6/23/09-
My life has been reduced to a single point. It is a point of balance, where, reared on the balls of my feet, shoes just tied and ready to take that first step, I exist for a single second between two worlds. One world before running; that from the point of waking everything is merely preparation for running. The other after that first step and quelled storm of worries, less a series of events and more a flow of released life and a stream of inhaled and exhaled breath. My quiet celebration.
I run and that has made all the difference. I leave at night, just as the sun fades from this world, but before the stars shine in glory. My first few steps go past an opening in the the endless pattern of houses. Through that gap I see the city and through the city I see the dark alleys and streets; the veins of some huge, slumbering beast. My legs have grown solid and I run all night, coming in as the sun peaks out over the horizon. And its glorious, to see downtown grow in my mind. Its like an organic animal, evolved from choices of survival and inhabited by creatures seeking also the music of the night.
I feel more at peace now. More defined by drops of sweat I leave on the pavement than any opinion, material object or relationship I ever had in the light of day. The echoes of my feet or some long-off shout are the only sounds. Sometimes I run out to the very edge of the piers that line the water-front. I go and crouch on the edge of the wood. Water laps at the barnacle-eaten posts underneath, invisible in the night. I often take a few minutes of rest and look out at the few lights shining on the black hills across the water. I was there and now I`m here, a seemingly profound statement, but only so now, at this moment.
7/14/09-
This running is taking over the light of my day. The world of bright color is now pleasant and endurable but holds little interest in comparison with my nightly tests of running. And it is truly a test. Every night a definite challenge to return home to my wife, work and the unneeded routine. Someday, and I fear I am very serious, I will reach the crossroads to my house and stop, stare down that stretch of cement and turn outward, headed for the far horizon and an unexplored road. I met another runner, a woman who has joined my excursions in the same manner, desperately seeking an avenue for some consuming energy. We have become united in the passion of blowing wind, ragged gasps of air and the silence of an empty street. I now know there are others out there of a similar nature, that our group will grow in time. And the question keeps coming, "What if we kept running? Where would it lead?"
8/4/09-
Tonight I packed a few changes of clothes, money and this notebook into a running backpack. My shoes sit next to me, beckoning of the open road. I can`t think beyond leaving this house, I don`t know where the road will lead tonight. But its just such a brimming sensation I feel, that tonight I`ll reach those crossroads and not be able to run back to this house, that the pale light of dawn will shine down on an untrodden path. So I packed and so I kissed my sleeping wife lightly, the last time and sit here at my desk. Its growing darker and a cool wind blows through an open window, bringing scents of the ocean and the final remnants of summer. Its the forerunner of the unknown and it calls stronger than I`ve ever known.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Forever Running pt. 1
5/16/09-
I am so tired. A long day made hellish by a commute entrapped between endless lines of steel. The beautiful morning sun rendered ugly by its glint on hundreds of cars that never change. The glow of a fading, golden sky ruined by stop and go traffic, the red lights turning into a flowing blood-red river in front of my bleary eyes. I curse the noise and pollution of the city after leaving the quiet morning peace of my suburban home. I curse the desolate emptiness and flickering screens of televisions on the row after row of sunken, slumped residential houses. And god! tonight I sat in my car, the interior silent except for the eternal ticking of the cooling engine, ticking louder and louder, punctuating a wasted life, time hissing away into the dark. I was afraid. Afraid to go in to my wife and her world of repetitive madness. Afraid to start the car and drive off into the night, somewhere far away, but where? I was lost and afraid, mad at myself for being mad at the world. All I could do was think of lies to tell my waiting wife, pleasantries and lies about work. Lies to cover up the drowning sensation I feel in the office, lies to hide the shadows slithering over my heart at the thoughts of another day of meaningless forms and lines of code. What can I do? Sleep just holds dreams of further disappointment.......
The wind from the open window feels so good. It speaks to me of land beyond horizons and sights to breathe in. Maybe Ill go for a run.
6/3/09-
Damn! I have discovered a new world since last I wrote. I can feel the trapped despair underneath those words and see the frantic energy that was looking for an escape. Well I found it! That night I put on my Nikes and set out through the ghostly-silent side streets of West Seattle. The only goal in my head was loosing the black emotion for a few miles. In the time others were burying themselves in warm pillows and lover`s dreams I hit the open beach of Alki and the cold winds of coastal Washington. There was such a loneliness in those moments, a loneliness born of failure. Failure to find any real connection in the waking world. I saw then that the moon had risen out over the water, its light jumping over the waves in time with the bobbing lope of my stride. The streets of the great city shown powerfully through the inky darkness and suddenly I felt centered, connected. A connection to the simple exertion of running and the bright pinpoints of lights off through the night that spoke of life elsewhere in the world. It blew away the isolation of the past few years and provided a new state of mind awash with a picture of the night environment and the excitement it held for me. I ran deep and I ran strong, finding a well of energy that had lain dormant for many years. I returned to my house well after midnight and slept free of any pursuing dreams.
I am so tired. A long day made hellish by a commute entrapped between endless lines of steel. The beautiful morning sun rendered ugly by its glint on hundreds of cars that never change. The glow of a fading, golden sky ruined by stop and go traffic, the red lights turning into a flowing blood-red river in front of my bleary eyes. I curse the noise and pollution of the city after leaving the quiet morning peace of my suburban home. I curse the desolate emptiness and flickering screens of televisions on the row after row of sunken, slumped residential houses. And god! tonight I sat in my car, the interior silent except for the eternal ticking of the cooling engine, ticking louder and louder, punctuating a wasted life, time hissing away into the dark. I was afraid. Afraid to go in to my wife and her world of repetitive madness. Afraid to start the car and drive off into the night, somewhere far away, but where? I was lost and afraid, mad at myself for being mad at the world. All I could do was think of lies to tell my waiting wife, pleasantries and lies about work. Lies to cover up the drowning sensation I feel in the office, lies to hide the shadows slithering over my heart at the thoughts of another day of meaningless forms and lines of code. What can I do? Sleep just holds dreams of further disappointment.......
The wind from the open window feels so good. It speaks to me of land beyond horizons and sights to breathe in. Maybe Ill go for a run.
6/3/09-
Damn! I have discovered a new world since last I wrote. I can feel the trapped despair underneath those words and see the frantic energy that was looking for an escape. Well I found it! That night I put on my Nikes and set out through the ghostly-silent side streets of West Seattle. The only goal in my head was loosing the black emotion for a few miles. In the time others were burying themselves in warm pillows and lover`s dreams I hit the open beach of Alki and the cold winds of coastal Washington. There was such a loneliness in those moments, a loneliness born of failure. Failure to find any real connection in the waking world. I saw then that the moon had risen out over the water, its light jumping over the waves in time with the bobbing lope of my stride. The streets of the great city shown powerfully through the inky darkness and suddenly I felt centered, connected. A connection to the simple exertion of running and the bright pinpoints of lights off through the night that spoke of life elsewhere in the world. It blew away the isolation of the past few years and provided a new state of mind awash with a picture of the night environment and the excitement it held for me. I ran deep and I ran strong, finding a well of energy that had lain dormant for many years. I returned to my house well after midnight and slept free of any pursuing dreams.
