At this point, I didn't know why I inevitably let myself create chaos. It was swirling--terrorizing--and inspiring all at the same time. Why is that? Why is the chaotic enthralling and terrifying at the same time? Why is chaos always a spectacle?
I sipped. He sat. We didn't speak for a while, but I knew he was trying to figure what to say to me. The Old Man could be a careful listener when he wanted to, and now he was figuring out if he had anything to say about it all.
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
God created it. God created it out of nothing. I guess that's the first step? Creating--at least in this story--begins with nothing. It seems like that nothing comes from somewhere both unexpected and familiar. My suspicion about God is that the nothing was something both surprising and near--something he called forth, but something that came forth from inside somewhere.
God created it and it was chaos. There was a surface--some material--some swirling, terrifying mess of nihil--a swirling dervish of potential--atoms--pieces--entities--particles--sand granules--folicles--molecules--and little, tiny, black souls. The chaos didn't last long. It seems that with creating the nothing goes to chaos and then the real creating begins. I guess the first step is impressive, but the second is definitive. If the chaos would have remained, well it would have been a spectacle, but there would have been no witnesses--no eyes--no admiration, praise, terror, or movement. And what fun is chaos if no one gets to see the result?
"You are an idiot."
"I know. Thank you."
He sat back and looked the other way.
So, is this a God problem? Is the problem wanting to be God? I don't think so. Maybe. No. I don't think so. Well . . . I think it is a creative one. I think it comes from a desire to want to create--to make--to fabricate--and yes, to do so with/for witnesses. It comes from a desire to show something--let an-other see what has come to be. In that sense, I need the chaos.
I need the chaos. I need to let the waters of the surface--the deep--run over my head like a powerful, fatally cold waterfall of blades--cutting, grabbing, piercing, opening. That's right, let the chaos flood--let the waterfall of incisions open a flow from within--one that flows from nothing to nothing--from the utter wordlessness of having your face stomped into pavement as a circle swoops around in ferocity and laughter; as I run wild in a revelry that is decadent--exuberant--use-less--expending energy on things that have no return--laughing--crying--running into situations--into mire--into the baseless deep of the night as it turns into morning. Let the flow move as we stay up past the time of the horizon in order to inhale the smoke that sputters into an atmosphere that means its spuriousness will be forgotten in the morning; let us breathe in the air that expands into the void within our lungs causing just enough breath to keep my eyes fluttering and my mouth moving, my tongue laughing and my eyes open to the onslaught of moments that come without welcome and deliver more air--more faceless deep--than is healthy or helpful or useful or usable. Let's drench ourselves in an attempt to laugh deeper than we hurt and scream over the silence of a deep beyond that cannot--will not--be fabricated--molded--into an order that let's the children sleep soundly and the parents sigh a breathe of relief--one in which the moments are held at bay and the deep made shallow with 90 degree angles, pythagorean theorems, and the equation for presence.
Let's create the chaos--advance where we are not welcome--spit words that are awkward, inappropriate, and unable to be swallowed once beckoned. Let's lay face down in the mud of a field in the middle of trees--wind--fire--let it cover us--envelope us--let's run through the rain as the sun hides under the moon and the grown-ups turn their backs. Let's eat candy for dinner and stay up past our bedtime; spoil our appetites for productivity and oversleep the alarm for labor, organization, and manners.
And yes, when exhaustion sets in, when fatigue means the breathing of smoke--the imbibing of drink--the movements of eros and thanatos--the dance of aphrodite in front of a full moon--the skinny dipping at midnight--when it is time to sit--when the music stops--the laughter falls mute--the dancing stills--when my expanse falls expended--well then, let's take that fucking surface--let's take that fucking deep well of nausea--let's take the unbounding chance of the molecules, atoms, elements, and consciousness--bound it into 6 days of creating and one to sleep; 6 to spew it forth--let the words swell over in the hope of speaking a Word, and then one to rest and think about all that has happened. Let's take 6 to fabri-create and one to put our head under the cover and not look. Let's take 6 to crate and one to be embarrassed by it all. Let's take one to build and one to be sorry for it all--to not look--to wish that . . .
To wish the nothing that comes forth wasn't the nothing that is familiar; to wish the void that erupted hadn't left an open wound wherein the guts and insides and intestines had spilled out into a pile of fecal fecundity. Let's wish we didn't have to look. Above all, let's wish there weren't witnesses.
And after that 7th day--well, we'll peek our head out--and hope for the 8th--hope for the new one--the time to do it again--to re-surfac-rrect the void into something else. And when it is time--when the Father says to hand over the keys; to stop playing in the dark streets; to stop creating forts out of old wood in the backyard, or from the pillows on a rainy day; or from the pencils and paper left in my childhood cabinet; or from the words left scattered from the death--the annihilation--the shattering--of his Word--well then, we'll lie down and be embarrassed no longer. We'll hand the keys to the Kingdom to someone else and take a deep rest.
Then, we'll let the chaos settle into a nothing that is not ours.
"Tell me the story again, I want to get it straight."
The Old Man is senile. I get so tired of repeating myself.
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