I'm in to memes now

BrockPhoto by Glenn Riegel was of course used entirely without permission.

Because I can

Based on an entry from my journal, dated June 20.  Censored, of course, and greatly expanded (because I can type more before losing interest than I can write).

I think there exists in the human condition--or at least in my condition--a longing for something like a heroin addiction.  A severe mental illness.  An abusive parent.  Something to unify the events of life, to give them a theme.  Something to blame for all the unhappiness.

I have a guardedness to me that perceptive people notice very quickly.  Maybe not perceptive people.  Unfiltered extroverts--the sort of people who fling very personal things at me.  They notice that these things hit a wall.  A more substantial wall, it seems, than the one everyone has.

An online aura test (ha!) said I have a "red overlay," a sort of psychic shield that is developed in response to childhood trauma.  To my knowledge, I have no such trauma, but I want to believe that I do.  So I wonder if I have repressed memories.

I do have one potentially traumatic memory.  I was on a floatation device on the lake where some family friends have a house, out deeper than I could touch with my dad and some other adults.  This when I was very young, and unable to swim.  At some point I rolled over and fell off my raft, and I have a sharp memory of the black of being underwater.  The next thing I remember is being back on the couch in the lake house, and I have a vague sense that my dad rescued me from the water.

Holy crap, right?  Except for one thing: neither of my parents has any memory of this event.  This rules out any dramatic rescue or loss of consciousness, because that wouldn't be easily forgotten; Mom does remember, quite clearly, the time I fell out of a shopping cart directly onto my head.  (As smart as I am anyway, I can only assume that if she had not allowed me to stand up in the cart, I would have a nobel prize by now.)  I can think of three possibilities, then, for what really happened.

1. It never happened, and this memory is the product of mis-remembered fragments and possibly invention.

2. I dreamed it and forgot it was a dream.

3. The event in question did happen, but I was only in the water for a split second before Dad snatched me out.  I don't remember the next few minutes because it was forever ago, and my parents don't remember the event at all because there was never enough danger for it to make a lasting impression.  To little land-lubber me, though, it was genuinely traumatic.

I'll likely never know.  Interesting how memory works... or how it doesn't.

Mom says I used to suffer from night terrors; that I would be sitting in bed screaming and she couldn't wake me up.  I have no memory of this, but I do remember some terrifying dreams.  In one, a highly dramatic twist on a real event, a bull had gotten loose and made its way into a small room, where I was stuck with it.

I also had a recurring dream with variations of the following:  My parents would be having a party with twenty or more adult friends, all milling around in the dimly lit first floor of our Third Street house.  I would be sent upstairs to bed, but in the upstairs hallway I would encounter a large crocodile.  This crocodile had an extremely long tongue (I always remember it as a "twenty foot tongue," though I don't recall ever measuring), which could snake about with great dexterity and would instantly kill anyone it touched.  This was just knowledge I had; I always woke before the dreaded tongue came out.  Until one night--and I think this only happened once--when the crocodile broke the rules of the dream and appeared downstairs, where it shot its tongue out and killed several people before hitting me.  I fell, feeling myself die, and then woke up.

Every night of my childhood I went to bed terrified that I would have this dream.  During my bedtime prayers I begged God to give me no dreams, so afraid was I of nightmares.  I worried that if I prayed for "good dreams," God might send me dreams that had scary moments but resolved happily, and I knew that the scary moments would nonetheless leave me lying in bed, afraid to close my eyes, unable to go to sleep until I had woken my mom (knowing she was awake made me feel safe enough to fall asleep).  And that I would remember those scary moments just when bedtime came around the following night.

I sometimes wonder if such fervent determination not to dream is to blame for the rarity of remembered dreams today.

Perhaps I have my trauma, after all.

Living like literature

I'm starting to read for class--last semester's class--just because I think literary theory is something I should be better versed in than I am.  Especially since Steve says in literary criticism lies the easiest road to a Ph.D.