Bouncing thoughts inside Seattle Art Museum
The bare halls echoed with the footfalls of the many volunteers of the morning, all spreading outward through the museum. Benches were set up, pamphlets laid out and videos started. We all wore blue dress shirts and black pants, the uniform of allegiance to art, caretakers of knowledge and information. It was 10 min to eight, a small space of time before being inundated by throngs of people. They would come to poke and prod, confident in their classification of art. Men and women dragging small children in front of presences of grand ideas, hoping the wisdom of the ages would prick through layers of mucus plastered on by all their differing loyalties. What chance does art have with young minds already fiercely fought over by school, television, homework, social activities and a thousand branching day-dreams of a healthy youth?
Sometimes I see a child, separated from their parents, standing, silently staring up at some master-piece. Their fingers clasped in rapt attention and body rigid with concentration. I can see the questions the child has, motes of light dancing within the white orbs of their eyes. Yet, their faces are wrinkled with the frustration at the attempts to form these questions on her lips. I want to go to that child and stop time, unravel the curious and uncertain questions that halt all the thinking in her mind. Its so precious and fragile, these moments in a child`s life. She can learn that some feelings and emotions can never be properly found. Or, with the wisdom of someone older, see the possibilities in those strong urgings and learn the value of patience in explaining them.
There is a statue in the left wing that I often wander by, recessed in a corner and easily dismissed by roving eyes. I come often when the crowds thin to stare into the marble eyes or embrace with my sight the subtly crafted contours of its cheeks and temples. This statue is what drives me to lead children`s school trips or volunteer to assist those small people that stand bewildered with questioning eyes. You see the statue in question is a small girl, about 5-8 yrs old, the daughter of some noble parentage.
The longer I stare at it during my borrowed time the more I see into the depths of the artist`s passion of creation that resulted in this vision of youth. It was not the idealized or romanticized version of childhood painted with the all too-confident brush of adulthood. It was also not a simplistic, cute depiction of the beauty of youth untouched by the troubles of burgeoning womanhood or even being on the cusp of awareness of a larger, more formalized world. A pure gaze held forth from the eyes that seemed to see the world free of guilt and unburdened by any religious filters or the patch work mesh of re-written history. It was very characteristic of that infuriating answer of children to any adult`s question; "Why? Because." The pose of her mouth and jutting taunt temples brought to mind the unapologetic attitude of children before we attach the word stubborn upon them. Forgiveness seems a foreign concept, selfishness not yet learned. When I close my eyes in the time after work, sitting on the bus bound for home or in a coffee house, face pressed to the glass watching the fain fall, I see a symbol of that statue. It is a confident face reaching out with a muscular hand to grasp the world in a firm hold. Not a sign of domination but complete control over each of our own worlds.
This is the influence of art and the reason I volunteer to help shine the light of wisdom upon it. Each day I hope to reach just one person. To help them realize the complex machinations hidden within these simple objects. And so I will walk over towards any child that is drawn to something undefinable in the painting. That`s my art, my vocation, defining the intricate for the future creators of greatness. Just one step in the process.
Sometimes I see a child, separated from their parents, standing, silently staring up at some master-piece. Their fingers clasped in rapt attention and body rigid with concentration. I can see the questions the child has, motes of light dancing within the white orbs of their eyes. Yet, their faces are wrinkled with the frustration at the attempts to form these questions on her lips. I want to go to that child and stop time, unravel the curious and uncertain questions that halt all the thinking in her mind. Its so precious and fragile, these moments in a child`s life. She can learn that some feelings and emotions can never be properly found. Or, with the wisdom of someone older, see the possibilities in those strong urgings and learn the value of patience in explaining them.
There is a statue in the left wing that I often wander by, recessed in a corner and easily dismissed by roving eyes. I come often when the crowds thin to stare into the marble eyes or embrace with my sight the subtly crafted contours of its cheeks and temples. This statue is what drives me to lead children`s school trips or volunteer to assist those small people that stand bewildered with questioning eyes. You see the statue in question is a small girl, about 5-8 yrs old, the daughter of some noble parentage.
The longer I stare at it during my borrowed time the more I see into the depths of the artist`s passion of creation that resulted in this vision of youth. It was not the idealized or romanticized version of childhood painted with the all too-confident brush of adulthood. It was also not a simplistic, cute depiction of the beauty of youth untouched by the troubles of burgeoning womanhood or even being on the cusp of awareness of a larger, more formalized world. A pure gaze held forth from the eyes that seemed to see the world free of guilt and unburdened by any religious filters or the patch work mesh of re-written history. It was very characteristic of that infuriating answer of children to any adult`s question; "Why? Because." The pose of her mouth and jutting taunt temples brought to mind the unapologetic attitude of children before we attach the word stubborn upon them. Forgiveness seems a foreign concept, selfishness not yet learned. When I close my eyes in the time after work, sitting on the bus bound for home or in a coffee house, face pressed to the glass watching the fain fall, I see a symbol of that statue. It is a confident face reaching out with a muscular hand to grasp the world in a firm hold. Not a sign of domination but complete control over each of our own worlds.
This is the influence of art and the reason I volunteer to help shine the light of wisdom upon it. Each day I hope to reach just one person. To help them realize the complex machinations hidden within these simple objects. And so I will walk over towards any child that is drawn to something undefinable in the painting. That`s my art, my vocation, defining the intricate for the future creators of greatness. Just one step in the process.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
From the cold to the bold
Stale and cold, a dead end up here. The men at the bar would sit on these stoold until the end of time, sipping beer and lost in the glory days of the past. I had shanked, cut, peeled and eaten fish for two long years, filling my pocket with money but leaving my spirit hooked on the door of the small shanty where I lived. I had stayed in this village of slaves to the sea too long, drinking my beer in this seat everyday, trying to kill the boredom between bouts of sailing. But, as I stood up and looked around, there comes a day when the spirit of a man can no longer be shoved aside and instead demands to be heard upon his whole being! That day had come and, thus liberated I no longer felt the shackles of finance and comfort. A man stumbled in suddenly, letting in a shower of white flakes to fall on the dirty sawdust of the floor. I was there, before the door could fall shut, with fingers gripping the wood and throwing it open. Outside the door snow blanketed everything, the fringe land of a solemn and uncaring world. I shrugged my pack on and took a deep breath. "The first step is always the hardest," I muttered. The first step on an unknown journey into a world that cared nothing for heroes or dreamers. The second step followed the first, a little easier. Soon I had faded into the snowy mists, away from the warmth of the firelight that was the small village. The falling snow covered the footprints behind, leaving no path behind and no direction but forward.
It has now been two months since I left that little corner of stagnant comfort and I sometimes miss the steady arduous work to lose myself in. But it is my first time in the coastal waters of Washington and I find the myriad tiny islands, scattered about like flower petals in the rain, strangely appealing. In Canada I met with a vagrant girl looking to make it to California and so volunteered to accompany her for some time. Since then we have made a leisurely pace affecting the role of lovers from Europe researching locations for a book. We have chartered many a boat to visit sometimes gloomy islands, sometimes fantastical bastions of peace and silence. Great forests of green rise out of gray bedrock with blankets of fog threading through the trees. The locals are at once rude and extremely jealous of their privacy yet often turn suddenly about and share all they have with wanderers such as us. It is as if they wish to make sure you carry no taint or trace of the great city that haunts the west coast of the Pugent Sound before they dare show any honesty. I spent many a night on these small beaches, a roaring fire and good friends all around. Often the night held strong and clear, the atmosphere made magical by the popping embers trailing off into the starry night. But I still can`t quite quell the desire for something more, something complex that exists in my mind as a jumbled knot of images and ideas.
