the mEp my electronic pen - or - what i write when no one is looking
J u n e 22 1999
summer soltace come and gone
and i still watch around me,
those who were not given warmth
not given unconditional - hugs
and stuff you don't need to even
mean it.
dreaming of my own children, three,
who never were babies but grew into small people quickly and i barely knew
them, as they listened to me about as well as a well trained dog might.
one was black skinned and the other two, about the same size. we went to
pick up carleigh to go to the park and then went back home where i was
so so so hot, and peeled off layers of clothing as i sweated, layers of
warm wool sweaters. before that we were going out somewhere as if i hadn't
been out in a long time and my mother put my silver watch together with
a tie-wrap and i hardly had anything nice to wear.
J u n e 17 1999
it has been so long since i've been so emersed in a novel (too long), that i'd forgotten how much being inside a good book changes how you look at the world around you - and to a certain extent, how you interact with it too.
having the space inside your mind distracted from what it expects, what it knows, somehow leaves more time to think your own thoughts.
there is much i need to write;
much i want to say, and just littler and littler time to say it properly.
for now, all i can say, is that being inside this Geisha's mind for a few chapters, opens up many closets - unfolds old stories of my own, and brings about a fresh yet old way of looking at the things around me.
"adversity is like a strong wind. i don't mean just that it holds us back from places we might otherwise go. it also tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that afterwards we see ourselves as we really are, and not merely as we might like to be."
-page 348 Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
J u n e 7 1999
sadly i begin to lose the ability to remember; not what has occured yesterday, nor what has taken place in my childhood...but those flashes of memory space / feelings / smells / and the general 'gist' of what the early seventies meant to me. i never thought i would lose this - the ability to turn on a particular place or time, without merely 'remembering' what it was like to remember.
like someone has pulled me
away from my own past, playing a mental trick of nature,
i lose who i wanted to become;
i lose my true inner child;
i have, in effect, lost myself.
part of what i have lost includes the ability - or shall i say, the desire,
to mourn this loss...
and that is the true tragedy of it all.
there is little focus now,
frantic swinging only,
grab that vine!
i heard something lately,
something about "the most important things your parents can give you
are roots and wings" - was it Delilah?
these things are true - and i can say this because i am a lucky one...
but who decides which are more important if you weren't given them? why
should us righteous ones, full of roots and wings, decide for those only
given fear; loathing; perhaps hatred;
it is not for us to decide, and only we are the ones can say it is true.
my roots and wings have surrounded me like a fortress;
i've used to get places;
and i've used them to get back,
all the while not even knowing they were there,d
and that is the true irony.
God bless the little children
give them wings
J u ne today 1999
i do still have a puzzlement,
over the true nature of what we sell in our society.
this music' these notes so pure, ring with majestic flair of life itself, piano keys of ivory as the man sits and allows what is his passion to flow forth; -
or,
is he merely able to 'reproduce' to re-create a sound that society and science even, can define as heartstring pulling...
this is my true dilemma-the STARWARS and his creator or a business deal?
the emotional swells that music of jim brickman fills me with,
or just another crafty musician.
alas, i define for ourselves,
american society.
can we reap or should we weep,
goodnite,
poots.
M a y 18 1999
"The sun and its light,
the ocean and the wave,
the singer and his song
-- not one. Not two."
(1789-1866)
Awake with a second headache
now,
little peace returns to my spirit.
I await the clariy that the java brings and rerun last night's dreams in my mind. from a shooting announcement in a dark underground place to teaching someone the basics of reading music to playing in the highschool band again with a curious mixture of old high school friends (julie) and current colleagues (ronald) . . .
the peace doesn't stay long and in this frame of mind - something poisons my mind and soul - i'm not sure what it is perhaps only a virus, perhaps something more? perhaps the very things which taunt me, the change and the fear - are those same which i need to embrace
who knows.
feverish attempts at keeping
a clean house;
at keeping in contact with friends;
and at working hard;
but leaving some strings behind - there was a time when doing it all was
fun, easy, and desirable. but now i cannot do it all and do it all well.
things change but should i really re-evaluate the essence of what i want?
it's making me feel fulfilled and accomplished and successful but is it
really making me happier. is it making me better. just a questioning time
because the spring came too soon and the air pressure has changesd without
asking and the temperature climbs during the day and i just feel very vrey
very tired yet i should feel awake. it's that virus that i should have
had when i stayed home sick two days two weeks ago - it's that virus that
is eating me up for feeling so guilty - and that virus that is telling
me - hey,
what is it telling me anyways. i'm sure it's telling me something.