I was reading some thoughts by Terry Eagleton on how we might define literature.  He discusses how what is considered literature can change over time--we might imagine a world in which Shakespeare is no longer considered to have any literary value--and can be quite independent of the author's intent--that is, whether the author considers his or her work to be literature.  Except Eagleton phrases it as whether the authors consider themselves literature.  Just a little quirk in his language; I'm sure he didn't mean to shift the conversation away from the topic at hand.  But the ADHD kicked in, and I started thinking about how people might be thought of as literature.


A few pages earlier, Eagleton is offering various definitions for literature.  The first option he offered (and ultimately rejected) was in step with the Formalists, claiming that literature is "organized violence against language," or, as I have been putting it, "queering language."  Because literature isn't how we talk or write business e-mails; it's something different.  In literature, blades can be described as pale.  Godric comes to mind.  Literature is language that calls attention to itself; it is not the content that matters so much, but the words.  The medium, not the message.

Hold on to that for a second.

There exists a bias (I could be all snooty and say "in Western society," but I think we hippie types draw that particular contrast a little too freely) towards the content of one's life.  Occupation, family, income, volunteer work, musical talent, penchant for mathematics--that's all content.  That's all what people do in life, and that's what we tend to see.  But I think there's also a how, a way of walking and speaking and reacting that won't show up on even the most overdone résumé.  I can certainly think of people who seem to have a literary grace about them quite independent of everything that goes on in their lives.  It's not the content of life; it's the language in which it's lived.

Therein, I think, lies my ambition.  I have always been rather ambivalent about my future plans, be they career, locale, or family, and I think it's because what I truly want is for my life to have the ring of literature.  I'm quite sure I'm not there--I doubt people look at me and see that grace.  I'm too impulsive and quick-tempered, and I speak too loudly.  But at least I've figured out what I want.

This week.

Hurt

Hurting is a hard thing to do.

Or rather, figuring out what to do with that hurt is a hard thing to do.  I've always held a deep admiration for incredibly destructive people.  People who can tear a room to shreds, shatter a mirror, punch a hole through the wall.  Because all of that is way impressive, but it also means a lot of miserable work the next day and possibly a lost damage deposit.

Or a lost relationship, lost job, lost whatever it is that rides on not absolutely losing your shit.  The hurt self in me--and here I bank on the recognition that we all have an inner hurt self, lest I be singled out as morose--believes that I suffer some significant caliber of mental illness, but it is unrecognizable because of my compulsive need to control my image, to give the appearance of having everything together.  But it would be pretty rich of me to think I have constructed a complex that the whole field of psychiatry never anticipated, wouldn't it?

So having some dramatic, public breakdown is ruled out as an acceptable response to hurt.  The problem is, when we hurt, we desperately want someone to know it.  All we want is for someone to see our pain, and respond with love.  Why, then, is it so hard to go to someone and tell them that is what we need?  Instead the blogosphere explodes with "sideways communication," people Facebooking about how they're "sick of fuckin' drama" or venting to Xanga about their unfair treatment.  I do, on occasion, re-read my old Xanga, and I cringe at the sullen teenager I see screaming for attention.  Nobody likes someone who screams for attention.

Maybe we are better at being composed now.  But I think a lot of us are worse at being people.  I am, anyway.  Yes, in high school I responded to a very deep hurt by flailing for attention in ridiculous ways, and yet I found from friends a level of depth, support, and patience that seems increasingly rare as I age.  And I, in turn, offered the same to others.  I held the suffering in my arms, and my heart swelled with the significance of the moment.

Now, I turn a deaf ear to many cries for help, saying I will offer only what is asked.  And in penance I don't have that person who drives to meet me in the middle of the night to sit with me by the waterfall.

I'm really not trying to make this about me.  That hurt, caring me was the introspective one; now I much prefer to universalize my experience and try to process it in the form of social commentary.  It shields me, I suppose.  But I think there's something to this... I don't know if it's the fact that we all grow up in the years between seventeen and twenty-three, replacing naiveté with a jadedness that tells us there's no actual significance in those old "emo" moments; or if it's the lightning-paced, surface-grazing communication style perpetrated by Facebook and texting, pushing an unexamined culture; or if it's something else entirely.

