Tag Archives: Life

“Elysium” — Thoughts I Have Commuting To Work

Posted on by

0

The man smokes beside me, inside of a smoking prohibited shelter.

The smell wafts further in because he is by the open frame.

The smoke bites my throat, a threat with every breath.

Time passes with equal opportunity for survival or for death.

I don’t like it  because it has a smell.

I don’t like it because of the cancer.

Children run just outside screaming and laughing that sirens go by without stopping.

The street in the summer has people on it burning from the sun.

But people hold dollar ice creams, sucking on them like ice cubes of sugar.

Boys wearing the gang colors of a faded Miami, in tank tops that hang on their biceps

Fill the street as dusk drops on the street and the rooftops.

I remember chewing gum and sunglasses, both I use to keep me thin.

The beautiful are models, filled with certainty about the world where they occupy life as if it were space.

In summer it is too hot, so that the rain that falls is warm.

In winter I can’t feel anything but bound up.

There is no place I can be except in between, a place that I just fall into.

Elysium is absolutely perfect because it started existence as a hope and is created out of a wish.

It is a bet whether we choose to go there, or forever miss our chance when we rely on others to take us there.

It is a secret everyone knows but can’t prove is true.

The man smokes beside me, inside of a smoking prohibited shelter.

He bangs his cane loudly on the metal legs of the chair.

And I get up and push past him to escape the crowded smallness of a room with glass walls.

Perfection is always believed to exist despite the marred definition of the Greeks and the Romans.

I brush, lightly, slightly, the frame, only feeling its hardness and its immovable force, regretting my bruise.

I do not inhabit a lake of canoes and mountains.

There is nothing there.

The trees don’t talk, the water is senseless, and I have no where to drop cigarettes and ashes.

The beauty of the beach is beautiful at night, the waves rushing loud.

It is cold enough on the sand to bury the dead there, their bones becoming shells.

The Sun, the Galaxy, and the Universe

Posted on by

0

The day is suddenly hot, and heated, underneath a sun making droplets of water float.

An umbrella stands, open, greeting the sun and holding it dearly, close.

I swear damp cigarettes smell like wet grass, attractive amid simmering tar in a square kettle.

Time is still, almost quiet, because it plugs my ears, making me oblivious to anything not natural.

If I want to remember today, because I moved up in class, I will remember the cost of the ticket, like a tattoo of ink on my skin.

There were many pretty girls just graduated from school, and boys who lent them their sweatshirts.

They gave up on their curves to stay warm, toes bare, ice smoothies sweet and cold, sucked through straws.

As luck is always one chance in a million, envy glares, sure that the result and the reason are wrong.

I love the look and usefulness of a white pickitte fence, something even the smell and dirt of a pig farm cannot swallow.

We are oblivious to the speed of the universe; in a vacuum, there is no stop, no wait.

For something so peaceful, we are the loudest noise, rambling like a pin ball trapped as a marble.

Mice and Elephants

Posted on by

0

An old Indian Guru once told me, when words and their meanings were not important to me, to remember a particular statement he had made, even if I remembered nothing from all of his flowing words of the afternoon.  It is easy to remember, as I can still repeat verbatim in all accuracy, even now, twenty years later.

“Speak like mice and learn like elephants.”  The meaning is also obvious enough.  The advantage of mice is their ability to be quick and quite piercingly loud, while elephants have their bulk in muscle which keeps them from falling over.  Lucky for us, elephants tend not to be violent, otherwise, we’d all be mashed potatoes.

At the time this was said to me, I was only concentrating on school and trying to get high enough marks to be allowed into the next grade.  And, I can tell you, unfortunately, I did not get into the next grade.  But that actually is a different story than this one.  I saw the meaning to be meant for those who were failing (or not making the grade), since it was instructional.  I am always in habit, because I have always made the grade, in one way or the other.  So, I saw all the others sitting around me in the auditorium to be the intended recipients of the free advice on making the grade.

