what--it was nice to meet that place inside me where I am not. You know what I saw when I got there?" He said this leaning in, and very excited.

"What?"

"I saw the most beautiful emptiness. I saw a glimmering absence; a bewildering space otuside of space. A time that stands still outside of time. And, you know what? I saw the most vile, most irrepresentable, most indescribably disgusting ring of nothing--pure nausea--pure death--the instant of non-presence--the instant of existence vomiting its hope--the place of tingling hopelessness.

It's there, it is there that I found myself. Well, I found that there was no me to find.

And, I realized something: If you or anyone else tries to get near it--to fix it--to fill it--to see it--life, hope, time, trying, desire, joy, ecstasy, thought is annihilated. I found the non-self that makes the self of time and space continue.

Don't go near me--the non-me--there. Don't try to inch close to quench my desire. Don't promise me you'll find that non-space to make it face the light. Don't hold a knife to the non-me and try to remove it. Leave it. Exit. Don't think it. Don't approach it. Don't look for it.

Let's all be embarrassed about it together. Let's agree to let ourselves die--each one of us--each non-self--in that non-place, so we can go on pretending to live. Let's allow time to swallow us--abandon us--push us into oblivion--and in the meantime we'll hope beyond hope--beyond tears--beyond blood--beyond space and time--without words--without writing--that the non-self we have agreed to abandon will end up being the Good we all dream of, and not the Devil we feel lurking in places we don't have."

"Okay," I said. Thank you. I appreciate your honesty.

We had a few beers that night, and some more laughs. We didn't talk about whatever he was talking about. For that, I was grateful.

Let the ambiguity run all the way. No harnessing. No conditioning. Let it run from the beginning to the end. From the first shock of breath to the shock of its absence. Let the ambiguity make you shiver; let it ride throughout your fragile body and rivet you in each moment. Let the ambiguity overshadow, overcome, and overwhelm. Don't run. Don't duck. Don't hide. Don't shy away. And most of all, don't try to comprehend--don't try to understand--don't try to reduce--just let it ride. Let it throw you back on your throwness and shove you forward into your still undisclosed self. Yes, let the ambiguity run. Let it run from beginning to end. From the immemorial time of creation's dawn to the ineluctable end of its apocalypse. From the time you hear the call, to the time you answer the call. From the time of invisibility to the time of impossibility. Let's let it take us into the rush of the sea--churn us, flip us, bewilder us, and confuse us. Let's have it. Let's have it all.

Episodes In, Out of, but Never Outside the Smoke-Filled Coffee Shop

After that old man died, I thought of him; I talked to him. It was funny--I talked to him in unexpected moments about unexpected things. I told him about the girl, and the play of the ocean, and the days. I don't know why--but I talked. I spoke. I expressed.

Did he respond? Of course not, he was dead. What are you crazy?

After that old man died, I couldn't bear the weight of reflection. Instead of thinking, I danced. Instead of figuring, I played. Goodness what a feeling--to lose yourself in the dance and to play in the play. Goodness what a feeling--to forget the burden of it all in the movement, the forces, the difference.

I sat with friends and laughed. I sat with friends and tried. We tried together. We never talked about trying together--that was the implicit part I guess; but we tried together. We ate. We drank. We laughed. We complained. We wept. This is life. This is trying. We all try our best, you know? What more do you want? You want me to swallow the ocean every day without drowning? Well, fuck you. I'd rather either drown, or not deal with the ocean.

Accidents and Love

So she said what's the problem baby
What's the problem I don't know
Well maybe I'm in love (love)
Think about it every time
I think about it
Can't stop thinking 'bout it

Two things: Problems and "I don't know." First, obviously something is wrong--something is out of sorts--out of equilibrium; just not right. But, what? This brings us to 2, or problem number 2--I don't know. If there is a problem, shouldn't I know about it? And, how come she has to ask me for me to realize it? Then . . . What? Love? That seems drastic don't you think? From a problem (one I don't apparently know about) to love in just one breath? I can't stop thinking about it though. Which one--love or the problem? I don't know--the two have become indiscrete now--now that is the problem.