The imperative here is that we do something to correct that.  Maybe most of our efforts to resist the progression of the world are vain and ill-advised--the shouting of luddites at a harmless but irreversible wind--but this one matters.  We need to embrace a hurting world, sit with crying people, and allow ourselves to be awed and humbled by what woundedness is offered us.

I suck at this.

Sandpaper

Shards of broken glass scatter on all sides as I hit the ground rolling, then running, hating and loving all at the same time and wondering where all the wine that used to refill itself in the empty glass went, because it's not here anymore, unless you count the purplish stain on the tablecloth in a suspiciously convenient location.  But that never did any good but to the dogs, and I'm not about to wring out cotton over my glass, so all I can do now is pick apart the words spoken by someone who never meant them and try to find a deeper significance to explain to the students and teachers, hoping and praying that the world will see some genius that has been missed by all others since the first time the window broke.

Breakout

Careening off the interstate seems to be a theme for the battered blue Toyota that never dies, though it slashes through guardrails and rolls through ditches.  I am in invincible, bulletproof, on the verge of being able to fly and leave this stupid car in the dust behind me, never again worrying about the money that spews forth from the exhaust pipes or the blood that pools on the ground behind, too much for survival but too little to account for everything, so you know there's a broken body still hidden in a shallow grave somewhere along the road.  I can still be brought down by the right shot and the woman in the lab coat knows how to take it, and for all my abilities I can't break through the cold steel of handcuffs or the harsh iron of prison bars or even the one disparaging glance of the man in tan, all conspiring to hold me in and keep me from doing a shred of good.

Sacrifice

What must I have felt?  A strange question, I'm sure, but I promise you I'm looking at videos that show me in a place of which I remember nothing.  There's the man in the perfectly pressed business suit, standing with his hands upraised as if in prayer, receiving some guidance or strength from above, or perhaps simply in reverence for himself and his sacrifice.  Hollow thumps of polished shoes echo against the shiny wood floor as his enemies bear down on him, their knives and guns at the ready, but he offers no protest as they take him away to be burned.

Switchblade

The cool touch of the night twists through the narrow gap of the window, ducking under the curtains like a creeping tendril searching for a tidbit to bring back to its owner.  I see it, of course, sitting still as could be on the bed, staring out at whatever it is I can't see but feeling it calling to me and not knowing whether I'm on the verge of seeking a new and important truth or just about to become somebody's next lunch.  The friend beside me smiles up, knowing no more than me but entirely unworried for my safety or his, because as far as he's concerned I can do no wrong, and I realize that underneath his furry features is hidden the very essence of friendship, and I finally understand what it is that keeps me on course on such a tumultuous river.  The steady hand on the paddle and the constant vigilance of the crow at the stern guarantee that I will not stray no matter how much I do, for the divisions and the flood-plains and the inlets all re-converge, carrying an uncertain me to the magical pond with that perfect log for sitting and watching owls.  And right there, right here, right now, in this exact moment I realize that the majesty of such a creature is far beyond my humble sins, but that I will spend my lifetime drowning any who have the arrogant audacity to so much as look where their eyes don't deserve to look.  I will be the guardian of my fellow sinners, and together we will cross streams with our eyes downcast, as much to hide them from the sun as to watch our footing.

Foundations

Tinnish noises fall from the speakers that desperately need replacing over the scuffed brown floor of the roller rink, reflecting, *I* think, the hollow noises that still spring forth through voice and pen like harsh laughter at a statement that, you realize a second too late, was never meant to be a joke. Once upon a time there was a place to ice skate on the island in the middle of the dirty brown Elkhart river, but time or tiredness or financial trouble or who knows what wore it down to its very foundations, and now all one can find there is dirt and plants and mosquitos whining incessantly past our bare ears. You have to wonder, really, whether the emotion invoked by those worn-out and abandoned places where teenagers used to hold hands is one of listless romanticism or pure, wistful depression. There is the sadness at such a dreary image, but there is the joy at feeling such sadness. And you - yes, silly girl, you - you know what I'm talking about. I see you standing there staring at the overgrown foundations with a sparkle of what you want to be a tear waiting in the corner of your eye for you to muster enough feeling to force it out, because we all know crying is a hell of a lot better than the tormented in-betweenness I see you living, always drifting between the shores but never quite settling on either one.

the dancer

The slow silk waterfall caresses her skin, dancing down her arm and weaving its way around her wrist, a ribbon of meaning from a stream of thought that usually flows too subtly for there to be much commotion about it.  She smiles the sad smile that makes me long to be seen, for there is not enough in me to offer all the love she draws out of me.  She tosses the white scarf more securely over her shoulder - somehow it remains dry in the midst of the water - and dances gracefully to the riverbank, and with a playful wink and a child's laughter she is lost in the trees.  Yet when I listen, I can hear her song, soft and pure as no other could ever sing, and I feel certain that home cannot be far away.