So I have again left another life behind, one of possible peace and fulfillment in rustic living to seek out a vague calling. I am on a boat bound for the city of Seattle. A city I have heard spoken of as one of contradictions: enlightenment in its open-handedness towards all life-styles; cynical and hypocritical with each other. A land of towers reaching to the sky, of buildings designed to the whims of a man`s artistic muse. Yet word reaches my ear of people that suffer in slums and back-alleys, fight over ideology and the right to love. I cannot even believe to hear about the constant stream of cars, noise and arguments that fill the city to the brim. All, though, fade into a mere gnat`s buzzing at the first sight of Seattle`s profile rising up to the horizon across the ocean. Such shapes, so boldly raised and proclaimed! So bright and young, how orderly the arrangements of lines appear! "Surely here," I thought "here I could make it. Here I could find a ground fertile enough for what I wanted to do."
The boat drew nearer to the city, the buildings growing in size and detail until I could see the busy lives of the very people that inhabited it. "There" I stabbed a finger outward, talking for the future, "there. In the cement and glass, in the streets and squares, in the garbage and poor, and in the beautiful and pure, there I will learn this city, there I will find my answer and there I will plant a seed to save the world."
It has now been two months since I left that little corner of stagnant comfort and I sometimes miss the steady arduous work to lose myself in. But it is my first time in the coastal waters of Washington and I find the myriad tiny islands, scattered about like flower petals in the rain, strangely appealing. In Canada I met with a vagrant girl looking to make it to California and so volunteered to accompany her for some time. Since then we have made a leisurely pace affecting the role of lovers from Europe researching locations for a book. We have chartered many a boat to visit sometimes gloomy islands, sometimes fantastical bastions of peace and silence. Great forests of green rise out of gray bedrock with blankets of fog threading through the trees. The locals are at once rude and extremely jealous of their privacy yet often turn suddenly about and share all they have with wanderers such as us. It is as if they wish to make sure you carry no taint or trace of the great city that haunts the west coast of the Pugent Sound before they dare show any honesty. I spent many a night on these small beaches, a roaring fire and good friends all around. Often the night held strong and clear, the atmosphere made magical by the popping embers trailing off into the starry night. But I still can`t quite quell the desire for something more, something complex that exists in my mind as a jumbled knot of images and ideas.
So I have again left another life behind, one of possible peace and fulfillment in rustic living to seek out a vague calling. I am on a boat bound for the city of Seattle. A city I have heard spoken of as one of contradictions: enlightenment in its open-handedness towards all life-styles; cynical and hypocritical with each other. A land of towers reaching to the sky, of buildings designed to the whims of a man`s artistic muse. Yet word reaches my ear of people that suffer in slums and back-alleys, fight over ideology and the right to love. I cannot even believe to hear about the constant stream of cars, noise and arguments that fill the city to the brim. All, though, fade into a mere gnat`s buzzing at the first sight of Seattle`s profile rising up to the horizon across the ocean. Such shapes, so boldly raised and proclaimed! So bright and young, how orderly the arrangements of lines appear! "Surely here," I thought "here I could make it. Here I could find a ground fertile enough for what I wanted to do."
The boat drew nearer to the city, the buildings growing in size and detail until I could see the busy lives of the very people that inhabited it. "There" I stabbed a finger outward, talking for the future, "there. In the cement and glass, in the streets and squares, in the garbage and poor, and in the beautiful and pure, there I will learn this city, there I will find my answer and there I will plant a seed to save the world."
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Love in Lavender
"Two stars in all the heavens, having some business elsewhere, did entreat her eyes to sparkle in their stead. Her eyes shone so bright that had there been birds there they would have sung, thinking that it were not night. Her voice arose through the darkness, echoing in my ears, stroking with heavenly harmonies the very strings of my soul. And if it was only a night spent in her presence, it was a jewel of brilliance streaming through the airy regions of my memory bright and strong."
I put this poem deep in the filing cabinet in the corner of my cubicle. It had been two days since I met her, two days of anguish, spent shifting through accounting paperwork while I tried to quiet the heartache for her. But I couldn`t and it was slowly eroding my waking life. The affairs of the office now seemed so trivial, everything muted to a dull buzz next to the memory roaring in my head. Sam comes by to talk shop but its all I can do to just keep a professional face and I hear nothing of his questions. Jill, the secretary, who flirts with subtle undertones dropped by to say hi but all I see is the face of that lovely, mysterious girl. What do you do when love finds you unexpectedly and strikes with the passion of old? Love born not from a conscious choosing, a conscious desire of any collection of traits but romance, full of heart-searing endearment. What do you do when you find her......and lose her in the space of a night?
It was among a field of lavender and a backdrop of a burning sunset that we first met. A flier for the summer lavender festival over on the Olympic Peninsula had caught my eye and I was soon on a ferry bound for the far shore. I arrived on a sunny Saturday afternoon with butterflies and ladybugs aflutter in the air. The festival was setup around a large field of lavender overlooking the Pugent Sound with a dense, green forest surrounding. Food vendors and local artists had set up booths on the outskirts of the field and there was a large stage set smack in the middle of the blowing flowers. It was a beautiful setting and it took my mind off the dreary work I had waiting for me on Monday. So I spent the comfortable hours of a summer afternoon wondering among wares and attempting to catch the flowers in some resemblance of an artistic photograph.
The day progressed; shadows grew long; light becoming golden and setting a yellow halo behind every small stem of lavender that still blew faintly in the summer evening. In line with the general atmosphere and character of the people, a beautiful melody began to emanate from the clearing in the field. A trio of musicians stood tall, caressing from the strings of their violins a light but curiously deep rhythm. I was content there, to listen to the floating sounds and feel the summer night approaching. And at that moment the world as I knew it was sane and predictable and demanded nothing from me other than certain compromises. I saw my life then stretching out into perpetuity: step by step to the end. It was to change with the sip of apple cider.
I stood on the edge of the field, the hot beverage at my lips when I saw her. My heart aches even now when I think of her sitting there on a bench, hands folded in her lap watching the coming sunset. I was drawn over by the child-like intensity that she seemed to regard everything with. My second impression was of listening to her own music; something lost to others, a true individual melody. So it was that I had to repeat my offer of some cider before she lifted her eyes to mine. Ah, they were so pure and clear, free of any weight of the world. Her smile when she said yes was so plain and full of enjoyment I felt we had known each other for many a year. Her voice was soft like velvet and during the first few moments of shy conversation I felt a growing fondness for this young girl whose eyes glowed with an almost maniac energy. It felt like love and yet it was not, like a great pain but with no source.
I barely got her name before she laughed and suggested walking off into the field to view the sunset. So we stood there, the fragrance of lavender blending with the smell of earth and nature on the wind. I can`t remember what we talked about nor when I acted but I found myself listening to the drifting melody of a solo violin and holding her hand in a soft embrace. In my memory now there stands the two of us: waist deep among the flowers in a easy silence of understanding. Black silhouetted against a sky filled with an explosion of orange radiating from a brilliant globe of fire. Even as the world turned and the color faded, it did so just as passionately- leaving pale arcs of dying embers in the far off clouds. The stars came out in all their magnificence and filled the night with awe and wonder. We sat down on the cut stalks of sold flowers then and talked of philosophy, day-dreams and our secret hopes, things that seem so irrelevant in the light of day yet fuel the fire of life in the black darkness of night.
Not once did we talk of where we lived, what we did or even consider meeting again. Was that fate? To find love so strongly that it must exist only for a night or else burn out those involved? I don`t know and it drives me crazy; for we left the festival separately, each saying goodbye and our hands pulling apart reluctantly; the fingertips lingering together in a silent message of how much we wanted to say.