How much longer will it take to cure this
Just to cure it cause I can't ignore it if it's love (love)
Makes me wanna turn around and face me but I don't know nothing 'bout love

Now finally to a question that makes sense: How much longer? How much longer to cure this problem I don't know about? And, if it's love, I can't ignore it? Now finally to an answer--I don't know anything about love, just like I don't know anything about my problem. I do want to turn--in the same moment I want to both turn and run from this problem of love I don't know about, and also turn towards me--myself--even though I don't know nothing about love. Could I learn? What is there to learn about love? And, if you can learn about it, is it love? Probably not. The problem--while becoming more elucidated--seems to be becoming more unknown.

Come on, come on
Turn a little faster
Come on, come on
The world will follow after
Come on, come on
Cause everybody's after love

Turn faster? Which way? The world? I don't think I want the world following me here--following me to face myself. I don't know if everyone is after love--it seems, and this is the point, that if love is a problem that requires me to face myself--maybe for the first time--then everyone, including me isn't after love, but instead, I come after love as love comes upon me.


Well baby I surrender
To the strawberry ice cream
Never ever end of all this love
Well I didn't mean to do it
But there's no escaping your love

That is what this problem takes, doesn't it? Surrender. Surrender of me to myself and to you simultaneously. I'll try. But surrender implies no escaping--even if I want to. Surrender means it has me--you have me--and, maybe this is the most scary part, I have you.


We're accidentally in love
Accidentally in love

Accidentally is the right adjective. Love is an accident, and only an accident. If we were after it--it wouldn't be a problem, and we would certainly think we knew something about it. But, as it stands, it is a problem and it is one of which I know nothing. Love comes after me--and I only come--appear--after love--before you--in you. Accidentally--any other way and love is no longer a problem--and that is a problem of which nothing can be done.

Love ...I'm in love

I'm in the problem and in the un-knowing. I'm in the surrender and in control. I'm in you and falling out of you. It's a problem--one I hope I stay in, and one I hope never to know nothing about.

Thrown before the throes which govern existence--life--breath--I faltered. I left a temple of security for a sky full of, yes, beauty, but also, darkness and only scattered lights. It was here I searched for an anchor--a grounding--a sign that could orient me to my lattitude--one that would clue me into the strange game played on this locale.

As I did, I tried. I promise, I tried. I tried to prove. I tried to show. I tried to find. I tried to help. In so doing, I made smiles, impressions, fools, and hurt. In so doing, I faltered and found not the signifier I so desperately needed to help me along life's way.

At some point however, I met the Universe. I met the Abyss which constitutes the light, the dark, and the difference between the two. I met the One disseminated into an infinite amount of parts never to be reassembled ever again (or ever before). I met the voice that calls through silence and never speaks.

You know what I heard in that moment?

"Trust, try, and thank. Don't prove to anyone that you belong in this locale--why not? Because none of you do and none of you ever will. Don't try to fool yourself into thinking you are more or better--why not? Because you know--in every breath--you have no signifier--no anchor--no Being--to tell you such things. And, there is no point in doing so. Play the role in the play which you have been given-play in the play and rejoice in its in-finitude--its lack of determinacy--its endless play. Play in the play and thank--not "me", not One, not you--along the way. Just thank. Realized that in every moment those with you in this barren and fruitful topos are just as lost and just as at home as you. Realize they are doing their best in every breath with no guide and no signifier. Thank and try. Swallow, but don't drown."

You know what I said?

"Ok"

More or Less Dancing

It's funny you know . . . This business of dancing. I don't know the words and I don't know the song. Worse yet, I don't even know the steps. I guess that is what makes it no business at all--there is no purpose, no destination, and no know-how. I guess that is what makes it a game--a game to be played without rationale, without recourse, without worry.

