07/22/2005
When you're traveling
at high speed and you're right up against the glass, it's hard to determine the
passing landscape but for what looms larger in the intermediate and far away
planes. What is passed intimately and waves in the wake is a
blur.
Went back to Nashville for the first time
in maybe four years. The legacy of my Mother's family there is nearly a
ghost. Scattered and common are the children and grandchildren. My
Brother and I took our Mom to see her parents' graves and it produced no
noticeable effect on her. It seemed as if she didn't even understand why
she was there or recognize the names. A fog, perhaps, deliberate or
coincidental. In seeing some of my own old friends I was impressed.
I've typed three times in this space and erased each summation as not
satisfying. Maybe still too close or I'm not focused. In any case I
had a genuine visit. I was struck by how easily the friendships updated to
be contemporary. It may have been a blast from the past for us to be
together, but I felt no pretense of reliving old days. All I need is
another 32 years, a rocking chair and a porch to put it on, then I can become
nostalgic.
I was talking to someone about
summiting mountains. As you crest each rise it seems that surely the next
is the top. You look up, see the trail and know the climbing you'll do to
arrive beyond it, do the climbing and then repeat. With any providence you
reach the point where you can't get any higher. You can look out and see
the trail only falling away, the view, and then know you've done it. I
feel like I've been resting, windwhipped on a ridge, and now it's time to rise
and hike to the next. Now that Mom has given her blessing on a retirement
home, I see visiting her for the last time in Texas, making plans, arranging
movers, delivering her and her stuff, getting her acclimated, and settling into
a routine of visits. Punctuating that work is my own agenda of preparing
for Burning Man, the journey and the return. Morbid that I just made my
Mom's death analagous to overcoming: a victory and a relief. I feel it
would be that for her so why not? Death is just not celebrated in this
culture.
07/20/2005
I've been traveling and busy and was
excited to update my journal after fueling myself on a few hours sleep and a
bowl of Fruity Pebbles. But instead and without a complaint, I am now off
to look at my Mom's new apartment (maybe, if she gets it) with my Brother.
Pretty cool. I'll guess I'll catch up with myself
later.
07/05/2005
The Sixth Annual 4th of July Party at
my house blazed by my humble hopes. Although it is the first time, that I
recall, it wasn't on the 4th. Venessa helped out selflessly. All the
folks that showed up, I want to thank you for your shine, your vittles and for
floating the keg. I've got so much to talk about, I'm just watching the
cursor.
Happy Birthday! There's a few around
now...
I abandoned the city to it's 4th
foolishness and headed for my cabin after the party and then my Dad's place over
the holiday. At the cabin I have all the stuff you don't want cluttering
your workaday home like old school papers, artwork, and odd furniture.
It's a great environment to putter around in your head revisiting and revising
your history. I burned a lot of junk. I also burned some not so
junky personal writing I didn't need. I wrote a lot of crap, I mean bad in
most every way. I keep the gems and move on, probably writing what I'll
delete as crap in ten years.
I did find some
writing workshop papers from my favorite creative writing prof, Bob
Earleywine. He presided over workshops as if he were a failed father
earning repentance. He was often amused by himself when drunk, dismayed
when sober, deeply invested in the writings handed in and reverent of
talent. He had lethal insights and the red slashes of his pen yelled,
"clarity; clarity and lyricism!". I felt his battle with me and my
spouting of adjectives: flying out in clumps of three. He objected to my
obsessing on details, to my inclusion of irrelevance because I was hoping one
object or detail or quality of light (count the three items) would be the crux
upon which epiphany would pivot. I never fell out of love with words and
Earleywine loved efficiency: the stoics, the sparse codes of severe
parsing. One of the few phrases we both hung onto was the "economy of
words". His was precious, harshly lit in contrast, like morse code or the
Soviet Union. Mine was organic and infinitely colored like the
pixelization of flowers or the fertile Genesis. Night was a thousand
exquisite shades to me, one beautiful darkness to him. I have to say I see
both now. I struggle for balance, envy the efficiency and clarity of the
greats and fall often in my own yard, rarely in his. I left him with some
most spectacular flailings. I don't know why he singled it out of one
exercise, maybe he was falling in love with a dark haired woman, spending the
midwestern springtime evenings on the biergarten patio of O'Connell's pub, but
he liked this line:
"Six long seconds kissing
you drowned twenty years of tears and glue".
It
still sounds a bit quaint to me, rhyming like the stuff of country songs.
I respected Earleywine's opinion and blame him for telling me I had a natural
and rich talent for writing and here I
write.
08/09/05
I had a dream two nights ago where the
playa was literally the externalized landscape of my heart and mind. All
that was being felt or contemplated was represented by different structures or
installations upon the barren landscape. The scope of my awareness was
ringed by the mountain ranges, containing a vast space within. Friends,
family, plans, hopes, dilemmas, hurts, were like pieces on a desert board.
