An Open Letter to the Adverse

I want you to know that everything I am about to tell you is a lie. I don't mean it to be but I have recently discovered that I am incapable of telling or knowing the truth. This is disturbing to me (lie) and it makes it extremely difficult to proceed knowing that there is no truth to what I can say. Keats said something like truth is beauty and beauty truth or maybe that is exactly what he said, and so for me this confession is about me not being able to distinguish not only the truth but also the beauty that I have for so long said my life was about finding. That the preceding paragraph is untrue and that this paragraph is also completely fabricated out of nothing pains me somewhat, although the prevailing declarations as to the felicity of anything I have ever written and am currently writing makes the suspicion of what I am up to more than merely difficult, it makes it impossible. If anyone is able to read any of these words, then surely what I am trying to say cannot be misunderstood as being any truer or more false than anything that has ever been written by me before. That this is a lie compounds the difficulty. I was told with a sly grin this afternoon by the Rite Aid clerk that those of us born on the eighth of June were said to be extremely smart. He knew my birthday because I was buying a product containing that most foul ingredient nicotine and when he asked me I told him what I knew because at the time I thought that it was true. I do not actually remember being told the date of my birth on the day of my birth, and in fact am not now convinced that I was ever even really born. As far as I know I just always have been. My reply to the clerk's statement was prophetic. What I said in response was something that I have always believed but do not know if I believe anymore and that was, "I'm not sure that is any kind of advantage." To which he looked at me knowingly and walking away said, "I know what you mean" even though it is not possible that he did. I walked out of the store then with my product and one of my sons in tow. This last sentence seems to be truthful, but it cannot have happened that way. Many of you have been on to me for a long time and for that I honor you. I am not writing this for you. If you are one of those people saying, "yeah, yeah, is there something else here?" the answer is no. But if you are someone who thought that I was someone who has ever said anything honest, then you are my audience. I embrace you and welcome you to the new truth of me that there is no truth in me. This is a lie as well. If I am trying to say that I am dishonest, then how can this confession be taken as anything but a lie? It is not my intention to do all the thinking for you, and I cannot afford the time it would take explaining what is so painfully apparent to me now and to those of you who are no longer reading. I assure you I have confessed nothing yet but what has already been known by others not me. I write out of amazement that I write and as a warning to you still reading that there are creatures in this world much more devious than I. Remember that the sly-grinning clerk said people of my supposed birthday were extremely smart, but did not say the smartest ever (an omission I am still reeling from) and therefore it can be concluded, though in no way correctly, that there are indeed smarter persons out there, and that their lies are much more clever and invasive and are not recognized nor admitted to. I am out here and so are they. This is a lie, of course, but one so good that my saying what it is does not make it any more true. One truth that you will probably have to admit is that my paragraph length is increasing, while my ever distancing point is not. If you hung in on that one there is a special prize waiting for you and here it is: while I have tried to be an upright guy, there are some of you that do not want it to be so and it is for you that I have made my life into the one that you sometimes see but mostly do not. I spend a lot of my time not in your company and while I sometimes like to think of myself as the lone companion, the weight of the inherent meaning becomes burdensome and forces me into a lapse where the only thing that I can come up with are synonyms for heavy, even when there is no apparent onus to do so. I am extremely smart which is why I lie and have no recourse to do anything else. Asleep on the couch in the next room is the television's latest victim–myself on Prozac and beer. Earlier I had gone out without telling anyone that I was and I ceased to be. When I got back, there I was, already gone, so I sat in front of it and watched anyway as if there was­­­­ something I could learn--in fact--as if there was anything I was. What I cannot do is continue to be as I was as I am no longer. I have crossed over whatever honesty there was in me and Truth and I have spoken our last. Not even this is true. There is no heart in what I say. My density has collapsed and is red-faced with exhaustion and not-knowing. So, to whoever is left still reading, and hopefully it is you the one I have encoded all this language to if only you are not yourself collapsed, remember that what is beautiful is truth, but only if you believe it, and it is the act of belief that causes the beauty, and that the moment you forget this, what was truth in your life ceases to be, and that the remedy is simple and effective but cannot be said honestly by me except by endlessly circling and restating what is certain to be false. What this is there is no reason to state. It could only be a lie after all, as this is.