But, it's hard not to worry, isn't it? I remember when we danced so long ago--across an ocean or two--in a world of transition, tremor, and excruciating temporality. It has been some time now. But I know I worried then too. I want to play, but I want to play right. You know?

So, that leaves the questions: Can you dance and worry at the same time? Probably not. How does one play--that is, enter the dance--without worry? How does one suspend their past--their-self--the scars from past dances--long enough to lose their-self in the dance with an-other?

I pray for the strength to be weak that way. I pray for the miracle of suspension and the triumph of desire over the still lingering, still residual "why". But, most of all, I pray that someday I'll dance and sing a song without knowing the words. I pray that I'll play in a world unworldly, in a way exquisitely and all too (in)appropriate.

Sitting, legs crossed, trying to catch up with the blur that accompanies each inhale. Sitting, wondering why each one carries so much color, so much wonder, so much life, and yet knowing each one is never accompanied by breath. Inhale and breath--these don't always go together. So, sitting, trying to catch up with the blur that goes with each inhale, wondering why each one lacks the breath its supposed to signify. Angry and confused in the same inhale, holding it in with the hope that if it stays long enough it might leave when I inevitably exhale. Angry at lessons never learned and identities never stabilized. Angry at the drive--with each inhale--to be the universal in the particular, and realizing that drives leaves one with neither. Not willing to be another part in the particular, but unable by an infinite measure to be any sort of universal. Sad at the hurt that each breath means for you--for all--and wishing I knew what could be done to--no, not stop the "breathing"--but to let it begin for the first time. Left with the choice to let the hurt sting your lungs--my lungs--lungs--to trust they can take it--or, to try again in futility and in selfishness. Sitting, legs crossed, listening to my heart beat in the stillness of absurdity.

Songs, Dancing, and Words

I still remember that time when we were dancing
We were dancing to a song that I'd heard

Do you remember the time(s) we danced? Do you remember the song we heard? I know I heard it, but at the time I wasn't sure if you had. I remember dancing and I remember the song--the two go together you know. You know?

Your face was simple and your hands were naked

I saw it. I saw it in your face--I saw the beauty and the mortality roll up into a ball of vulnerability and surprise. I felt in those hands as we danced--the longing for the song we both wanted to last longer than we both knew it could. I felt the hope of something new and the worry that comes with hope of something knew. But, guess what? The whole time . . .

I was singing without knowing the words

I was. I danced with you to a tune I didn't know. I sang to you--did you know that?--I sang to you a song, but I didn't know the words. And, I know you didn't either. But that's what made it such a wonderful dance; that's what makes it such a wonderful song. The words are half-written--half-composed. They remain suspended above the two of us as we twirl, laugh, and move. They remain undecided and inexressible just as long as we keep dancing. It's funny--funny to dance to a song we keep from being written by continuing to dance. It's funny to sing a song to you that can never be finished, and never be heard. I'm just glad you have ears to listen and you aren't tired of dancing.

But I started listening to the wolves in the timber
Wolves in the timber at night
I heard their songs when I looked in the mirror
In the howls and the moons round my eyes

I don't know if I started to listen to them or if they started to listen to me. After all, I was dancing and singing the inexpressible song. So, how did I hear them? And, what did they hear me cry?


Then winter came and there was little left between us
Skin and bones of love won't make a meal
I felt my eyes drifting over your shoulder
There were wolves at the edge of the field

There was, wasn't there? A winter that felt colder than usual. A little left between us--an excess of lack--a call to stop dancing. We had to get back to the world, back to the words. We weren't allowed to stay lost in the reticence only we heard and the world only we knew. We weren't allowed to stay in the dance--in the circle--beneath the suspended song we didn't know, but which knew us.