The four walls of a cubicle surround me now, pop music plays from a neighbors radio and I drown in paperwork every minute. But it fades and I think of her and feel a blazing heat of sadness and melancholy immediately supplanted by the desire to search the world for her. That feeling does not fade. I lean back against my computer chair and think of the days to come, days of her occupying my thoughts and dreams, long days of heart-numbing work and empty nights alone. My friends say "Time will heal the pang, memories will fade. Just give it time." In the midst of all this pain of thinking and dreading I can no longer see the future clearly and its as if a bell has rung my head clear. I don`t want the pain to go away and I don`t want the memories to fade because it her in my mind and they are all I have. And if the future is unclear and no longer a straight path to a dreary end then I have a choice.
It is another day and the bright morning sunshine fills me with an amazing strength and standing in the waving fields of lavender I feel hope that from this beginning, this choice, I will find her.
I put this poem deep in the filing cabinet in the corner of my cubicle. It had been two days since I met her, two days of anguish, spent shifting through accounting paperwork while I tried to quiet the heartache for her. But I couldn`t and it was slowly eroding my waking life. The affairs of the office now seemed so trivial, everything muted to a dull buzz next to the memory roaring in my head. Sam comes by to talk shop but its all I can do to just keep a professional face and I hear nothing of his questions. Jill, the secretary, who flirts with subtle undertones dropped by to say hi but all I see is the face of that lovely, mysterious girl. What do you do when love finds you unexpectedly and strikes with the passion of old? Love born not from a conscious choosing, a conscious desire of any collection of traits but romance, full of heart-searing endearment. What do you do when you find her......and lose her in the space of a night?
It was among a field of lavender and a backdrop of a burning sunset that we first met. A flier for the summer lavender festival over on the Olympic Peninsula had caught my eye and I was soon on a ferry bound for the far shore. I arrived on a sunny Saturday afternoon with butterflies and ladybugs aflutter in the air. The festival was setup around a large field of lavender overlooking the Pugent Sound with a dense, green forest surrounding. Food vendors and local artists had set up booths on the outskirts of the field and there was a large stage set smack in the middle of the blowing flowers. It was a beautiful setting and it took my mind off the dreary work I had waiting for me on Monday. So I spent the comfortable hours of a summer afternoon wondering among wares and attempting to catch the flowers in some resemblance of an artistic photograph.
The day progressed; shadows grew long; light becoming golden and setting a yellow halo behind every small stem of lavender that still blew faintly in the summer evening. In line with the general atmosphere and character of the people, a beautiful melody began to emanate from the clearing in the field. A trio of musicians stood tall, caressing from the strings of their violins a light but curiously deep rhythm. I was content there, to listen to the floating sounds and feel the summer night approaching. And at that moment the world as I knew it was sane and predictable and demanded nothing from me other than certain compromises. I saw my life then stretching out into perpetuity: step by step to the end. It was to change with the sip of apple cider.
I stood on the edge of the field, the hot beverage at my lips when I saw her. My heart aches even now when I think of her sitting there on a bench, hands folded in her lap watching the coming sunset. I was drawn over by the child-like intensity that she seemed to regard everything with. My second impression was of listening to her own music; something lost to others, a true individual melody. So it was that I had to repeat my offer of some cider before she lifted her eyes to mine. Ah, they were so pure and clear, free of any weight of the world. Her smile when she said yes was so plain and full of enjoyment I felt we had known each other for many a year. Her voice was soft like velvet and during the first few moments of shy conversation I felt a growing fondness for this young girl whose eyes glowed with an almost maniac energy. It felt like love and yet it was not, like a great pain but with no source.
I barely got her name before she laughed and suggested walking off into the field to view the sunset. So we stood there, the fragrance of lavender blending with the smell of earth and nature on the wind. I can`t remember what we talked about nor when I acted but I found myself listening to the drifting melody of a solo violin and holding her hand in a soft embrace. In my memory now there stands the two of us: waist deep among the flowers in a easy silence of understanding. Black silhouetted against a sky filled with an explosion of orange radiating from a brilliant globe of fire. Even as the world turned and the color faded, it did so just as passionately- leaving pale arcs of dying embers in the far off clouds. The stars came out in all their magnificence and filled the night with awe and wonder. We sat down on the cut stalks of sold flowers then and talked of philosophy, day-dreams and our secret hopes, things that seem so irrelevant in the light of day yet fuel the fire of life in the black darkness of night.
Not once did we talk of where we lived, what we did or even consider meeting again. Was that fate? To find love so strongly that it must exist only for a night or else burn out those involved? I don`t know and it drives me crazy; for we left the festival separately, each saying goodbye and our hands pulling apart reluctantly; the fingertips lingering together in a silent message of how much we wanted to say.
The four walls of a cubicle surround me now, pop music plays from a neighbors radio and I drown in paperwork every minute. But it fades and I think of her and feel a blazing heat of sadness and melancholy immediately supplanted by the desire to search the world for her. That feeling does not fade. I lean back against my computer chair and think of the days to come, days of her occupying my thoughts and dreams, long days of heart-numbing work and empty nights alone. My friends say "Time will heal the pang, memories will fade. Just give it time." In the midst of all this pain of thinking and dreading I can no longer see the future clearly and its as if a bell has rung my head clear. I don`t want the pain to go away and I don`t want the memories to fade because it her in my mind and they are all I have. And if the future is unclear and no longer a straight path to a dreary end then I have a choice.
It is another day and the bright morning sunshine fills me with an amazing strength and standing in the waving fields of lavender I feel hope that from this beginning, this choice, I will find her.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Parkour and Freedom
From high atop the Westin tower Seattle sits quiet and neat in the pale darkness. My friends and I stand at the edge, hands linked, waiting for the arrival of dawn, a gem of gold hidden just over the freeway and behind the slumbering rich of Capitol Hill. "Listen," I say in a tight whisper, "You`ve all been down in the streets at night, huddled in the cold. You know the hatred which can rise, born from the alleyways and doorways of a ill city. I`ve been there. I`ve been so hungry i can`t think, so tired I can`t act and so weary I took to drinking and drugs. But this is the same for all of us. I say forget all of that, right now, right this moment. Leave it behind and there`s no limit to how fast you can run and how high you can jump. I say find something to love down there; find the meaning in that humanity and all that steel and glass." They all looked at me, wry smiles at the remembrance of the past and honest knowledge of how hard the fight for the future would be. They were young men and women like me, sick to death of the pit we had dug ourselves into and always sliding back down no matter how hard we struggled up. But this was to be a new day for them, a new beginning. I was their leader in a way; showing them a way out and up and, ironically, over the barriers to a new life. For we were free-runners, a philosophy that existed in other forms all over the world; sadly as a sport called Parkour in France. Tattooed on our middle finger was the motto and creed of our awakening; a simple reasoning through which I gained control over my fate: "Run to Exist."
"In the dark the city exists only in pieces, a single street here, a corner of a building there; existing in our minds incomplete and so without the clear understanding of the true creature it is. When the sun rises in a few moments look about you. This is the true face of our city, its best and most glorious. Hold this in your minds for the future, hold it fast for the times when you may find yourself sunk in the grime and lost in the smallness of it all. Remember these moments."