M a y 8 1999
how long can i put off this aching ... this want that comes from
deep within -
ignored emotions -
sinking pasts -
that taunt and tease me
send me back
when all was unkown;
mere laughs a smile
of youth and innocence
broken, now trapped...
inextricably connected
to all that is real - emotions
bind me to their core.
i watch what goes on around me,
feeling separate yet linked
to the love, pain and hatred
and the beauty i seek...
i'm not joking here nor spitting out pretty words, there's a tightrope
inside me,
wound, wound, wound around
my life as we see it - and holding inside,
like all do, taunting tales
A p r i l 28 1999
i guess the problem with wishing you want something and then having it; is that once you have it you never really see it the same way. there's not easy way of standing back and saying 'shit, i have this now and it's pretty cool'
i suppose that means that nothing is cool but then if that's the case why would we aspire to anything at all? like Berdj always said, do we do anything for purely altruisitic reasons? no not really, i believe this.
so then why aspire? why aim? why have goals? somewhere deep in the subconscious, i suppose it knows we've achieved something.
or, we walk taller.
or, we speak louder.
people listen.
and,
what's the great point in that?
it's a beautiful falling wednesday night, poofy clouds in the distance
and it's not summer yet. the air is warm enough for shorts; but fresh enough
to feel good for you. when the sun hits the sides of the trees, there's
a glow like you've never seen. picture an animated sunset; 'antz' or 'a
bugs life' colouring. it's all there.
here am i - listening to music that 'swings' me back to 1993 when passion was the centripital force in my life - or shall i say, pasison for passion. i am still passionate now, still my motivating factor, when i do something i do it with all the passion i can muster - it's just that 'work' doesn't produce such a 'passionate' effect, dragging my sorry butt home this afternoon at 3 pm because my head was spinning. literally.
anyway i'm not here to rag about work.
i'm here cause something passionate filled me up and said 'sit on that machine and write' ... and for a moment in time it's not work nor work nor whatever else i've filled my life up with lately - but the feelings that this music fills me with, the mental image that's stuck in my head of the woman (oops almost wrote girl) arriving from work next door, a professional woman, in a grey suit, not crying, but holding a bag of groceries. and i pictured - or shall i more correctly say i experienced in a flash, what she might, as she walks in that door at the end of her working day, unpacks the groceries and fries up a chicken breast over a chardonnay - hugs her honey and maybe reads the local paper - or Time magazine as I did, filled with the horrors of the day - and as i watched her, and as those fleeting images wafted thru my little skull, i realized that she was me and i was she and that in the end we're all in this thing together - we don't vary too too much like some youngesters still think we do _ or i shoudl add like i really thought we did, for the longest of times...that somehow some of us are better or more special or more nearer the center of the universe... nope, we're all the same on judgement day, and i come home to my honey and she to hers and some others to none at all / or shall i more correctly say some mothers came home tonight to slain children / but it's all ours, the professionals, the email systems, the sun hitting the trees like a bugs life, and we're all pulling our own socks up together, at the end of the day.
i don't know what i'd do if i was those mothers coming home to no children tonight - i don't know what i'd say or how i'd feel - but i suppose after watching the neighbour come home to her honey, i suppose, that i'd feel pretty much like they do...
god bless their souls,
and ours.
"please don't, kiss me like that;
it makes me crave, a thousand kisses
to follow, and please dont' touch me like that, makes every other embraces
seem pale and shallow and please don't look at me like that, it just makes
me make me want me near you always..."
-Jewel
A p r i l 16 1999
and then, as if i were looking back to high school, those sentiments overcome me.
they were both a time of rebirth;
a sacred, mind-opening, yet closed time,
when music had greater significance
and emotions were in the forefront.
one year now, it's been over, that masquerade, and only now is the whole experience culminating. it's on the table now, and although i still don't know exactly how to define it, that altered dream state of living 3,000 miles west of here, it's finally beginning to be something i can see the whole of.
A p r i l 10 1999
"Our souls
become what we make of them.
So will the souls of cyberspace, for cyberspace mirrors us in our entirety,
including our souls. Our soul is its soul. Increasingly, we will live among
wonders and terrors. If, in the strange days to come, we attend to the
sacred, then the soul of cyberspace, though beset by human frailty, will
be a sacred one, reflecting the wishes voiced by the monks in their blessing:"
"May all beings have happiness
and its causes.
May all beings be separated from suffering and its causes.
May all beings never be separated from happiness."