Then one day I just woke up
And the wolves were all there
Wolves in the piano
Wolves underneath the stairs
Wolves inside the hinges
Circling round my door
At night inside the bedsprings
Clicking cross the floor
I don't know how they found me
I'll never know quite how
I still can't believe they heard me
That I was howling out that loud

I remember that days(s). That day when it was only the wolves--in my text, in my pen, my fingers, my . . . song. Did they find you too? Did they hear you? I hope not, but I suspect so. It's hard not to listen to them; to not let them frighten us into forgetting there even was a song--especially one with no words and no sound.


At times in the frozen nights I go roaming
In the bed she used to share with me
I wake in the fields with the cold and the lonesome
The moon's the only face that I see

Roaming in a place unending and untraceable. Searching in a field where nothing grows, and nothing surely blossoms. The cold and the lonesome stretch along a horizon with no horizon. They make me shiver in my bones and writhe in my own skin. I crawl within myself trying to find a way out of the horizon--out of the immanence of the fear the wolves left me. I try to crawl through myself to a place where the field breaks for something different; something unexpected.

And, when I do, just before morning--when the dreams of wolves, and horizons, and the bed we used to share has me under--has me suffocated--I hear that song. I hear the one we used to dance to--the one with no words. Well, there are words--we just don't know them yet. There are words, but they are suspended--waiting--for me and you to stop dancing. I hear the silence of the song we created and the dance we keep hoping to share. And, then I wake--and the wolves scatter across the field as the thaw evaporates into the "without why" of trying again.

People ask, "why?" And I say, "You've got the wrong question and the wrong intention. We are always left without why. But, that doesn't mean we can't sing a song without words, and it doesn't mean we can't dance. Dancing is the best part."

No Wonder

It's time, isn't it? Time to write about something? To have something to say--something to write about. It's time--time to reflect, or interject, or enlighten. It's time to bleed all over the screen, through these fingers. It's time to throw up through the unseen networks that encapsulate us--tie us in--tie us together.

Time to write. But, after all this time--there is no writing. No bleeding. No regurgitating.

No feeling?

No trying?

No . . . what?


________________

I saw you today--saw you hurt. I saw you try. I saw you submerge and be overwhelmed. I saw you care, hope, and do your best. It's not that I don't care, it's just that I don't know how. I don't know how to be a good person. I guess, well I could try to save you. But, we both know that won't happen. We both know saving isn't something humans do. So, I am left with walking--with callous, despair, and a genuine lack of naivete.

Is there a third way? Is there a 'grown-up' way? Some way that 'adults' would do it?

I don't know. I am not sure I care. After all, to be an adult is to simply pretend you are no longer a child. Life forces this decision upon us. It isn't one we make willingly. But, it is one we should stay cognizant of. Being an adult isn't anything different than having to face the absurdity of breathing without admitting you have no idea about how or why or whence. Being an adult is nothing more than feeling your heart beat through your chest and not being able to stop long enough to let it completely disorient you. Being an adult is not having the time or desire to stop--to let the stars become yellow blurs, the trees strange silhouettes, and the cold evening air a jolt--a reminder--of both meaning and meaninglessness.

I'd rather do it the kid's way--the naive way--but, we both know that isn't allowed either. Why? Because we are neither creative, nor strong enough to be children any longer.

______

So, fuck it. No writing. No words. No bleeding. No saving. No wonder. That's right--no wonder is the no wonder there is no writing.

Scars and Scabs

Scar. Scab. Scab. Scar. One comes sequentially after the other, and not exclusively. Scabs lead to scars; but, other things lead to scars too. With scabs however, it is a matter of only a replacing the "r"--the "are"--with the "b"--the "be". Strange, don't you think? That the constant pain of healing flesh morphs into the constant reminder of hurt and pain with only the change of "r" to "b". The change happens when the present--the presence--of "are" is changed to the general--the universal--the "be", being, to be. "I am" to "to be". The particular--the scab--the trace of pain--of a mark (even in which the memory of the blow--the incision--or the scrape has been lost) is one short consonant--one short constant--from the universal inadequacy and impossibility of healing. Time means scabs heal. Time means there will always be scars.