As I had been talking the sky had lightened gradually and then seemed to burst with whiteness as the sun drew nearer. Since my new beginning I had seen every single sunrise from here and let none fade in the intensity of its enjoyment. So it was the same with this one; it was like the first and best, and the moment the first rays leaped out to paint the cityscape it was the only one I had ever known. The golden beams continued to strengthen, throwing back the darkness. I looked to my friends faces and saw the same thoughts blazing through them. "Such freshness upon their faces," I thought, "its as if we`re all allowed an innocence of being at these raw moments of time." The orb hung full in the sky, blazing out shafts of light that were reflected in the windows and metal surfaces, the eyes of the city. But in the eyes of those standing around were reflected the final understanding: finally connecting the sights, sounds and smells of a lifetime spent in its belly to the whole magnificence laid out before them.
Time to begin, I thought, looking down at the ledges and rails that would lead down to the neighboring building. My eyes followed a path down and out-along rooftops, over big gaps, along sky bridges and spiraling down many, many walls to reach Gas Works park, the rusted-brown top barely sticking out above the city`s shadow. There, beneath its pipes and wheels, we would meet in three hours. My muscles twitched and pulsed as I visualized the moves I would need to flow from one point to the next. Finally, in my mind a balance was reached; a balance point between all the emotions that could drag me down. "Time to run," I said.
"In the dark the city exists only in pieces, a single street here, a corner of a building there; existing in our minds incomplete and so without the clear understanding of the true creature it is. When the sun rises in a few moments look about you. This is the true face of our city, its best and most glorious. Hold this in your minds for the future, hold it fast for the times when you may find yourself sunk in the grime and lost in the smallness of it all. Remember these moments."
As I had been talking the sky had lightened gradually and then seemed to burst with whiteness as the sun drew nearer. Since my new beginning I had seen every single sunrise from here and let none fade in the intensity of its enjoyment. So it was the same with this one; it was like the first and best, and the moment the first rays leaped out to paint the cityscape it was the only one I had ever known. The golden beams continued to strengthen, throwing back the darkness. I looked to my friends faces and saw the same thoughts blazing through them. "Such freshness upon their faces," I thought, "its as if we`re all allowed an innocence of being at these raw moments of time." The orb hung full in the sky, blazing out shafts of light that were reflected in the windows and metal surfaces, the eyes of the city. But in the eyes of those standing around were reflected the final understanding: finally connecting the sights, sounds and smells of a lifetime spent in its belly to the whole magnificence laid out before them.
Time to begin, I thought, looking down at the ledges and rails that would lead down to the neighboring building. My eyes followed a path down and out-along rooftops, over big gaps, along sky bridges and spiraling down many, many walls to reach Gas Works park, the rusted-brown top barely sticking out above the city`s shadow. There, beneath its pipes and wheels, we would meet in three hours. My muscles twitched and pulsed as I visualized the moves I would need to flow from one point to the next. Finally, in my mind a balance was reached; a balance point between all the emotions that could drag me down. "Time to run," I said.
Spider Jerusalem- Im a freakin journalist
Damn, damn this city. A city in name only, really a conglomerating sack of life that tears at the lining of my sanity. How long have I been here? Too damn long says the buzzing noise inside my head. Peace and silence have long passed beyond my reach, a commodity sold to the rich civs living up on Capitol Hill. Want out? says the cash in my hand; want to run to the country and escape this hell hole of humanity? says the delightful new light rail running so god-forsakenly quiet that they had to play noises of animals to warn the pedestrians. But the ache in my heart and simmering anger in my head says I can`t leave the center where it all happens, can`t turn my back on the whirling birthplace of both our cancer and cure. But I`m a journalist dammit, shooting truth and justice into places others slink past. Watch out Seattle! I`m out there in the slime and muck, your slime and muck and I see everything. Hide your eyes from the temperamental tantrums of a city heaving with unrest and unlife but I don`t and that`s why I carry backup. Because, as the heavy weight at my hip attests: the Word according to your own garbage digging messiah, myself, is born from the flames of the people of the city and burns with the bullets of Spider Jerusalem aimed at its temple.
But goddamit Seattle, why can`t I get a cup of coffee without being assaulted by ethical or moral bastards? You see readers, the jizzed and jazzed populace, we are all fueled by the caffeine monster and we all just want a little hole of peace with that cup of joe. So why the hell am I assaulted and mentally striped naked by either the sterility and freakin boredom of Starbucks Clones or weirded out by extreme quaintness and mis-construed bohemianism. I don`t want bland and vague paintings that make me realize just how smart I am for interpreting it any old way. I don`t want cheery music about empowerment or conversation about the rain. Its water, not some spasiastic visitation by a religious leader. It happens, often and dependably. And yes this is my six cup and no I don`t drink too much, I`m still alive. But anyway Im here at the starbucks on 1st avenue, both incredibally wacked out by what I see and the totally gut-wrenching taste of music they dare play. I consider briefly screaming for a minute straight to improve the general ambience. But, my loyal readers, it is what I see that you tune in to read every week. And what I see is indifference. Indifference birthed from this goddamn city like a wellspring of KFC chicken, all the chicken lovers rushing over and eating that crap straight up.
You see there is a dividing line separating reality from the nice, creme-filled donut of imagination. The primmly dressed and stoical faced customers file in to get their mixture of sugars and caffeine, spending the dollar earned in white-collar jobs. Their eyes tell a different story, their bored to death looks in their face briefly surmounted by a glimmer of hope that sometime today they will find a sudden freakin quest of mighty entertainment. Detachment written in the eyeballs, zombie-food to the American way of life. They don`t notice the world around them; the homeless sitting outside hoping for some change; the kids huddled in groups around the corner with hate in their faces but a fading hope in their eyes; the young students of the city universities that are slowly being bulldozed over by the inferiority of cynical professors and mid-lifers that lost their dreams in a gamble over fulfilling their queer pleasures. But nobody sees these signs of the city; only the bits and pieces of a single individual.
Well, you know what? Look at this card I carry. You know what it gives me? Power. You know what it says? That I am a journalist and, in bold, a bona-freakin-fide carrier of the truth, yes THE TRUTH. It says I can yell and curse and drink myself into a coma on the side of the street, but it also says I must see the true scum and skanky mess that coats this fair city. I still hate all these claustrophobic walls and tearing of the brain that accompansy everyday but I still gotta live here. So wake up Seattle and open your eyes. Think about what you`re doing, why you`re doing it and maybe that you don`t need that triple fat-injected galaxial coffee when we could go running through the streets and parks in the sunshine and say hello to someone and take in some freakin human interactions. Lets see each other in all our freaky gore and scurvy, but at least we`ll be alive and out there on the edge, the clean and pure edges of our psyche exposed ready to tingle with electricity at the touch of another human being.
This is Spider Jerusalem signing off. I`m going to bed and let the devilish beast that is the city run out from my brain, hopefully. Damn this city.
But goddamit Seattle, why can`t I get a cup of coffee without being assaulted by ethical or moral bastards? You see readers, the jizzed and jazzed populace, we are all fueled by the caffeine monster and we all just want a little hole of peace with that cup of joe. So why the hell am I assaulted and mentally striped naked by either the sterility and freakin boredom of Starbucks Clones or weirded out by extreme quaintness and mis-construed bohemianism. I don`t want bland and vague paintings that make me realize just how smart I am for interpreting it any old way. I don`t want cheery music about empowerment or conversation about the rain. Its water, not some spasiastic visitation by a religious leader. It happens, often and dependably. And yes this is my six cup and no I don`t drink too much, I`m still alive. But anyway Im here at the starbucks on 1st avenue, both incredibally wacked out by what I see and the totally gut-wrenching taste of music they dare play. I consider briefly screaming for a minute straight to improve the general ambience. But, my loyal readers, it is what I see that you tune in to read every week. And what I see is indifference. Indifference birthed from this goddamn city like a wellspring of KFC chicken, all the chicken lovers rushing over and eating that crap straight up.