Jealousy

So this is the way that these things work: ask and you shall receive. I was thinking about jealousy and how it seems not as much a problem as a natural by-product of love and lovers. But beyond the little box of feelings that is the trap jealousy is usually understood to be, is there another hidden question posed by the feeling? Then I see the possibility as the deeper inquiry: What is it that love dares the self to do? And armed this way, another level is approached. All is to be dared. There is the way that it was imagined to be before, and then there is the way the easy answer does not shine light onto. If I want to be the center of my beloved's attention, I am only halfway there, for the lover is an earthly representation of what a greater love can be like. Inhabiting the human frame limits the expression and palate of feelings to only what has been experienced before, where opening to a range of possibility that the feeling of jealousy suggests beyond the usual heartbeat of living brings the colors of the archetypical experience of all human emotions, including those that have not specifically been imagined by me, up to a quasi-shadow knowing. So this odd little nagging that can easily be felt as uncomfortable is also a beckoning to develop beyond what is known. It is a dare to become, through the knowing of smallness and pettiness and heartbreak, what could not have been understood without them. To strive after what can seemingly not be captured can be seen either as a fruitless endeavor (when understood as an end itself; we could also say "banging your head against a wall"), or it can be seen as a dare to our larger self to expand without comfort of achievement. Possibility grows the more levels you invoke. Satisfaction can only be fleeting if you are aware that there is such potential, and even in the mundane world of commerce and relationship, the signs of desire aim us in the upper directions. This is not to say there can be no satisfaction at all, for that lies in resting in who you are at this moment while at the same time feeling the tug and draw of whatever you believe is in store for you. It is just that so many times as these matrix feelings weave and unwind, we grow weary and long for the rest of ultimate knowing, if only for a moment, we think, that would be so dear. Loss and the inability to come to terms with that loss are as important to try to understand as how your dimension dovetails with those you are family with. Your growth enhances the growth of us all and what I can understand about my jealousy, while not immediately accessible to every person who feels it, adds one more iota toward the greater understanding of all of us. Every one of us who feels the tearing up of the hearts roots must try to look beyond the intensity of this specific emotion and, not reason with it, for it has no basis in the intellect, but search through the heart itself and try to discover what parts are not only unharmed, but actually glowing more brightly. This becomes the dare from some part unexplored to reach beyond what our communal presence can suggest. We move from simple to complex, and, though we do not understand why we keep feeling the jealousy return, each time we go into it, we go into it further and therefore we enter deeper into our essential being. We find a gradual readjustment of the way we have always thought everything should be. No longer satisfied that now love is lost to another, we expand ourselves to include the other as ourselves and love from that perspective as well, loving the experience as invaluable and necessary to our ultimate evolution.

Hands

I am returned from a trip out west and I have had maybe three hours of sleep in four days. I just had my heart handed to me still beating. Just a few days ago...and I win and lose big. That thing about Superman and Kryptonite is a good metaphor. A guy can feel so strong and positive, so in touch with the world and so happy, so impervious to the whims of so many others, but there is always one person who owns him, brings out the worst in him, makes him dance and gyrate and spin on some sort of moody hope, only to toss him to the side with mumbled insincere apologia. So what makes us go back? Kids. Family. Hope. My only model is the family that battles through it all together. This is about as relevant as the Model T in today's world. Everyone wants and thinks they deserve an upgrade. There is no growth together anymore. See my old hat there on my head? This is the only home I have ever really had. The day lasts only as long as the night will allow. The clouds pass overhead and it rains. Some of us never will allow the old models to die. That's why there are still trains. I am slow, reliable and loyal. I am the old oak tree that gets torn down for the flashy new development. I look at this in my life. From here it seems so harsh and so cruel. Fortunately, I am from an intrepid people. I can be torn down to the roots, and I only grow stronger. Just from here it feels as if nothing in my life has meaning but my fatherhood. We all know there is not much respect for that.