I moved through them, out of my body, in the daylight as they rearranged
themselves to reflect my thoughts and feelings, shuffling through the dust like
a mechanical theater set. A multistory piece moved to face me, reaching
away into the blue, coming to rest at the center of the playa, towering like the
Queen on a chessboard but matching my hovering perspective. It was mostly
regular, each floor smaller like the platforms of a derrick, but it had artful
flourishes off each joist like David Best's temples and there were fabrics,
draped and flowing from each landing, concealing elements of its design, its
substructure behind blacks, velvety blues, wines and purples. I looked up
the word tower as a symbol, already knowing it was a gift of love, the tower
analogous in utility to my ladder on my homepage and wasn't disappointed.
A "determinative sign denoting height or the act of rising above the common
level in life or society... symbolic of ascent... where material height
implies spiritual elevation... as the ladder- linking earth and heaven...
transformation and evolution... its upward impulse may be accompanied by a
deepening movement; the greater the height, the deeper the foundations" from
J.E. Cirlot's "A Dictionary of Symbols". For further insight, read the
quote o'the day.
I also dreamt that same night
that I was crossing 32nd near Lowell in the Highlands and dropped flat to the
ground as three cars ran me over. I popped back up with some dirt and
scrapes and marveled that I am not a thin man and somehow they went right over
me. Why three? Why wasn't I afraid and why was it so cartoonish? That's
not one I've dreamt before... I'll work on that one. Last night I
dreamt Elise and I were at the cabin when a huge nighttime electrical
thunderstorm blew up. Earlier in an email to her I had characterized a
deep anger as a wildcat well covering everything with burning black, leaving the
eyes to be as white embers. A power outtage and pitch black between
lightning strikes has the same effect after dilating your pupils, but the embers
were not filled with rage.
08/02/05
You run to the tree on Christmas and
there's one magnificent present you desire most. Each one will have its
place, its time in your play, but the hunger for the one draws you to it.
As a child it made you tremble in joy, freed in giggles and your eyes closed as
you rocked onto your back holding it, pressed against your young body.
It's not my precious, it is no thing, it is love. Years could go by
without it, you could grow so lonely and tired and blue that your eyes became
like rocks and your heart a cold baked potato. Or you could give it to
yourself. It wells up within and makes you so grateful for your eyes like
rocks that you want to take them out and sleep with them under your
pillow. Or maybe you have rocks for a pillow and you're alone and cold,
but still you love them and yourself because they're as free as you feel.
In any case, it does not diminish unless hoarded and you have to give it to
yourself before you can start giving it away.
If
it doesn't feel like mine, can not be diminished, never runs out, and can not be
fabricated, where does it come from? Like the miracle of the loaves, fishes, and
the silly putty. I don't know, but nothing beats a matched pair. The
feedback loop is like crossing the streams, much more than the simple sum of
their flow.
09/10/2005
Welcome to all, welcome back to some!
Wow Burning Man took a chunk of time away from this hobby. Hmm, I am still
decompressing from Burning Man. My back yard and garage are littered with
playatized items to be cleaned or returned to their owner. Edwin and I
weathered the return drive just fine and I am proud to say that our state of
preparedness and tool repertoire turned a mechanical failure from a two day
delay to be repaired by the auto shop into a three hour roadside alternator
transplant. The folks working at Checker Auto Parts in Rock Springs,
Wyoming earned a cold six pack of Tecate from
Edwin.
Our camp held together with very little
stress... even with the BLM rangers grouping and grunting around us, it all fell
away quickly. Ian's sink and Edwin's dome and music added so much to the
evolving camp. Lee Lee and her parents fed us well. The art presence
was much stronger again and the whole event went smoothly for me. It may
have gone a little too smoothly. After the first two applications of
Burning Man I got used to the upheaval, the deconstruction, and the immediate
rush that is the gift of life. The community was still there for me and I
met the greatest folks yet, but there were differences. In some aspects I
let myself down by not following through on volunteering
again.
I watched the two major burns from a
distance this year: the Man and the Temple. The momentum of the
transformation within my life requiring a detachment, a somber distance, as I
feel the earthquake of true love in my life again and the heft of my Mom
continuing her decline.
The first morning out of the event we learned that Mom's dog Tessie had had
exploratory surgery reveal cancer so progressed that they didn't wake her from
the surgery. So deeper she drifted, away to rest as if on the floor of the
ocean. I say goodbye to her here because some of you knew her and know the
hole she has left in our family. Every child is exceptional in their
parent's eyes and I had a good friend tell me that my relationship with that dog
was the closest my heart had come to feeling like a
father.
I missed being home so much this year
and I thank all of you for sharing our lives. I look forward to touching
base with everyone.
"Freedom is the ability to feel love for everyone" - Mason
Jennings
09/15/2005
Things are definitely picking up
speed. I have resorted to updating my webjournal while waiting at the gate
at DIA. I had hoped that a day or two at the end of last week after I
returned from Burning Man would be enough to feel decompressed and to mourn
Tessie, but I don't feel like I quite got there. Life intrudes on my own
hopes, even if I invited it I still end up whining a little. Elise and I
had a very intense few days. I don't understand how we maintain but the
amount of love is astounding. There's a cat now living at my house.