You see there is a dividing line separating reality from the nice, creme-filled donut of imagination. The primmly dressed and stoical faced customers file in to get their mixture of sugars and caffeine, spending the dollar earned in white-collar jobs. Their eyes tell a different story, their bored to death looks in their face briefly surmounted by a glimmer of hope that sometime today they will find a sudden freakin quest of mighty entertainment. Detachment written in the eyeballs, zombie-food to the American way of life. They don`t notice the world around them; the homeless sitting outside hoping for some change; the kids huddled in groups around the corner with hate in their faces but a fading hope in their eyes; the young students of the city universities that are slowly being bulldozed over by the inferiority of cynical professors and mid-lifers that lost their dreams in a gamble over fulfilling their queer pleasures. But nobody sees these signs of the city; only the bits and pieces of a single individual.
Well, you know what? Look at this card I carry. You know what it gives me? Power. You know what it says? That I am a journalist and, in bold, a bona-freakin-fide carrier of the truth, yes THE TRUTH. It says I can yell and curse and drink myself into a coma on the side of the street, but it also says I must see the true scum and skanky mess that coats this fair city. I still hate all these claustrophobic walls and tearing of the brain that accompansy everyday but I still gotta live here. So wake up Seattle and open your eyes. Think about what you`re doing, why you`re doing it and maybe that you don`t need that triple fat-injected galaxial coffee when we could go running through the streets and parks in the sunshine and say hello to someone and take in some freakin human interactions. Lets see each other in all our freaky gore and scurvy, but at least we`ll be alive and out there on the edge, the clean and pure edges of our psyche exposed ready to tingle with electricity at the touch of another human being.
This is Spider Jerusalem signing off. I`m going to bed and let the devilish beast that is the city run out from my brain, hopefully. Damn this city.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Viewing through words pt.2
(contents of a creased yellow piece of paper)
"I`m searching for a word. A single, simple word. A quest for meaning and definition. Truth and quality inherent in the simple friendship of letters. What are they? What is it? Why does it consume my life and control priorities to the detriment of my humanity. Once I thought I knew that word, and thought I knew life and its function. My hand was once in the stream of humanities consciousness and found there many words to fill the pages of a hundred books. I was poet, a creator of images, connecting thought to the birth of ideas and I thought that was enjoyment. I thought I had control and freedom, limitations existed for other men. But i was broken and scattered to the wind by my insistence on and blind following to that fictional notion of literary art. Death in that field came slowly but surely and from my present vantage I could see that vast monster advancing through the ages, could see it eat up the best of us and leaving empty husks to receive the praises of those too ignorant to know the crap we had produced.
The books I had written sat heavily upon my muse, she grew so fat and unmoving that I saw only the past; a dull luster sat upon all. My world grew full of words, so that I no longer saw nature as images of the senses. Instead, great ponderous sentences seemed to spring forth at the merest sight of brilliance. A sunset became nothing but a article of description uttered by my character in their times of solitude. Children laughing and running, once an inspiration to my character, now lay composed solely of philosophic musings and a swirling maelstrom of adjectives. I could not see! The sole pursuit of writing had destroyed the whole world! Where could I see or taste or feel independent of my damn artistic expressions? No where and I grew greatly agitated, refusing even to put pen to paper in fear of seeing the truth expressed even there. I find myself on the verge of humanity now, gradually wearing down the addictive need to create. I must not create or even chance any personal interpretation, for in that pit of hell lies a circular damnation.
So I find myself dumb, idiotic and refusing to engage in rational and logical creative forces. I must not. To pare down the world again to simple sensation, what an achievement and it takes the destruction of my heartiest desire. I trapped and damned man am I! My only salvation lies in finding a single word that does not subsume its indicative object, but that is a pursuit of impossibility! Ah, who can possibly understand that?
Even the woman looking at me contains nothing but words: uncertain, searching, angry. These words hold nothing for me. Then away to a different world."
"I`m searching for a word. A single, simple word. A quest for meaning and definition. Truth and quality inherent in the simple friendship of letters. What are they? What is it? Why does it consume my life and control priorities to the detriment of my humanity. Once I thought I knew that word, and thought I knew life and its function. My hand was once in the stream of humanities consciousness and found there many words to fill the pages of a hundred books. I was poet, a creator of images, connecting thought to the birth of ideas and I thought that was enjoyment. I thought I had control and freedom, limitations existed for other men. But i was broken and scattered to the wind by my insistence on and blind following to that fictional notion of literary art. Death in that field came slowly but surely and from my present vantage I could see that vast monster advancing through the ages, could see it eat up the best of us and leaving empty husks to receive the praises of those too ignorant to know the crap we had produced.
The books I had written sat heavily upon my muse, she grew so fat and unmoving that I saw only the past; a dull luster sat upon all. My world grew full of words, so that I no longer saw nature as images of the senses. Instead, great ponderous sentences seemed to spring forth at the merest sight of brilliance. A sunset became nothing but a article of description uttered by my character in their times of solitude. Children laughing and running, once an inspiration to my character, now lay composed solely of philosophic musings and a swirling maelstrom of adjectives. I could not see! The sole pursuit of writing had destroyed the whole world! Where could I see or taste or feel independent of my damn artistic expressions? No where and I grew greatly agitated, refusing even to put pen to paper in fear of seeing the truth expressed even there. I find myself on the verge of humanity now, gradually wearing down the addictive need to create. I must not create or even chance any personal interpretation, for in that pit of hell lies a circular damnation.
So I find myself dumb, idiotic and refusing to engage in rational and logical creative forces. I must not. To pare down the world again to simple sensation, what an achievement and it takes the destruction of my heartiest desire. I trapped and damned man am I! My only salvation lies in finding a single word that does not subsume its indicative object, but that is a pursuit of impossibility! Ah, who can possibly understand that?
Even the woman looking at me contains nothing but words: uncertain, searching, angry. These words hold nothing for me. Then away to a different world."
Viewing through words
I sat in a hard-backed patio chair outside of Starbucks, searching for a word. The search had taken me through three lattes and half-a-days time. What word could be so important as to consume so much time you would ask? Well I knew the meaning, even had the proper image fixed firmly in my mind. The problem, though, was the fellows that surrounded the blank, a description of a Fremont fair; accurate, colorful and detailed. Yet it was the same boring drivel I`d been doing for the past year. Perhaps the word alluded me then because I was loathe to finish such a waste of language and skill. My desire was to write stories that mirrored the great blooming trees found in the imagination of children. I wanted my ideas to take root and spread great canopies of flowering thought through my reader`s brains. But I would accomplish nothing if I was stuck turning out filler articles for a paper that had no guts to offer even one bias opinion of its own, neutrality to the detriment of creativity and growth! But I wanted to write so much! I wanted to express through words all the unique angles of life, a view I knew was vague, idealistic and born of a mind given to much day-dreaming.