All Blue and Wavey

I don't normally feel the rain so intensely. It was so hard to rouse myself out of cover and into business mode. Just standing up was not enough to do it. But because I am on this day not living in rain, merely an adjunct, I conceeded to coming down heavier early if what fell was going to wait until long after lunch. Barbeque store-stacked patties washed down with what else, water. But it was going to come down anyway. Like fish we darted in under the eaves, and those among us who regularly pitched a grumble were well chorused. I was silent about high-desert living for once. It thought it had me and I wasn't going to intimate otherwise. I would never be deliberately obscure without hiding something in the back. Not my style now. Got into it hard over that and almost missed the last minute boarding call. They dragged me on board that day. So I waited and could not see how what shines was going to penetrate me and gave in to the drowning for now. That's where I am. See me all blue and wavey? If you look really close, you can see that I have never held my breath so long before. I'm a little surprised.

Deliciousnecity

So. All the time now it is like this. I feel frisky and alive. I am insatiably, unreasonably happy. It makes me sick how delighted I am with the world.All the time I'm smiling and even my little tantrums make me laugh. I go under a wave of impossible situations and while I am rolling around and the sense of panic locks me in it's steely gaze, I always give up and go limp. I just go under the wonder and it becomes me. And here I am again. Happy. I keep cutting things out as I find them. "Don't need this. Don't need that!" And as I give up it seems I get more. Such an old and worn platitude. Who doesn't know this? Haven't I always known this? But only as a periferal, a goal, someplace I thought would be cool to get to. There is a definite plus side, but all things gain this moment. Think about this: as I sit here writing, I am pretty fuckin' happy to be doing it. And you just read this while I am in the midst of feeling excellent. Does it make you smile? I hope not. Did you know I was going to say that? I write these words as a post mark in case I get lost, because I haven't spent a lot of my life in this kind of bliss. There is no reasoning with it, no separation between it and me. When the waves come, I roll under, happy to bob up where ever, or become the water. There is no difference between one and the other. And the mind that has been so diligent about remembering so many details about loss and failure, and has so much to opine about hour upon hour, long into the night; this friend of so steady and assured companionship just keeps repeating to me: "Look at this place!" And this, alas, is love. What abides in the wonder can never be lost. No one, no god, above. No life below. It just is in here as I am. What I see "out there"--the green of vibrant leaving along every hill and slope, the seething water through the fallen bank, the hum of people walking on sidewalks in front of shops of every nature but the one that would do me any good--these are me. From here, I see no difference between you and me. And I love that so.

Ode to a Bear

Fur-faced, dog-eared slope-shouldered rising
up O Earth your face is shining! With your claw-
fisted open mouth and your breath of honey coming
on in heat-forced desire, you take your solitude
where it will have you best. Rising up you mount
the hidden valleys in spackled damp hollows with
your voice pouring with the slightest push
of your muscled bellows. Father of trees.
Silent as you hunt invisible prey.

An Open Letter to Those Whose Heart is in Question

As I sit and feel the air move around me with the rich smell of fertilizer wafting in from the open window, I am thinking about the wealth of organic life about me. I am disconnected from the life I had, but reconnecting with the feel of the earth I knew a long time ago.

I am happy here in so many ways. The guys I live with are like a little tribe unto themselves. They are local and do not dream of moving far away. They busy themselves with projects and complete a lot of them. When they lose interest or change direction, the old projects are dismantled and serve as parts for the new thing. It is a form of recycling that is the same as it always used to be in the city-states that populate the history of civilization.

I just got back from a trip to the big city. Burlington is a college town on the shores of Lake Champlain, and today as I walked along the mall that is Church Street, I was reminded of the place I used to live. But it was never the urban life that thrilled me. Rather it was the people that I adored that wanted to live there that held me in the city for so long.

