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May 19, 2008One is never alonewith a paper and pen in hand.AT LEAST I HAVE THEMthis time—a pen, that is, and a notebook in which to wield it. The pen is a souvenir from The Universe Within, the most disturbing, creepy exhibition I’ve ever seen (including Los Momios de Guanajuato), a collection of human “specimens” (Chinese political prisoners, Falun Gong practitioners?), dead bodies flayed and splayed, exploited in every manner possible to display their organs, skeletal architecture, their highways of muscle, tendon and sinew, networks of nerves and blood vessels, posed in various scenarios of action—riding a bike, playing tennis—one guy was sliced up wholesale head to foot like a deli loaf. Disgusting. But it’s the universe within me that is disturbing. Why am I out here in cyberspace displaying my innards? The only answer that comes to mind is, “It’s just what I do.” I read a piece in the New York Times by songwriter Suzanne Vega, about the process of writing a song called “Pale Cowboy.”
IS IT?Is it important that “heat” anticipates and complements “heart”? Or that it make sense? Because that is the sort of issue writers “wrestle” with as we tap, tap, tap on these keys. That’s my job—my life’s work—putting words together. At the moment it feels like the Spring feature in Tell It to Someone Who Cares magazine. Why am I building a life around this? Sitting alone at a keyboard. Honestly, there is very little else I am qualified for. Christ, I’m depressed. “I walk into a large white room,” writes choreographer Twyla Tharp in The Creative Habit. …”To some people, this empty room symbolizes something profound, mysterious, and terrifying: the task of starting with nothing and working your way toward creating something whole and beautiful and satisfying. … Some people find this moment—the moment before creativity begins—so painful that they simply cannot deal with it. … The blank space can be humbling. But I’ve faced it my whole professional life. It’s my job. It’s also my calling. Bottom line: Filling this empty space constitutes my identity.” There. How’d you like to hang your life from that hook? Filling empty space. It’s my calling. But how about that empty space I call my soul? How do I fill that one? I’VE CHOSEN NOT TO DEALwith my life “situation” today, the situation being the rearranging and disposing of the endless self-multiplying contents of my personal House of Tantalus, described by my correspondent DC thus: “Not that the cup could never be filled, but never emptied. Out one door, in the other. The contents can be shuffled, replaced, repaired, refinished, but never reduced, until…the occupant dies of exhaustion, and then…after a brief interlude of naked transcendental bliss, bit-by-bit, item by item, each an icon of unreckoned sin, the House, with increasing inertial authority, and tangential familiarity begins to reconstitute itself. And so it goes in this dramatically predictable way until our desperate hero/ine makes a pact with the Devil, type: cigar-chewing professional, really a flip-side of God, in Shivaic aspect, bulldozers and wrecking balls in the back lot….leading to a Don Giovanni climax of the soul, now bereft not only of environment, but of body and mind being sucked to (apparently) hell, really the servant’s entrance to heaven…outdoor, indoor, and riverrun. Something like that.” Yeah, something like that. My first act of avoidance of the day was to wake up at 6:00, take a tranquilizer and go back to sleep. I wasn’t ready for this brilliant, blue-skied honey of a day. When I finally emerge into the 82° afternoon for my morning coffee, I feel set apart like one of those aliens in the movie “They Live,” disguised as a regular person. No one can tell without special glasses that I’m not the real thing. ONE OF THOSEI pass a guy on Steiner carrying a quantity of freshly pressed shirts from the drycleaner. He’s probably one of “those,” I’m thinking, those people I imagine to be in control of their lives, who have things figured out, who have their place in the scheme of things and have life on automatic pilot. He probably told his partner on his cell phone, “Yeah, just picked up the drycleaning, and will get the grill going. How about salmon tonight? You had salmon for lunch? Chicken, then. Pick up some wine and bread, OK? Love you too.” Someone who prepared himself to live in the real world, unlike myself. Or, like myself, he could