So I angrily sipped my latte, quietly bemoaning my situation and deciding if I should give in to pressure and write the article with stale words or answer to my inner poet and risk the ire of editors for a "flowery" piece. Such was my dilemma and such was my life. That`s when I noticed a scruffy and perhaps deranged man sitting out on a sidewalk a few feet down. He sat against a cement light post, mumbling and making erratic hand gestures. Oddly enough, it appeared as if he was writing something on a scrap of yellow paper. The air of some homeless destitute hung around him, and yet as a fellow writer I couldn`t help but notice the way he held the pen gracefully and wrote in a flowing way across the paper. It spoke of some form of education and the possession of at least a little sanity.
I guess I stared too long for when I lifted my gaze from his hands his eyes met mine in a steely blue, and for an instant I didn`t see a crusty man in a dirt brown jacket. Instead an intense young spirit so sure and confident poured across the distance. I broke my gaze first, feeling a little shame and fear, sure that he could somehow peer through my sophistication and knowledge to see the true thoughts and feelings that lay underneath, things I wanted hidden. I spent a few minutes in defeat choosing the least pathetic and most pleasing word for the article, packed up and stood. The man was gone from the cement post, instead ambling down the street away from me, a little unsteadily and leaning on various things for support. I saw then, that where he had been lay that little sheet of yellow paper, seemingly forgotten. Not really knowing why I picked it before heading home. Tiny, neat cursive writing filled one side of the paper and, feeling a little secretive, I tucked inside my bag to read later where the public world would not intrude on curious perusals.
So I angrily sipped my latte, quietly bemoaning my situation and deciding if I should give in to pressure and write the article with stale words or answer to my inner poet and risk the ire of editors for a "flowery" piece. Such was my dilemma and such was my life. That`s when I noticed a scruffy and perhaps deranged man sitting out on a sidewalk a few feet down. He sat against a cement light post, mumbling and making erratic hand gestures. Oddly enough, it appeared as if he was writing something on a scrap of yellow paper. The air of some homeless destitute hung around him, and yet as a fellow writer I couldn`t help but notice the way he held the pen gracefully and wrote in a flowing way across the paper. It spoke of some form of education and the possession of at least a little sanity.
I guess I stared too long for when I lifted my gaze from his hands his eyes met mine in a steely blue, and for an instant I didn`t see a crusty man in a dirt brown jacket. Instead an intense young spirit so sure and confident poured across the distance. I broke my gaze first, feeling a little shame and fear, sure that he could somehow peer through my sophistication and knowledge to see the true thoughts and feelings that lay underneath, things I wanted hidden. I spent a few minutes in defeat choosing the least pathetic and most pleasing word for the article, packed up and stood. The man was gone from the cement post, instead ambling down the street away from me, a little unsteadily and leaning on various things for support. I saw then, that where he had been lay that little sheet of yellow paper, seemingly forgotten. Not really knowing why I picked it before heading home. Tiny, neat cursive writing filled one side of the paper and, feeling a little secretive, I tucked inside my bag to read later where the public world would not intrude on curious perusals.
"Sanitary Engineer" of life
Ah, the day begins so gloriously that I hope its not ruined by sewage juices spilling on me. But that's what I deal with, smells and sights that delicate "regulars" wouldn`t last five minutes with. I mean nobody talks to us, nobody helps with their own garbage. I see the looks and pitied glances when I come by. I see them rush off, coffee in one hand and a cellphone pasted to their ears. I like to imagine that perhaps they are going to better jobs, ones inside a cushy office and full of tailored suits and manicured cleanliness. Perhaps they make more money than I do, enjoy perks of a job entirely mental and requiring no more effort than punching in keys and attending meetings. It makes it easier to despise them and elevate my own importance in cleaning up the messes of a whole city. Am I not a superhero? We even get notes, scrapes of paper with messages written; rarely thanks but often belittling our job and complaining of so many things. And its just garbage, goes in the back of the truck like everything else we receive from them.
Perceptions and assumptions, ah they could drive me crazy! Though I have a little more love for my co-workers than non-sanitary engineers, they seem to have no imagination. All the negatives that we pile on the "regulars", all the more we delude ourselves to the true importance of our job. Sure we take care of the things no one else wants to touch. And sure we provide a service that allows the more talented and smarter of our race to enjoy a higher, uninterrupted productivity, but I get just as depressed at the dullness of views my coworkers have. They don`t understand the beauty of a city moving from the stillness of an early morning to full bustling and rushing that is the lifeblood flowing throughout the streets. They don`t see the stabbing light of a new sun spread over a quiet street, painting the black trash cans and still rows of cars in a faint haze of color. Conversations die when I bring up the sensations of losing one`self in half-awake exertions of lifting, dumping and repeat. The concept of zen and a state of awareness seems to be lost amongst my fellow employees. Or I think too much.
I feel like Hamlet when he is plunged in confusion, wanting to kill the king but held back by the hands of propriety and the good of all. Mike, coworker two years running, looks at me oddly when I mutter his lines "And thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." I mean, so vividly can I envision better lives, more exciting avenues to pursue. The method and means lies clearly in my mind but what? What truly holds back my hand at changing jobs, changing and invigorating my life? The answer often comes just before I fall asleep, when my thoughts have slowed and neurons inside are free-wheeling about. Its both my curse and blessing: the institution of employment, a provider of security and ensurer of tradition; appearing so indestructible as to be unfailing and that is the dagger in my heart. I am afraid to breach that barrier and see what lays beyond, and yet...and yet, in the moments of deepest honesty and closest proximity to giving in, I feel the faintest murmur of some irrational fluttering of freedom, no shape or form yet there the same.
So I keep turning up for work every morning, in the pre-dawn darkness and sharp cold, waiting in my beat-up car with the heater on. There in the Sanitation Processing Center parking lot, surrounded by square buildings and poor attempts at landscaping, there in the time before work subsumes thought and will, there I can just sit and imagine I hold life in my hands and the power to shape it into something great and something wonderful. But the world turns and time advances. Work starts and I lose myself in banter, in garbage and in the crack between freedom and acceptance.
Perceptions and assumptions, ah they could drive me crazy! Though I have a little more love for my co-workers than non-sanitary engineers, they seem to have no imagination. All the negatives that we pile on the "regulars", all the more we delude ourselves to the true importance of our job. Sure we take care of the things no one else wants to touch. And sure we provide a service that allows the more talented and smarter of our race to enjoy a higher, uninterrupted productivity, but I get just as depressed at the dullness of views my coworkers have. They don`t understand the beauty of a city moving from the stillness of an early morning to full bustling and rushing that is the lifeblood flowing throughout the streets. They don`t see the stabbing light of a new sun spread over a quiet street, painting the black trash cans and still rows of cars in a faint haze of color. Conversations die when I bring up the sensations of losing one`self in half-awake exertions of lifting, dumping and repeat. The concept of zen and a state of awareness seems to be lost amongst my fellow employees. Or I think too much.
I feel like Hamlet when he is plunged in confusion, wanting to kill the king but held back by the hands of propriety and the good of all. Mike, coworker two years running, looks at me oddly when I mutter his lines "And thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." I mean, so vividly can I envision better lives, more exciting avenues to pursue. The method and means lies clearly in my mind but what? What truly holds back my hand at changing jobs, changing and invigorating my life? The answer often comes just before I fall asleep, when my thoughts have slowed and neurons inside are free-wheeling about. Its both my curse and blessing: the institution of employment, a provider of security and ensurer of tradition; appearing so indestructible as to be unfailing and that is the dagger in my heart. I am afraid to breach that barrier and see what lays beyond, and yet...and yet, in the moments of deepest honesty and closest proximity to giving in, I feel the faintest murmur of some irrational fluttering of freedom, no shape or form yet there the same.