Now far away from them, and far away from the upbeat tempo of urbanity, I have slowed down enough to think and feel. When I arrived, the trees were bare and the wind moved through the valleys with little resistance, but over time and at a rate that was never surprising or overwhelming, the merest buds have opened out into full, rich leaf, and every view is one of green and is a balm to the restless eye.

And I have it easy. If it was only me in this world, I would think this a paradise, as the men I live with do. I might never want to leave. But years ago I looked for and found a family way that I used to want to mold in the patterns I have in my mind from growing up. I had children and was married and was plugged into a dream that America wants of me.

And it was miserable. Not the kids or the endless wrestling match of conflicting schedules, but the underlying pressure I felt from trying to match what I understood to be the right course for a good American family with the artist and creator that wants me to flourish in unexpected ways. I wanted trust without knowing what the outcome would be, and there was no way to express this. I should say that I could not express it in understandable ways: there were plenty of ways it came out. My wife and I were of the same mind in this, but never on the same page.

A deep unhappiness pervaded our short marriage, and while we recognized its appearance with us, we could not find within ourselves the strength to confront it in any way that would offer any hope. We dreamed of different and important ways to be, but ultimately our restlessness meant shifting from place to place on the map. We were ever more inconsolable as each new place we moved to had the same pervading sense of the desperate unhappiness our inner conflicts created.

So we broke down like so many of us now do. In this world of beautiful television pictures and easy access to every new idea on the internet, it is easier than ever to be dissatisfied with what you have. We came together in the spirit of a small primitive tribe, but divided as the world kept presenting new features we didn't have.

But something in me could never let go of the family. I couldn't lose another child to distance and continuous mis-communication, so I hung around, always under the cloud of partly feeling trapped by circumstance. I became what I never wanted to be: a weekend dad. But it was what I had and I called it enough. I struggled along as best I could and presented a brave face for my new life to those to whom I had promised in the most sacred act I would always be there for.

I write poetry. I study poetry. I see poetry now wherever I look. I took in my unhappiness and translated it as best I could into beauty. I used to think that if I got to where I am now in an art, I would be content. Then I was heartbroken further to find that words are no redress for the loss of touch. I took a lover. I took another and still there was no connection that was as dear to me as the one I had lost. The word "betrayal" took up residence in my being and reminded me in every new tryst what I did not have, and although I could see beauty in the flesh rise before my eyes, I could not maintain any connection with it.

We are funny creatures. We lose ourselves so easily to the pressures of other people's ideals. We want matches to who we believe ourselves to be, but when we reach out and touch the space where we appeared just moments before, we are dismayed that there is a different reality at work. Our desperation increases as we give up the parts of ourselves that mean the most to who we have always been, for an idea of who we should be in the eyes of the world.

I had the strange fortune of finding myself, through persistent nearness to my chosen family, able to move in again with them, this time not as a lover, but as a roommate, with an easiness that was entirely unexpected and contrary to what those in my confidence though was good for me.

By this act, I established myself as above the advice of those not within my own skin. I remember saying to myself that this was a mistake I was going to make in the name of trust. Everything in me wanted to make an honest attempt at re-establishing the connections that meant the most to me, and no amount of "good advise" was going to change what I believed in.

I believe that two people can move together as individuals and find their ways unique to them while maintaining the intimate ties that make life mean something. I believe that there are promises made in this world that are as unmovable as the mountains. I believe there are reasons for the inscrutable that higher forms of meaning know and can only whisper to us when we are in unguarded moments. I believe that choosing love over everything else, no matter what course it takes us in, will never steer us wrong.

But this does not change anything else but what is inside of us. In the end, we only have our own soul, and while this sounds and can feel lonely, my heart beats with all those I have ever loved as fiercely as if I were with them. Circumstance has brought me here, to Vermont, alone, but the same forces that pressure us to be unsatisfied with our lives also contain the seeds of our renewal. I came here bare and lifeless. I felt defeated and resigned, but as the leaves unfurled, I slowly realized that I was breathing the very blood of my rebirth.