The Indian Guru, actually explained in great detail.  It is known that elephants eat a tonne of food and water every week.  They are social and travel and live in packs.  They rear their young in families, within the larger pack that they live and travel with.  They pass their wisdom down to their young through experience and living.  Elephants are never on the endangered species list, and are not in danger of being extinct.

Well, what of mice?  They are rodents.  Very dirty rodents who live in filth and dirt and eat scraps of food that have dropped from mouths and plates.  They carry disease that is easily passed from mouse to mouse to other rodents, and if they are in your house, they will pass life endangering diseases like the Hanta Virus on to the human beings in the house.  They have their offspring in litters of up to six at once.  Only the quickness of a cat can catch the speedy mice, as they are able to hunt them out of their holes.

So, why should we try to speak like mice?  What redeeming quality would we be displaying if and when we speak like mice?  They live and act like they are in wartime situations, fighting for scarce food and only doing, eating, and squeaking for self-perseverance.  They know how to stay alive.  By using the sparse food supply and their ability to find life like lawyers are able to find life in a death sentence, they stay alive… and for us, we win the argument.  We are able to defend those values, and those things, that are important to us.  We will have our pack of elephants to travel with, thanks to our ability to be there.

So, what did I think and do with this Indian Guru’s words of wisdom that I did not consider or care about more than twenty years ago?  I thought his wisdom was out of date, from too long ago.  None of the situations that he spoke about actually applied to me at any of the times that I thought of myself in.  And, thus, my evaluation of his talk:  Only those who were not making the grade to get into the next class needed it.

Now, I am a little more circumspect.  Words have more meaning than just the meaning listed in the dictionary.  I surprised myself just the other day.  I did a college students’ favorite get-drunk-pastime:  I listed all the similar words I knew existed for “Molestation.”  Then, I looked up the dictionary definition.  None of the words were synonyms and none of the words were actually accurate of my understanding of the situation of “Molestation.”  How different this world is from that world I was in when I had access to great talks given by experts and Gurus of all kinds!  I am in wonder how I was actually able to learn anything at all!

There was a time when I considered the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language my bible.  It was the only way through which I could understand the world, and any of the articles and books that I was reading.  Now, if I were to rely on this staid and steadfast bible, I would become very lost as to what people are talking about.  I remember wisdom and I remember blessings, and I remember stories.  None of these things relies on the dictionary.  they all rely on life.  So, as the weather gets warmer, and you are looking for something to do…  Go wild one day this summer… Sit by the dock and get drunk for the afternoon and see how many words you can think of that have the same meaning!

Gods, Actors, And Cannes

Posted on by

0

The most beautiful thing about an actor is the way he looks into your soul, simply by turning his head and gazing into your eyes.  It is impossible to return the favor and we swoon as the movie continues.  We feel secure when the actor does this…. revealing the complete meaning of being alive.  Sometimes it is almost as if God is speaking, as if the messenger from heaven, wings unfurled and flight through the air to rush towards earth, is the breath of the one who creates.  Are we ever so lucky?  Do we ever get to see this extra-ordinary circumstance any more than once or twice in our life?  And, why do we pine so, just for these one or two circumstances?

I am willing to pay for a movie theatre experience, which can add up to one hundred dollars for our family when we do this outing….  I love that the size of the actor takes the whole wall.  I love that the music, the voices, the dialogue, fills the entire room.  I like the dimness, shared with all the audience.

Movie awards season has started again.  Cannes, France is the host of the Cannes Film Festival, and it is the premiere film fest in all the world.  It means something…  something good, to be there.  It is difficult for me to get any juiciness out of it…. I ravenously swallow all the information that I can find….  But, as always, as an outsider, I can only admire the red carpet poses and read the opinion of the local film critic.  I, too, have fallen in love with the great actors and the great leading men.  Who can forget Russell Crowe in Gladiator…  and of course, Brad Pitt in Fight Club or Seven….  Or more appropriately, in Troy or Mr. and Mrs. Smith?