just be a basket case in a clean shirt. “I HAD SALMON FOR LUNCH”is something I overheard a coworker say to his partner on the phone. I identified it as the most “couple-ey” of comments. Stefan Stefanococcus (that’s his bacterial name) was the one who introduced me to the book No One Cares What You Had For Lunch (tips for bloggers). But someone does care what he had for lunch—his partner whom he’ll have dinner with. No one cares what I had for lunch. Including myself. DON’T WORRY, BABYI used to be the landlady, in Portland at the “Kurdy” Apartments, of the late great blues singer and songwriter, Paul Delay. He came barreling down the stairs one day while I was vacuuming in front of my door in a red velvet bathrobe over a slip. “You sure know how to dress for a quick vacuum!” he said good-naturedly. I asked him if he was performing that night. “Don’t worry, baby, I got the blues!” Christ, I’m depressed. IF I WANT TO BE HONEST,it’s the old boyfriend. He came over yesterday to help me stack my packed boxes in the hallway. It was a pleasant enough visit and we made some progress. As usual, however, he left. Me alone, that is. Stirred up a bunch of crap I’d thought I’d flushed away long ago. The plumbing seems to be backing up a bit. I retreat into the isolation chamber of my mind. Nothing new, I’m just writing about it. Usually I’m too listless to pull that off. GOD, DO I NEED BRAHMS!I wrote to my pianist friend John in Sweden. “Need it, need him, need it!” Something nourishing and restorative. And have him I shall. Brahms Festival continues at Davies with Yefim Bronfman and the Piano Concerto No. 1. I am right on time this time for the pre-concert performance of my beloved Horn Trio. Surrounded by Brahmsian Gemütlichkeit, the universe within me relaxes. Every once in a while on the phone, friend John will accommodate me by knocking out a transatlantic, transcontinental rhapsody direct to me over the wires from Delsbo. “Right now Brahms defines my existence,” he had written me. “A life defined by Brahms!” I marveled. “How many get to live that life?” Mine is defined by words. Not any particular words, just the general commodity. They’re mine to mix and match. Then there’s the tyranny of words, as author Stuart Chase put it. That’s the flip side. They dominate me, keep demanding I write them down. To what end? I ask myself. Is it all just nonsense? Even blogger and loyal reader Robert Solis claims my gift of expression “confounds” him and he doesn’t understand “a doggoned word” I write. I confound me. What am I doing here? RESIST THOSE THOUGHTSsaid a friend to whom I’d expressed the same doubts. I want to read a book by you, too, said she. About what, though? I describe my website on Technorati as “clever yet profound ruminations on life, love and herring sandwiches.” Are you ready for 400 pages of that? But a reader writes, “I love your blog - it soothes me and broadens my understanding of what it is to be a human being.” Perhaps that is my purview, after all, what it is to be human and stay human in the 21st century. The novel you await is a Bildungsroman, the story of my life and loves as I develop into the person typing these words. I will resist all thoughts, as my favorite time of day—bedtime—is upon me. A half-hour or so of spreading relaxation knowing there’s nothing I have to accomplish in the dark hours ahead. I can just retreat into the cocoon of bed, wonderful bed. SHIT, I’M AWAKE AGAIN.Why am I so terrified of life? Through the open window pour the sounds of people living it. I will walk amongst them. Today is Bay to Breakers day and the Breakers file into the Café in their crinoline skirts, multi-colored wigs, horns and tails, what have you. I had registered for the event but was too weary of body and soul to make the scene. I had planned to wear red leggings and sweater and my Bloody Mary sunglasses, accented with a bouquet of celery. After all, life does have its amusements. I might as well laugh at them, as they parade by me placing their orders. My latte beside me, my laptop atop my lap, I’m feeling human again, enjoying the harmonic Gemütlichkeit of the universe within.
Alfie, the author is still waiting ------------------------------------------------------------ From the bottom of the hole
When you get blue, and you’ve lost all your dreams, there’s nothing like a campfire and a can of beans. - T. Waits copyright Alexandra Jones 2008 |
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