I expect a lot of shock from people who know me well. I'm adjusting... so
much hair. I realize how I must be getting old, accustomed to my ways and
how love changes all of that. I felt happy in my set ways but I'm sure
brittle bitter senility was just around the corner and now growth, change, and
development push it further down the road. Even before Elise and I
illustrated a lesson to each other, I've found myself taking my honesty to new
levels. A few weeks ago an old friend from Nashville, with whom I haven't
spoken in a long time, remarked on just that. I hope it's a good thing...
it's not without love. The Authentic Self class I went to at Burning Man,
while mostly borderline in utility to me, had some good gems including the fact
that honesty inspires courage in others to be honest as well, elevating
communication between all parties and that the authentic person repels the
non-genuine person, the liar. It's hopeful thought. I have more to
write but the demands of the default world and it's logistical needs are bearing
down on me. I must make phone calls.
09/27/2005
To be fair, most of this entry is
from an email I sent to Elise, but I edited a bit and felt it broadcast my state
fairly well.
I brushed up against it
tonight.
Something like the
torrent within of
panic and loss, a dark sea storm.
Like the devastation felt by those who are
broken,
alone, having lost everything... the terror of reserve
troops
watching the front line fall, themselves
becoming the front line, no longer
on deck, but
fighting off your knees. Bare fisted, heaving,
knowing
there is no more hope to lose as your home
becomes a grave and sinks away
into the tide carrying
all you ever held dear, cherished or brought
warmth
into your heart and the wetness to your hot
tears.
A blackness without spring,
a dead soil, is left.
Wherever the soul resides, what part of me it calls home, cried out and felt a great rushing in. I felt it as I closed boxes on lifetimes of accumulated treasure, mementos from her parents parents until the stories were forgotten and the things were holy. They said nothing to me as I felt myself laying them to rest in the modern and foreign sterility of bubble wrap. I finished and lay horizontal across the foot of my Mom's bed, uncomforted. Where is the dog? She had always lept next to me before I'd even finished laying myself down. I know her ashes are in a cardboard box in the hall closet waiting for me. I think of the cancer that filled her spleen, tore at her, filling her eyes with the sad panic of denying her heart's one wish: family. She knew she was losing, soon no longer able to be at anyone's side. I had seen the look in the dog's eyes, a pleading, and had thought I would rescue her from our sick and crazy mother. I am here now, taking it all away, folding and packing this life into parcels knowing some of them won't be reopened until I am the front line, opening them alone as my own... and even some maybe never. I realize I am too late for Tessie, but that she wants to be buried with my Mom.
And my Mom, from the silence asks me, "Where is
Edwin?"
For this I risk my sanity, sacrifice my irreplaceable
time.
I feel the cry within me grow louder
and I call my own phone line, long distance, leaving a message. The love I
feel is the echo that braces me into the wind, knowing if it resounds off the
cliffs somewhere away in the dark, I can hold my eyes closed against the storm
and know I am found, that I still face my obstacle. I reach out and my
fingers hit the wet rocks. I put my hands on the holds in the cold face
and lift myself up.
09/28/2005
I realize that most folks read left
to right, top to bottom, so some of the journal pages are awkward to read
chronologically. I rearranged it for September and promise to try
henceforth.
After yesterday's entry I feel
better. The storm is still here, the resonance continuing... a bit of a
dark corner for me. I feel good though, like having a spooky moment alone
in a chapel... you know to fear nothing but your hackles still reflect an
arousal. I have more to say but it's still too
latent.
Weather is so metaphorically
abused.
Time being the illusion that it is, was
mauled today as my watch is still set on pacific, my computer reading mountain,
and the clock over my shoulder chiming central. I told the computer to
auto update and I watched 43 minutes go by in one
minute.
I
hope people perceive me as thorough and careful because I have two casualties
just from the packing. One was especially wrong. I picked up a
sculpture of two horses, one that is heavy with the look of cast patina
bronze. I held it by the body and a leg shattered, the base swinging in an
arc of falling horse leg bits, bending on a heavy wire encased within the
leg. I wrapped it up and put it in the box. The pieces on the floor
so small, worthless. I felt the broken statue riding in it's cocoon to be
worthless now as well. Repaired eventually or not, the violence made me
more weary. Oh well, I keep repeating. Given the vast quantities of
impossibly fragile stuff, I think I'm doing very well. We'll see what
makes it to Colorado.
Anybody know of a killer studio/warehouse style loft? After this whole Mom thing
is settled I'm going to need a project to work it through, a closing and a new
beginning. I hate to say I feel the Grove house too compartmentalized
these days. I took that heavy thought with me to Burning Man and came back
with a green light hanging above my intersection. I'm ready to merge the
creative music and garage aspects that are compromised at my house. I'm
tired of having many tiny rooms. Maybe it could be vicarious through a
Blackspot cafe, but I don't know. Maybe I just need to take out walls and
redo flooring. I would miss much, the coziness, the reliability, the
centrality. Reading architecture books and thinking how spaces facilitate
exchanges and how spatial context dictates content makes me feel confined.
The stuff owns you. I am no modernist, no dadaist, but something unique
and emancipating awaits my discovery, I feel it. Like molting, like
metamorphosis. Stay with me.