These actors take over the screen, and screen by screen, they take over the world, making money fly.  I could watch several movies from Hollywood in one day…  And not be blind to everything by the end of it.  I could enjoy as if I gorget the horrible facts of reality.  But in the end, I always find the incredible efforts of these global names takes me away and I know I will live forever.

The wish for many gods to exist is not some barbaric pagan dream.  It is not about trying to ignore reality and hope for something that we can understand.  It is about seeing.  The look of a god.  The meaning of a god.  The wish come true of what God is.  It is about having and believing, because one God can only look like one thing….  Perhaps the greatest?  Perhaps the only?  Perhaps nothing like the way I am, the way I live, the way I think,  the way life is?  Why is there a God of everything when everything just cannot meet the standard that this One God is creator of?

What if the Greeks of ancient times, actually are right?  What is there are different dieties?  That let us say, each race, each  ethnicity, is led by a god?  That there is great importance to this each god?  That these gods are exactly perfect in who and what they are, in the role they have in creation, in nature, in life?

If we use the example of Hollywood, with all their screen gods and goddesses, it suddenly becomes possible and probably…  that a universe of many gods can exist.  I am not saying that one great God cannot create what it is that we have, I am saying that we do not have to rely and believe only in one God just because it makes sense that one God ca make reality make sense in every single case.  Many gods can come from the same point of view.  Many gods can still make one reality.  God and gods and existence is not about endeavoring beyond ability to create.  Things suddenly exploded, as in the Big Bang.  Things just interlace.  Things just rely and delegate and work together.  It does not necessarily gave to be a lonely universe…  a lonely planet.  Our desire for more, for relatedness, for company, for greater, for love, for familiar, for just plain old life, is the mirror of the being or beings that lead all of this creation.  They show the way time after time after time.  With each birth.  With each death.  And with each moment that we catch that glimpse of God.

So, I am looking at Cannes…. Looking to see what it is that that lonely planet of Hollywood and all the other planets of movies have created in their gathering for Cannes.  I am thinking that they try their best at Cannes.  That the movies are always greater there.  I wish I could join the crowd that has gatherer from around the world there.  They are gathered there to see each other and to see everyone.  They are there for a great party, once a year, because Cannes is the siren call for all greatness.

One day, in another life, I will get the chance to fly to Cannes.  I will remember here, where I am now, but I will be in the future.  I am looking forward to it.   A bientot, Cannes!

Her Fearful Symmetry

Posted on by

0

The first time I saw beauty in the most fearful place, I held my gaze and could only turn away when I started to breathe again, my shallow breath only allowed in when my muscles around my chest and neck could work once again.  I took a deep swallow, and asked an odd question, “Why is there two of that girl?”

Identical people puzzle me.  They look like each other, and often tail each other closely, starting and finishing each other’s word to the complete agreement of each other.  They dress in the same dress, and for some reason become completely lost and awol when the other disappears.  They tail each other from the time they are born to the time they pass on.  They are completely famous without the fame.  In public, people recognize their existence, albeit, only from the point of view of being in the presence of two beautiful and exceptional people, but they are recognized.  It seems, twins, and being a twin, makes for interesting gossip and talk and fulfills the need in some people to have confirmation of the extra-ordinariness of life. The very bodily existence of twins is very strong and loud evidence of life.  It is confirmation without true proof as to what life is.  Is it a brain?  Is it the beauty of models’ bodies?  Is it the strength and accuracy of athlete’s muscles?  Is it our ability to talk?  Our ability to create fictions, and stories and plan for the future? Is it our ability to create and rate and fall in love?  Do we create love?  And if so, do we create life?  Is life and love a very spontaneous accident?  Or is there a scientific method and law as to how it all happens?