So I keep turning up for work every morning, in the pre-dawn darkness and sharp cold, waiting in my beat-up car with the heater on. There in the Sanitation Processing Center parking lot, surrounded by square buildings and poor attempts at landscaping, there in the time before work subsumes thought and will, there I can just sit and imagine I hold life in my hands and the power to shape it into something great and something wonderful. But the world turns and time advances. Work starts and I lose myself in banter, in garbage and in the crack between freedom and acceptance.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
On the Beat
It is not crime that never rests but the eyes of Justice that are open wide, roving unfailingly over the world, looking for that singular, brief, opportunistic thrust of illegality. I grow tired, I feel cold; the gay lights of a thousand star-spangled trees distract and draw me toward thoughts of my family nestled in at home. But I am a Metropolitan Police Officer and I must be vigilant. These cold nights down in Westlake Plaza, with hundreds of citizens’ last minute shopping and lost in that special euphoria that being so near Christmas induces; these are most dire times indeed. What criminal would hesitate to act on a populace weakened by both the hurried stress and child-like excitement of the year-end holiday? And so I walk among the bundled shoppers and young couples sitting on cold concrete steps sipping hot coffee. To these people I am a faceless presence; shiny black and faded blue, a mass of blocky tools mid-waist and the heavy, malignant gun that everyone quickly glances at. The gun is my badge, more so than the uniform, stern face and gruff demanding voice. It says “I am a weapon in the hands of a man backed by your government. I am a higher authority.” But I am immune from self-delusions and feel a streak of sadness that floods my mind when pedestrians look on with distrust. Distrust in the role not the man, distrust in the system that backs a faithful man. So I shore myself up with being an unknown vigilant soldier of Justice, claiming that thankless task for the unspoken ideals of peace and innocence.
So I wandered, in a looping patrol, varying it by stopping at a street corner, visiting shop owners, even helping those damned funny foreign tourists who actually like to ask us for directions. Sometimes I swear I can feel the beat of this city in the soles of my feet; lethargic yet steady during the day but come night and by the illuminated glow of metal posts the pulse becomes energetic but erratic. My shift, at night, breathes life into me, opens my eyes to the thousands of possibilities that could occur in a congregating humanity.
All these thoughts bounced around as I leaned against the outside wall of Starbucks, enjoying mud-thick black coffee, constantly scanning crowds of people for any oddities. There was a feeling of familiarity to the scene: the last reflected light coming from high office windows dulling into twilight and into further evening when the colorful lights of Christmas stained thousands of faces. It was going to be a routine night.
My attention was caught when a tall, shabbily dressed man stopped under a lit tree and put down a small, brown instrument case. He seemed to be a street performer but he stood and gazed intensely around, like he was taking in the atmosphere, the very essence of all elements gathered in the plaza. Well, precaution being half a cop`s philosophy (the other a intense dislike for out-of-control situations) I strolled over to warn him friendly-like of Seattle`s rules against street performance and panhandling. I got out the warning just before he raised his head and looked me in the eye. “Just one song, please.” That was all he said, but his eyes had a glimmer, a sparkle I couldn`t place, something I hadn`t seen in years of walking these streets. There was a promise in that gaze, of something fantastic to come, of a raw and wondrous creature to appear just out of sensing. “Just one song, but no panhandling,” I told him. Instinct was playing powerfully upon my conscious, it made me relent once- a good-natured boon to the city, or so I told myself.
I returned to my post against the cold cement and watched. The man smiled at me and then stooped and took out a much worn violin. Still he stood, poised, violin cradled and eyes closed, face relaxed. People walking through the square barely glanced at this pondering musician, but unconsciously gave him a wide berth. I saw his eyes open and smile at the small circle of space around him. I found myself holding my breath; aware of the sounds of crowds and traffic, but beyond that a peculiar silence that seemed to encompass the downtown area. The bow then came up to the strings and he began to play.
I am no music lover. I do not enjoy concerts of any kind nor listen to any modern productions. Justice and Peace take up my time and leave little thoughts for artistic comforts. But I judge people, and by their reactions to the music this man truly played his soul. They stopped, turned to look and gathered around to see and hear. I saw the looks of people who had forgotten to hold the walls of their faces and now had wonder and amazement plainly written. They seemed to find some joy in the notes the young man gracefully drew out. The crowd grew; a few homeless struggled up off benches; shoppers came out of the mall to stand still on the second floor balcony. The shifting, arcing music grew louder but, I noticed, there was a steadily growing silence spreading outward, first from the crowd then across the street and around the block. Even the young, cynical men of our god-less generation smiled at the high`s and low`s of the beautiful melody. The small circle of light and space between us and the musician was suddenly filled with white, drifting motes. Snow. And just as suddenly, in my mind, things were pure and things were simple. The beat through my feet told me this: that all my hard and complex reasoning of Justice was just a seeking for an idea of unity; an idea to connect myself, the city and all that lived within. The hand that so passionately stroked the violin was a hand controlled by an individual that felt the same.
He stopped, then, in the middle of a vast silence, surrounded by snow-covered heads and a blanket of snow on the ground. In came the rushing sounds and smells of that great creature, the City. And people seemed to hear it cry, seemed to feel the weight pressing down again, for they started to shift away- some clapping, some crying but all eventually fading away to finish living out the day. It was still snowing and for a brief moment I lost sight of him. But after going over to where he played I saw him bended over, packing up. He had a sad smile, like one who fought and lived through a momentous experience yet sorry to see it fade away in memory. “Just one song?” I said. “Just one song.” And he walked away out of the festive lights, away into the falling snow and embracing darkness.
On the Ferry
The motors start, loud and powerful. It kicks up green foam around the tar-blackened pillars of wood. It’s my favorite moment; the surging forth of the great ship. It’s a short moment where I can stand still and feel the driving shudder travel up my body, see the docks recede slowly and watch the dark waters expand slowly all around. Just for a moment I close my eyes and there is no land only the sea and there is no destination, only the horizon.
But standing across from me is my co-worker Paul, dressed similarly in the same bright green reflecting jacket and making a joke about passengers actually walking off the edge this time. So I snap out of it and being a diligent ferry employee, attend to the tying off of safety lines and completion of all busy work before heading up to mid-deck. I’ve been on the Sahachewan for five years; know the curving lines of its inner belly; the fresh smell of its trademark white and green paint; the feel of the pitted and eroded gunmetal that is her bones. My workplace is the early morning quiet of solitary commuters sitting alone staring out windows dotted with sea-spray. It’s the flow of endless cars passing by, and I, like Moses parting, directing this metal flow to their proper spots. And the sun. At what other job-site can a man be so exposed to the entirety of a beautiful sunrise or a dying, passionate sunset? During my lunch breaks or rare times of “safety patrol” I go to stand on one of the jutting observation decks. In times of sunset I find myself there with a few other solitary souls, watching the dying sun set over the Pugent Sound. There`s a darkness that settles down on the sea then, clouding over the shapes of far-off islands and it even mutes the sharp lines of the restless sea. Only the fiery orange of an illuminated sky and the dripping molten strip of fire in the sea remain.
After quitting time I disembark on Vashon and stand at the pier watching the ferry chug off, growing smaller. I always feel like a passenger then, like it took me somewhere and now I`m back. I`ve got a little cabin down by the water, so close I can hear the waves break in the darkness or in the pre-dawn as I wake. I put on my uniform and bicycle down to work and think, as I do every day, about that first surge away from land and the fresh feel of a boundless ocean and a hint of adventure.
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