There is nothing new under the sun, but today feels different

There is something new for me here. In this place. I know now why monastic orders retreat into the desert and whisper promises over themselves that were originally whispered by something other, something larger, something here but not here, us but not us. This is no contradiction. This is not formal logic. What works logically and formally in an illogical and informal world? I receive both of these. I accept all of it.

Who am I now? Who was I then? Are they not the same person? Am I not the same?

I am both.

I've never been able to own anything. Not a memory, not a moment in time. When I look at old pictures or a pictures owned by someone else. I am filled with longing. Longing first of all to be filled, second of all to own something, to make something mine, to say I know that and it belongs to me. Now this ownership, its not a normative system of ownership. It has more to do with identity than the actual moment I wish to own. I feel like it is intrinsic to my being to let things go, to give them to others, and to let them have them. At this point is where I start to feel anxious. Anxious about life, about college, about what follows after college. I feel anxious about moments that have yet to even come into existence, because I know when they do I will feel as if I cannot fully experience them.

I want to wake up one day and realize that in that waking, in that drawing in of breath, in that space between drowsiness and awareness - that this my waking, that this is my breath, and this is my day, as well as everyone else's.

Dilatory

It all felt soft tonight, driving home through the fog. I'm not trying to be allegorical or to evoke some feeling of mystery or awe. It just simply felt soft.

I don't really know what to do most of the time, so I read, or I think about washing my hair. Tonight, I'll probably do neither. Its interesting to know that eyes might read these words, but I think I'd prefer to think not of eyes scrolling a page, or of fingers typing a phrase, but rather nothingness and the something that springs forth from it. Not because it must, but just because it will, and at times, like this, does. Comma Comma Comma.

I haven't slept well the last few nights. I wake frequently and dream vividly. But I feel, well, I don't know what I feel or even what that means. Take it as you will - the meaninglessness and the obvious meaning both are equally as transparent to all who look. If you don't see the paradox, you aren't really looking.

...or you aren't really alive...

both are possible.


Today I held my nephew; tomorrow I'll hold a book.

Ma'salaama

How do you document the sky?

"He was up all night thinking about wolves, literally."

"you cannot mirror

long individual strands

taller daily grows"

Bo Orr, on hair.

"Do not hurry, Do not rest" - Goethe

I will possess your heart. It is a new year, and I am meticulously trying not to write meticulous. I spell out a word and then realize I am alone. I go crazy if I don't let it all just fall out, line by line, like a marching band of ideas, like brothers learning to love each other, like you and me.

Do you ever get so tired of waiting that your only response is to wait? Its been so long since I have heard that familiar hello or "hey girl." Makes little sense doesn't it? The way sometimes what you thought would spill over, barely makes a mess at all. Sometimes I beg myself to just make a mess. Sometimes I simply clean up whatever is before me, messy or not. These are not allegories, and mere metaphors at that. Its not metaphysical or even practical. Not idiosyncratic. Its the sound of fists hitting the punching bag. Its the screech of tires as they unintentionally take a sharp turn. Its the sounds of cigarettes slowly lighting and flickering as the wind blows on your already chilly face, alone, except for whatever enters and controls your mind. Its the absence of you, but the Presence. I know not its whereabouts. As Dillard said, may your tribe increase. If she were here, I'd ask her, "What tribe?" My face is bloodied, my fists tired.

What tribe? I have no direction, I have only maps. Point and Shoot. Tell me where. I'll begin here, but where shall I end up?


Maybe I'll never leave. Maybe I'll just wait.


Would you?

Speak now because its been 400 years. Or maybe two weeks.

Materializing out of infinite thoughts is the world around me, bursting with the very stuff of all creation. Its cold outside. Annie Dillard in her cabin forty years ago wrote about this very thing. A simple longing for an understanding of the complex. And now I have it, in the silence of a new year. In the silent longing of one to hold near. I see your face and it is glowing so brightly, it doesn't surprise me that no one can see you as you walk into the dark.

I'm here secretly stalking muskrats as they run in and out, hiding behind our words and feelings. Do you perceive yourself to be alone. You're alone with the Alone, and yet there, precisely in that spot, we find rest.

I talk to you tomorrow, I am sure.