Melancholy

Blotted ink is scattered across the crumpled scrap of notebook paper, spilling blackened feelings and hidden dreams in a futile effort only good in fairy tales and romances, where flowers and chocolates give way to perfect speeches in perfect rain with a perfect soundtrack.  But I don't have a soundtrack and without that the rest is all in vain, having no more worth than the words of good intention from the talking dummies in the store window, programmed to say all the wrong things for all the right reasons but never able to break through into the bitter reality that only the living know.

Dashboard

Broken glass and a torn screen in the door are signs that maybe the little shack in the middle of nowhere isn't all sunshine and dandylions, and the scattered dust leaves streaks and trails that could be from the frantic movements of a victim fending off a tall man with a knife, or they could be from the shackles dragged here by the already dead.  Sharp grating inside and cold blades outside are a cruel betrayal, because it was never meant to be this way.  But betrayal is a bit of a theme in this place, where there have been more drug deals gone bad than even in the apartment with the missing owner in town.  Twists and knots rake the once untattered brown cord of history that the shack throws across the void that is.  What nobody knows is the builder is still alive, and now he's just praying for someone to give him a lighter so he can cauterize the wound and stop the fraying then and there, before it continues.  Then maybe he'll grab his tools and put new pastel-colored shutters on the place, or maybe he'll just grab his kerosine and burn it all to the ground.

The Prophet

The dazzling blue flashes stab to the back of my brain with swords sharper than steel, the "ker-chicks" and "ca-chuffs" filling the void around me as I stand patiently waiting the camera to do the spiffy three-sixty swirl that the director loves so much and the lights to come on behind me, silhouetting my figure and making it seem as if I'm some sort of angel sent to berate you for your crimes against God.  But I lost my wings long ago in a hideous battle with myself (there were machetes and chainsaws), and now I stand center-stage to unwelcome applause and unmerited attention wondering, pardonnez mon français, exactly what the fuck I'm supposed to make of it all.  Somewhere out there a woman hikes up her skirt a little too high, and a man holds up his fist and shouts that the revolution is here while the bloated stick-limbed children clamber out of their dung huts, their spindly fingers grasping for food that only Santa Claus can bring and Donner and Blitzen died in a tragic sleigh accident so there goes that hope.  But here I am, alone, fully clothed and utterly uninteresting, hoping that if I try real hard I can sink into the polished woodwork of the stage and pretend that it was meant for someone else all along.

A Secret Place

Somewhere between the bending birch and the murky creek is a soul I once befriended, nameless in the air of the golden wood but well known to every one of the birds that make their homes here, sheltered well from the cats that creep out only after dark and unaware that there is ever a star or a cloud.  I wonder aloud why it is that the seeds carried on the wind denote a presence long since forgotten, but celebrate that there is such a buzz as the one that drifts into my window even now.  The gentle rhythm and molasses clock put me at ease despite the race that's starting just outside my door, and for now I can lay back and become nothing more than somebody's whisper.

Gabriel

The thunderclouds roll in only after the alarm has ceased, the shrill piercing gone and the birds at ease and ready to be snatched up by the tall man in the dark cloak who watches us all with the worst of intentions.  She saw everything despite the failed eyes, spoke words meant precisely for each mortal ear on which they fell, and there could be no denying the waves that lapped merrily in celebration of something beyond all word and feeling.  She was, after all, an angel, and now she's home again.