This is who I am. I came into this world alone. I struggled through the years of my education. I found love, lost it. I made decisions that did not stand the test of years. I found love again and lost it again. I built houses of wood and stone only to watch them fall in on themselves. Love found me yet again, and again, and again. Each time I made mistakes that cost me what I wanted so badly to possess. Each time the price seemed steeper than I could afford. And here I am alone again.

Here is the difference: all I have to do to feel my love as a force beyond my or anyone's control is lift my face up to the sun, and press my beating heart with my hand to my chest. You are always here. And I will always be here, too. This is who I am.

Tao

Just to start and let the mind go where the mind wants to go. Here I go again. Feeling this way. I know that what I read in the Tao mentioned specifically that the first indication that the mind isn't getting enough energy is emotional instability. When the mind does not get enough energy, the first indication is emotional instability. Interesting. I am feeling a little emotionally unstable and I have not had anything to eat today. Make the connection. Know what you have to do and set about taking care of yourself first. For the same reason we are instructed to put our air masks on before we assist others getting theirs on in the event of sudden cabin pressure loss on an airplane, I have to help myself out first before I can help others, for the idea in practice here is deeper than it usually seems. While I recognize in myself that I am probably explainably teetering on familiar and destructive patterns, I recognize, not only in myself but in Davin and others the same pattern in various strengths. "The brain can only burn glucose, which is also known as "blood sugar". In fact, the brain, which accounts for only 2% body weight, consumes 25% all available blood sugar. Unlike other tissues, the brain cannot switch over to fat or other fuels when glucose supplies in the blood run dry. Since blood can only carry enough glucose to last for about four hours, any interruption to the steady supply of glucose in the bloodstream results in immediate impairment of brain functions. The very first symptom of mental impairment due to glucose deficiency in the brain is loss of emotional control.The Tao of Health, Sex, & Longevity pp. 85-6 I was walking and it was spectacular out. You forget what it's like to live for weeks in rain and cloud. Then you forget what it's like to see the sun. Then the sun comes out and you go for a walk and it's warm and everything is amazingly dense and green and the flowers all put out their perfume and the birds flit out from near shrubbery as you walk by. The only sound is water flowing. You forget you work. Forget you have problems that have no solution. You walk on only to feel the passion of your legs tug the grasses beneath your feet. You are not as involved with what you are thinking because you have to pay attention to the ground you walk on. You can look at your problems as if they were not your own. You can feel what the next--the very next--thing you need to do is. You start to know that you belong here on this planet right now. Then you go back in and try to do your job. Endless problems. Only seem to make more, and solving any of them does nothing to help solve the problems you have outside of work. But it's better to have walked. It helps nothing directly--does not make money, does not solve issues, does not make phone calls you need to make--but it does do something that helps you know it's all going to work out. Look at that bank there, where the river has washed away huge chunks of land. New green grass is already set up houses there. There are animals that have new territory they didn't have before. Sure that great old tree is now going to die sooner than it was if the ground beneath it hadn't eroded, but it is not in a hurry to die because of it. In fact, that tree that's half tipped over appears to be flourishing. It can't last much longer, but it's not giving up. Far from it.

Winter, Colorado

This love is white
With mountain peaks rising
Into the distance of sky
As ordinary as a single bird
Held by the twisted branches
Of a little naked tree