Overcoming, Over-coming . . .

Overcomes. Over-comes. Over-cums. Being human means there is no overcoming—no becoming what you need and should be. There is no coming over anywhere—over-coming. There is no overcoming when it comes to cumming; no over-cumming. Do it over, do it more—it doesn’t matter, doesn’t make a difference. No matter how much, the result is the same. Strain, try, excrete, grunt—both you are left empty; both of you are left open. It is the essence of being human—the epitome of the effort to become something—someone—somewhere—that simply does not exist. Over-cumming? You want to overcome where? Overcome how? Yes, enjoy the journey—the ride—the path. Thank you for the sermon—goodness you are insightful. Go ahead—the journey, if you are lucky—can and will be enjoyable. But, there is always the building—always the constructing—the semblance of hope that creeps into the anticipation of cumming—the hope that this time time itself may be overcome by over-cumming. What am I talking about? I’m talking about immortality and permanence; happiness and rest. I’m talking about the oh-so-human need to find the path that leads to immortality and permanence in order to enjoy happiness and rest. I’m talking about the need to find a home in a place, as a being, that has none. Yes, a child may appear—I know; I understand. Thank you for the reminder. But, how does the child relate to over-cumming? How does the child equate to having over-cum? Does the child solve the difficulties—fulfill the hope—quell the fear-? Will a child change this situation? Maybe. Maybe not. But don’t tell me that is the easy answer—the answer to the question I put to myself—to all ourSelves. Plato knew long before any of us were children that birth is not about children, but about immortality. Birth—is about overcoming and if you think it will happen—if over-cumming is possible, well I don’t know what to say. But, at least don’t tell me the appearance of the other will put me the quest to rest. Don’t tell me that birth equals over-cumming. After all, how could 6 billion people be wrong?

"If I had Eyes"

If I had eyes in the back of my head
I would have told you that
You looked good
As I walked away

Eyes in the back? Eyes to see behind? Eyes to see a behind I can't or won't turn around to make an in-front-of. Eyes to see you even when I'm not looking. A comment--a compliment--to make you feel what you are, to make you see how you are. My eyes--these ones that make the behind possible--allow you to see who you are? Maybe. Maybe not.


The more of this or less of this or is there any difference
or are we just holding onto the things we don't have anymore

From seeing to holding--from sight to touch. What we can't see we can't hold? And, how does one hold onto something they no longer have? How does one hold on to absence?


Sometimes time doesn't heal
No not at all
Just stand still
While we fall
In or out of love again I doubt I'm gonna win you back
When you got eyes like that
It won't let me in

Time, healing? Strange. Time is the opposite of healing--it is the temporal antecedent to death--the experience that makes my experience of my-self impossible.

Stand still? In time? In the movement which is unbearable, inexpressible, uncanny? Stand still and fall in and out--strange.

And, those eyes. Those eyes--won't let me in to a place not even you know; a place not even you get access to. Those eyes--the locale of a world irreducible, even if it remains without why. Those eyes--the ones looking through me to the place I don't know--the one inside I don't have access to.

That's the answer isn't it? All of this talk of time, of falling, of love. It ends with those eyes--the ones that take me out of time--out of the unavoidable path towards my impossible end--that take me to a world which remains without why, but where the question of why is suspended in favor of something secret, something inexpressible, but something so, so Good.


Lot of people spend their time just floating
We were victims together but lonely
You got hungry eyes that just can't look forward
Can't give them enough but we just can't start over
Building with bent nails we're
falling but holding, I don't wanna take up anymore of your time
Time time time

Victims--of time, yes. Who isn't? Eyes--looking forward into a back that wants to see you--wants to see through you--but can't make the back the front. Falling, time, holding--a question without answer--without origin or end.

What then? What's left?

That world--the one we shared--the one without time--that is the eternal and that is the place to look. Turn your eyes there and let it the chorus chime as long as it takes--time, time, time.

