What Dreams May Come

Even our misfortunes are part of our belongings. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

I am feeling rather scattered and muddle headed. This has persisted for several weeks, maybe even months. I can't concentrate, for the life of me, to set myself to tasks and follow through. The house is a mess, an absolute crazy mess. When I speak of task aversion, I mean on the simplest of levels. I think aversion is the wrong word. I'm not averse to these things.

I can start, but I can't follow through and complete anything. The laundry is partially done. What has been both washed and dried, isn't folded or put away. The dishes in the dishwasher have been washed twice, but something is wrong and they're not coming clean. So half are clean and not put away and the other half need to be hand washed to see if I can figured out what's going on (maybe building polymers in the sink from the workmen are stuck on dishes? Would they really use the kitchen sink when there is a utility sink not but five feet away?)

There is this accumulation of busywork to be done and while I feel I'm constantly doing things, nothing seems to get done. And it feels like there's never time to just sit back and enjoy, read, relax, putter, lay on the grass and stare at the sky. But what's the problem? Why aren't things getting done? I don't mean just house keeping, either.. I mean bill paying, work, everything. I can't get my head around things and I'm increasingly frustrated.

Cassie had a thought, that rather than wait to sit down and read, I start the day reading and relaxing - pushing the chores to later in the day. I went to the park this morning with Secret, tossed the ball and intended to read. Even reading I can't accomplish. I was in the park from about 8 am until after 11. I barely finished the letters to the editor and only got two pages into the interview with Jeremy Taylor. What happened? What happened to the time?

Okay.. back to the damned stupid chores while the rats rummage through the kitchen (I can hear them now.. YES in the middle of the day.) It seems symbolic of something. A symbolism that's no longer relegated to my dream world but all just playing itself out right here, right now, not wasting time waiting for sleep or choosing to show itself at such-and-such a time. There's no difference anymore.

Romance Is Dead

Live to the point of tears. - Albert Camus

I’ve kept an 8x11, brown, hand addressed envelope to my old neighbor, in San Francisco, from a certain Lee Baker since the year 2000. My neighbor was lovers with a Lee Baker and they’d ended their relationship badly earlier on. This neighbor had long since moved away. I’d vaguely remembered the affair. The brown envelope was mistakenly delivered to me. In hopes of tracking down the neighbor, I’ve held onto the letter going on six years now – unopened – until today.

Somehow I thought it might be strangely romantic – that perhaps one day I’d figure out a way to deliver the letter and something old and painful might be resolved and forgiven – until today. A few times each year I look through the phone book, contact one or another mutual friend, try old email addresses and wait hopeful for a reply – until today.

Today I needed an 8 by 11 envelope to mail a few magazines to Ed’s brother – magazines I’d said I’d send on several months back but for lack of an envelope they’ve sat on the floor in my study. I spied the letter from Lee Baker and set forth on another journey to find this long lost friend of mine. The journey ended today. I didn’t find him, but I needed the envelope. I carefully, ever so carefully lifted the corners and the old glue relented with a suspicious ease. It’s like letting go and opening up is easier once time passes. I slowly slid the letter out of the envelope – a typed cover letter accompanied the twelve stapled pages.

Whether or not this Lee Baker was the Lee Baker is somewhat dubious. This Lee Baker explains that he retrieved my friends street address by doing an internet search for Jewish-sounding (??) names. It was a ramblings of a total lunatic – some bipolar Jesus freak of sorts – a magnificent essay which culminates in a reprint of a newspaper clipping of a successful in-vitro fertilization, showing that man has finally emulated the virgin birth first pioneered by God. How it only took a mere 2000 years to catch up. We’ll all be happy to note with the advent of fertility clinics and advances in science to help couples having trouble conceiving, we’ve obfuscated the need for God and religion. We’ve finally replaced God with science. (It’s about time, eh?)

Never again will I sit wondering at the 8 by 11 brown, hand-addressed envelope. I liked it better how it was in my mind. Pandora’s box and all that rot. I’ve loosed evil on the world by opening that one and let slip all the romantic mystery of the unknown. It’s very sad now that the deed is done.

((My toes are metallic copper.))

Bucolic

I’m waiting for the flight to LA, in the Palm Springs airport, writing on the laptop. We won’t board for another ten minutes, yet I’m already bored (sic.) Mom clipped an article on Johnny Walker Lindh from the paper this morning. She underlined bucolic Marin, and asked me if I knew what bucolic meant. Before I had a chance to answer she said, I looked it up this morning. It means idyllic. It sounds more like a disease. This is strange. Am I becoming my mother or is my mother becoming me? This sounds like conversations I have with myself in the morning over coffee and a dictionary.

We went to her gym, had another great lunch which negated all our efforts at the gym, took an ambling walk down Palm Canyon Drive (I got a wonderful lemon Italian ice on a warm afternoon – we looked at shoes and went to our favorite store - The Alley. It’s a discount furniture/kitchen/stupid-stuff store. We spend hours there and never buy anything. A crazy Latin man – I’d guess on meth/tina – spoke loudly to himself. I want this. Now this is tasteful. This would look great. I’ll get this. Loudly. We reached the exit at about the same time. Mom pulled my arm back and pretended to search for something in her pocket. He’s crazy, she whispered in my ear. I don’t want to go out at the same time as him. I explained to her that at any given time she was outside in the world with at least one crazy person – there was no particular elevated risk with this crazy person. He stopped in front of us and knelt to speak to some flowers – she accelerated her pace and we passed him by. She seemed to feel more comfortable when he was behind us.

We were in a hurry so I suppose it’s good we passed him. He was talking to the flowers! she exclaimed. Which I thought wasn’t so crazy. Later I made her jog at stop lights, so she can make 10,000 steps on her pedometer and keep up with her grandkids. Now people with think I’m the crazy one, she said, breathless as she jogged on spot. There you have it, I told her, at any given time you’re outside in the world with at least one crazy person, even when you’re alone. She wasn’t amused, but she kept jogging.

We were in a hurry to get to Brokeback Mountain. I told her I’d pick the movies next time. She picked two real downers. Don’t get me wrong. It was beautiful, but it was a short story, not a novel. More should have happened in a full-length major motion picture… in my humble opinion.

Crazy

Sometimes I think I’m going crazy. Like today, for example, as I stood on the pier waiting for the ferry, sipping a blended iced mocha from Peats, and found myself counting, very quickly, in my head, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10… then starting over. I won’t say it felt idiot savantish, just idiotish. And I wondered how long I’d been doing that until I became fully conscious of it.

Or as I later boarded the ferry, only one of the two ramps was lowered and I imagined myself walking right up and off the raised ramp. And mostly I wondered what stopped me from doing this. What part of brain stopped me? Though my legs leadened as I reached the fork, momentarily. It’s not that any great harm would have befallen me had I walked up on the raised ramp – maybe a thirty foot fall at most, likely less, into the bay. Divers propel themselves from heights beyond this, nothing would have happened. Maybe I would have been banged up a bit by something on the fall, but it wouldn’t have been a mortal wound.

This morning there were black birds on the roof, trying to crack walnuts or something open with their beaks. Knock, knock, knock. Knock, knock, knock. Peck, knock, peck. I walked outside and surveyed the roof. “Hey you,” I conveyed to the birds in an agitated tone without raising my voice too much, “hey you, knock that off. Stop it.”