I am looking at a conversation that two people are having.  One of them keeps insisting that twins are better off than all other kinds of human beings.  To have a bond that never breaks because there is nothing that is the match of that bond….  no words, no actions, no ideas, no love…  This is a very deep thing to say and think!  That being a twin for life literally means neither will ever be alone, even if one passes on, or if they find someone to marry, the twins to each other are never truly alone.  They would share that love as well!

I imagine this situation, the one in the overheard conversation….  To say that if I am in trouble, that there will be someone who will be there to save me…..  This, too, is very deep…  Any girl would like to be in this situation!  To have security forever!  I imagine this situation, and I think, I would be very satisfied!  Perhaps, twins are better off than any other type of human being!

Unfortunately, I was not born a twin.  I am single, and I am this way for my entire life.  I have learned to live with this “difficulty” in a way that makes me more willing to try my luck and to try to make friends, even in an unlikely situation.  I am often in a lonely job, as writers tend to have to do their work in isolation, and in quiet, and in full concentration of brain work  so that they can hear their own thoughts.  Writing is messy, and if you don’t catch your thoughts and ideas quickly… they will fly off and disappear!  So, this is how I feel secure….  Hearing myself and editing myself and creating word-filled pages that work and feel like magic!

So, am I resigned to this life?  Well, of course.  There is nothing that  I would wish undone.  There is nothing that I would wish redone….  (Sometimes when I am angry, or feeling jealous, I do wish that my entire life were redone… but that is a situation that even twins cannot outwit.  Being angry and /or jealous is natural even if your twin is perfect evidence of what the situation is.)

So, here is my life.  Summer is just starting, and I am becoming very busy with all the plans that are floating around the house.  My husband wants this….  My kids want that….  And then, do we have time to visit grandma?  Will there be time enough to buy a season’s pass to the theme park?  And, are the kids ready to take on over night camp?

These are not necessarily easy decisions to make.  Being bad and getting slightly poor grades are not conducive to going out to play at the waterpark…  It is more likely that summer school will be the result and consequence of that!

Life is not easy….  As the anthem of my generation states, “Life is a mystery, and we must stand alone.”  It is tragically beautiful, and, I bet, this is one thing that twins do not understand!

Sitting in Garden Court All By Myself

Posted on by

0

Today, I had many things to do, but there was one big break in between it all.  I spent it sitting in the Mall nearby, slurping up a Frappacino… one of my favorite drinks, especially if there is Strawberry Creme in the ice.

While I was there, among so many people all there with other people, I penned, two quick poems.  I have a teacher right now who swears that a poem tells a story without the words telling the story.  By the time the whole poem is read, she claimed, that it is the saturation of myth, theme, and character that fills up the whole story from beginning, to middle, to end.  So, to possibly suffer from any discouraging criticism, I am entering the poems here.  The poems are just my thoughts on things that have happened this past week.  I will not divulge names, or relations, but, yes, the events or feelings described, actually happened.  Please be kind!  🙂

 

Time to Hope for Life

 

A whiskey sour ruins the bourbon

Spicy ground beef fills the wrap shell

Some cheese and onions crusted

On fresh bread that took too long

 

The morning is perfect for something

The weight in my stomach concurs

It is likely that I am too rushed

To let the plastic bag go or my wish to fly

 

Dear time, stealer of moments and fun

Wait for me when it is the end

The sound of the seconds rushes

And I fall, the trance intense.

 

Marble pleases and we wonder why

Smooth, cold, and heavy

It breaks in large cracks

Pieces beyond dust that fill the puzzle

Creating beauty that is imagined by God.

 

The wetness of a drop of water spreads

Like a film of oil, the dampness creates cold

No smell, no taste, the quietest whisper muffled

Until the dog comes in from the rain.

 

In the Moment of Heat

 

The noise of loud swearing

The hallmark of anger

Smashes the air

The fingers pointing

At the sky

At you

At the point being made

 

Unheard in the haze

Of tears

Of forgotten reasons

And some loose emotions

Of mine

Against your words

The cup of the hot water is thrown

And the door slammed shut.