Pop-pop:

If you asked anyone in this room about Hiroyoshi Shimazu, I know they would have wonderful things to say about him, and fond memories of the time they spent with him. He was a loved husband, friend, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and much more.

If you asked me, I would tell you that despite not being biologically connected to me—that he was my grandfather—the only grandfather my brothers and I ever had. I would tell you that from the day each of us was born, he treated us and loved us as grandsons—and so, we called him Pop-pop.

If you asked any of us what we remembered about him, we would all have different memories of the man we admired and loved. My cousins Mike and Kevin Watanabe could tell you about the man they called ‘gramps’. If you asked the Shimazu boys, they could tell you about playing poker with grandpa and how special that was to them. If you asked me and my brothers what we remember about him, I would tell you that I remember someone who seemed to care and love us without trying—like it was natural to him—even though he didn’t have to. I would tell you about how Pop-pop hid Easter eggs in the front yard of the house when we were kids, and how one year when one egg was never found—how he searched for hours trying to find it. I would tell you how he shaped and designed our pinewood derby cars; how he spent hours on them, how they won best design every year, and how it was something he seemed to enjoy—like it was never a burden.

I would tell you Pop-pop made my grandmother—my Nana—laugh every time I saw them together; how he tried so hard to make her laugh, how she seemed to adore his sense of humor even after all these years, and how she laughed like a teenager every time he made a joke—like they had just met. I would tell you that in 27 years the worst thing I heard him say about another human being was to call him “Ponky head” on the freeway. I would tell you I never heard him raise his voice or even say anything remotely rude to anyone, and how he always treated my grandmother with respect and patience. Anger was never something I associated with Pop-pop.

I would tell you how he would sit and tell my brothers and I stories from his days in the service; how he shared with us what it was like to come the mainland for the first time as an enlisted military man, what it was like to not know which segregated bathroom to use, or how he fell asleep on duty one day under a table and got scolded by his commanding officer.

If you asked me, I would tell you how much he loved our grandmother, how much he loved being her husband, and how much his Ohana meant to him.

Then, if you asked me what Pop-pop taught me, I would tell you that in 27 years he never sat me down to give me advice, never gave me a lecture, never told me what to do—that just wasn’t Pop-pop. But, despite that, I would tell you that he taught me more than he probably realized. I would tell you that he taught me that it is only the significant people in your life that make you significant—so you should make sure to always appreciate them and realize you are only you because of them. I would tell you that he taught me that in most cases patience and gentleness are the main ingredients to the solution. I would tell you he taught me that laughter is more important than anything—how if throughout your life, you can always manage to laugh deeper than you hurt—then things will always be okay.

But if you gave me minute, I would tell you that what the main thing he taught me was the meaning of Ohana. I would tell you that Pop-pop showed me that Ohana is about finding people in this world to spend time with—to celebrate with—to grieve with—and it doesn’t matter where they come from or how they got here as long as you love and look after one another. I would tell you how Pop-pop taught me that Ohana is not inherited, no, it is not a given in life—it is something you have to make, create, and work hard to keep. I would tell you how he taught me that Ohana is more about endurance than anything else—and that once you find it, you should never take it for granted. Then I would tell you that how taught me all of this without trying—how he taught me all of this just by being himself. That is what made him so special.

And finally, the last thing I would tell you is that at the end of my life—if there is even one person in this world that admires me half as much as his family admire him—one person that cherishes the memories, cherishes the Christmas Eve’s, the pictures, the time we had together—then I will count myself more blessed than I deserve to be.

After all of this—after everything I told you about him—if you asked me what I would say to him if I could see him one more time, I wouldn’t even have to think about it. I would say, Pop-pop:

Thank you, Arigato, and Mahalo.

Tries. Tires. Tires. Tries.

Tries. Tires.

Do to the first, is to experience the second. It seems it is only a matter of (re)-placing one consonant; one constant.