Friends

One could say there had to be a face that this all leads to. Is this a nightmare that leads one down the gulley road to the foot hounds where the deals are made? Of course not silly, it's just the way it looks on tv. So there is an intuitive being and a numbskull in the mix who are always wondering what there is to say about you. They always wonder what about them you are thinking, They go sentences on about their special milieu but are scare to listen unless couched in their way. It is about learning each of their languages and translating it not only to myself, but to among them all as a society. But this is what I do. It is not what I want to become, it is what I already am. In fact, everything good is a stripping away. I say that, but I don't feel it is quite that easy. You do want to strip away the unnecessary in all the applications you can, be it information or organization or goal setting in personal, business, or the ubiquitous "other" category. You just work it. You show up and direct where there needs direction. I don't know why I am talking about this now. I want to say there is a point and that I merely cannot see it. Long fingernails are no asset. I am suddenly filled with revulsion for words and want no more part of it. "Merely an exercise," I mutter. So what's so funny about four guys sitting in a room smoking pot and talking when the telephone rings and it's one guys girl calling to say she left her keys in his car and the spare that she usually kept under her mat was mysteriously gone and her friend wasn't home who had the extra key, honey, when are you coming to get me? One guy starts in on how this is a relationship test; another points out the manipulation potential and the inaccuracies and absurdities of her position and therefore, while the last, his brother, is rocking back and forth on the floor with his head in his hands. What's so funny about that?

to inspection. See details in enclosure

I'm happy this morning. Almost ecstatic. There must be some problem in the world because of it. My role is to contain the darkness within so someone else does not have to suffer. Basically the same as Oprah's. I have been thinking a lot about Oprah lately. I wish there was somewhere where I could read more about the history and lore of Oprah. It seems that there must be more to her than it appears. If only there was a site or someone who had this information.

Anyway, about the puppy in the sailboat, when the hull was found, the stench was terrible and it was pretty clear that birds or something had been toying with and possibly eating the carcass. By the time I got to it there was hardly enough left for stew and I had to cook it longer than I wanted to so it was stringy and tough. There was plenty of wood from the broken craft to make the bonfire, but I sent out some of the other guys to scavage the beach for anything edible that we could add. It wasn't much but then, a bunch of skinny hippies don't need that much. Tomorrow I think I will brush my teeth.

Bolder, then Vermont

I was trying to figure out who I was by staring at the camera, becoming the camera. I had thought about this all day, knowing it was coming and trying to prepare for what I could in no way envision except that I did believe I could come close, I thought what I thought was very good and dear to something there is no comparison to now. How many times to write for the future self or selves and to read it at any point after, especially any time for all the smoke of disbelief and cunning. Always what it is is enough, but seeing myself and the look of knowing this one even as there is only impossibilty over inevitable confusion and obfuscation. Plenty of tits though. I ambushed her from the first time I saw her. I can pick them out. I'm good. I knew she had what I wanted and knew how to use it and, better, knew how to expose it. How to make me look good because I was lookin' at her like that all the time. It's my look and what lie behind it that this one was going to bring out of me and capture at the exact moment I needed it to be for my future, and, I now see, yours. A gift to you what I know as I do as I go along, 'cept I don' look like this at all anymore. I'm younger somehow even as look at this. I know so much less than I did then and care about it so much more. It worries me how much I have that hangs around like I'm a Fresh Kills of myself, heavy. There are creatures of every kind that hang out with me and I am fascinated not only with my reactions to them but to my reaction as I no longer react--just negate. I'm annihilating as I assimilate now. Everything is suspect and nothing is quite real, but my sense of rightness grows. It's a good thing. All of it as I look out, as I see again as I see it and I see that face and it shines.

Cement in chunk in piles of debris

In the body of the night with a shapely glass of rendered wine half-downed and drowsy with the scent of a half-gone woman lingering, I return to the alone and left-off I was before she came, before there was a coming or the thought that there was a starlit veranda somewhere I belonged to but could never seem to find.
I wanted to walk off again. Wanted to be anywhere they couldn't find me anymore and that was in motion. As restless as the sea I've crawled out of dozens of time, I surprised the bottle this time and paid half of what I usually do. I was this drunk two days ago and what had it got me? She broke down in a way I hadn't expected. A hard boiled woman who couldn't last against my wandering finally called in the chit she had coming to her from years ago. It was her father and I wasn't ever going to be that for her, so she choked up in front of the chinese joint and looked up at me, grasped my hand as I passed, spun me.
I saw then there was more than trouble. My hand flickered with the thought that if she opened her mouth I didn't want to hear what was going to come out.
I stepped into her and sucked her tongue into me, held it as long as I could, closed my eyes.