Crickside

Collections of thoughts on shuffle mode float through my head like drunken hornets, knowing not who they are or where they came from or where they're going but knowing full well that they want to sting me until I'm numb from the pain. I wish they would; numb me, that is, for the sporradic jabs of their stingers aren't doing me any good here tonight. The desk light isn't the sun and the serendipitous ventures of the moon just don't compare to the cool summer breeze that finds me sitting on a fallen tree over the river, watching people go by in kayaks and wishing like hell I were born five hundred years from now in either direction. A pointless wish from a dreamy little boy, a boy who's beginning to think manhood is a lie.

Of Penguins and Polar Bears

The still betrays me, dancing across the pavement and obvious now to myself, watching as I am from the rough wooden tower that is guarded by bears and overlooks a crystal clear lake that you wouldn't think could survive this much pollution.  Yet again I've torn the leaves from a perfectly good tree, but if only they hadn't caught my eye with stars the size of my head then I could be smiling and having tea with penguins and polar bears, who have never shared a home yet unite in their frigid reception that does no good to my Birkenstocks and Lipton.  One day the aurora will sparkle again and there will be no hole in the ice through which to plunge, and maybe the music on the sheet will translate into something with meaning.  Meanwhile, I've nothing but the rain and a piano part that makes me wish I were in a bar, serenading me into yesterday's forever.

The Adversary

The gun lies there in the dirt, matte and maniacal and begging for an enemy, but there are only victims here, half-hidden in the murky shadows of eyelashes and silently screaming for a voice because I've become all too good at tuning them out. But I have my own quest, gun and bullets and all, and I can't be bothered with the stifled moans of the already dying because if I move an inch I'll join them swirling down into the event horizon of eternal blackness. I was knighted once by someone who didn't matter and given a quest of my very own, but what becomes of the knight when the quest proves impossible and his only purpose becomes existence itself? Does he push futilely onward for king and honor, or is it long since time to put up the armor and rejoin the bleached and bland reality of second choices and forever regrets?

Candles

There's something more than what I see.  Something beneath the surface, a place that exists somewhere between wakefulness and dreams.  A world set against the color red I see when I close my eyes and look towards a light, a world of shadows and truths... a layer somewhere between my heart and my mind, where feelings and words blend together into an inexplicable mixture that even I can't decipher when I look it over.

Why am I here?  Why are we here?  Life is the ultimate in circular reasoning... we have life so that we may help others with their life, yet they have life for the same reason... we have life to enjoy it, but that doesn't explain its purpose in the first place.  The answer's there, somewhere... written in a language nobody speaks and hidden in the intricate designs of every leaf of every tree, and translatable only in a flame, where if you look long and hard enough you can see the bridge... you just can't see how to cross it.

Cake.  That's what I call it sometimes... life is frosting, but beneath it somewhere there's a cake... a cake we never really get to enjoy, though we get a hint of a taste in those rare instances when there's such a connection between us and the world around us that we can almost hear music; the soundtrack to our life that almost singlehandedly gives it meaning, though we still don't know what.

I've abused every cliche in an effort to find it.  I've run into the empty field at night and screamed myself hoarse at the unanswering stars, I've prayed and prayed to God for an answer, I've wished on every shooting star and every eyelash, longing with a tortured self I don't even recognize to have my eyes opened to something else.

You know what I mean?

Unspeakable

I stand alone in the dawn on a field of rolling hills with flowers and bugs and cold and I wish it could have stayed like this forever instead of fifteen minutes, but soon the sun will be up and everything will be painfully clear and I'll run and run and try to improve the time but I'll only end up exhausted and worn out and waiting for another night to fall so I can see clearly the fox who skirts the edges of my life with a smirk, seeing nothing but my failures and inadequacies, my sins and ignorances, my attacks and betrayals. To him there is no me, there is only what is wrong with me, and his eyes look more and more like mine every time I see him. I wonder how long it'll be before the sun goes behind the clouds forever and the eternal dusk will set in; the world lingering on the edge of blackness, flirting with the dark and toying with the sentiments of all those who fear to walk in the night. I stand alone in the dawn on a field that isn't here, looking out at the hills that don't exist and wishing with every ounce of my being that this world will emerge from the flickering candle and replace the one I don't want, because in all truth there never was a dawn, and there never will be.