sheer

I never expected life to be this…odd. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, and I knew it wouldn’t all be very fun from time to time, but I didn’t expect it to be this odd. And no, I don’t really know what constitutes “odd”. A collection of things, I suppose: the way it feels, the people involved, the things they say, the preeminence of “new,” the exigency to understand my own past. At times, it still feels artificial, and yet it’s so very real, so very mine.

Time for me typically moves quite quickly, and that’s why the past fifteen months or so have been so odd, as I felt stalled here at a crossroads in the road of my life. I’ve maundered for more than a year on which direction to take, or how to correct my course, or how to do whatever thing would be required in whatever metaphor I might conjure. And I’ve ultimately gone nowhere.

It was time, and it was past time, and I was truly about to lose all hope.

To that end, some decisions are made, not in haste, but after significant consideration, then delivered quickly. The motivations for the speed of delivery can be myriad, but they typically have at least something to do with a lack of desire to prolong the obvious. It is unfortunate when such decisions countermand previous ones, but life is about survival, and sometimes survival is a harsh sentence. I was been drowning, and I had been trying to rescue myself from the flood with nothing but a collection of memories, a misplaced sense of duty, and talking too much.

Yes, I lacked even a real desire to get out of the water, or step back out onto the road, or anything. I’m brilliant like that, sometimes.

It was time, and it was past time, and the flood was carrying me away.

I could have done things differently, but I actually tried all the options I perceived over the past year, and kept coming back around to that status quo out of weakness. The necessary action was painfully obvious to me over a year ago, and that it’s taken that long to drive it home, and in such a furious fashion, is simply unfortunate. And now, as I move past those moments, I see there was never even a true crossroads: a side-alley into something quite unlike whomever I am becoming, is all there really was.

Of course, I realize that’s hindsight, but by the same token, it is what it is. That cliché has been haunting me all too much, recently.

Last year, the parting from that other one was so ragged it never really let go. So this year, the breaking had to be sheer, her contempt for me complete, and the enforced distance between us void of any real possibility of repair. I am neither pleased or proud with the darkness under which it had to be enacted, but my heart (my soul, if I have one), is lighter, and freer, for having finally done so. I have done the right thing (unfortunately, in some regards, I do not doubt), for I am no longer breathing a water tainted by inaction, insecurity, and distrust. And my own two feet are carrying me forward again: forward, past this “whatever” and into a future in which I have not forgotten myself.

There is time, and there is more time, and the clock is now wound by my own hand.


I am loved, deeply, immeasurably, by someone who sees me for what I am, who appreciates my talents and accepts my deficiencies, and doesn’t want or need me to change or redefine myself in order for her to be comfortable with me. A someone who is so remarkable as to have stood beside me through these recent upheavals, fought for me through them, and who holds to me now, rightfully expecting the deepest reciprocation.

And I shall hold to this someone, this one who helped me pull myself from those tainted waters, who chooses to walk beside me on this road, with everything that I am and hope to become, for as long as she allows me.

And the only oddity now is that it took me this long. Although that, for me, really isn’t all that odd at all.

changes within the ever-changing unchangeable

stasis is not a thing i do well, and moments of unclarity like this do not range far from my definition of stasis. i feel that i’m at a crossroads, taking a moment’s pause before choosing which direction to turn, or not to turn, but in truth, there are no divergent paths before me, no turns to the left or right, no forks in the road ahead. i’m just pulled to the side for a bit; maybe to gather my strength, or maybe i should get out and walk. at least that would constitute some sort of decision to make….something to do.

okay, i’m no longer terribly thrilled with this metaphor. let me try another.

did i ever mention i’m not terribly adept at waiting? yeah, i probably did. when that for which you wait is unwelcome, the waiting for it bleeds.

once upon a time, this is what waiting felt like for me:

Tempered Impatience © 2004 (photo), 2005 (comp) Dawnne

Tempered Impatience © 2004 (photo), 2005 (comp) Dawnne

it may convey something different to you, and to be honest, you’ll never hear me say anything like “this is the perfect image to describe ‘waiting’, in my opinion.” this was just what waiting felt like to me at a certain time: a waiting of a certain form, when all the things being waited upon were undefined, unknowable, hidden, mysterious, unresolved. but i do keep coming back to this image at moments like this, remembering the “then”, and comparing it to the “now.” sometimes, it’s even beneficial. and at other times, it might even feel that way.

there is a sense of acuity that comes with experience: a knowledge that the things to come will be better than the things that have been, at least in retrospect, for in later years we enjoy the privilege of coloring the things that were with the knowledge we have gained from them.

on days like this, the shadows fade, and on days like this, reminiscence is a muted scream.

inconsequentially yours

words do not begin…

it recycles, and that annoys. but, it’s never the same.

the problem with me is that i remember. i don’t have the type of brain that memorizes every word that is spoken or written, whether outbound or inbound, but i remember so much else, so many other details, usually visual or aural, that will haunt me all of my days.

just this past week, unbidden, came sounds from the night of my high school graduation dinner, an event that hasn’t entered my mind again in over twenty years. that’s what i mean by haunting. i remember, but i can’t always call things up at will. instead, the memories come almost randomly, and leave me cold.

and so, words do not begin…

sometimes, i catch myself about to do something that i’ve done before, and if it’s that type of thing that doesn’t really need to be done in the first place, well, that irks. recycling is good for the environment, but this kind of recycling makes me worry about my brain. i don’t like redundancy, even if those who were to receive what i’ve had done or said would never have had a way to know i was being redundant.

maybe even especially then, when i know it’s only me that i annoy.

and words do not even remotely begin…

i was chatting with a friend last night, and something came out of my mouth that surprised me: that within the short span of less-than-three (pardon the pun) months, i have learned to love without being selfish about it. that’s a bigger accomplishment than you might think. and more than that, i’ve learned to keep myself above the age-old tendency to lose myself in the emotion, in her. it is a different thing: one that took far longer than it should have, to accomplish.

and while the words fail to suffice to describe it all, neither do they prevent the enjoyment anymore.


i started writing this in late august, and got sidetracked with life, living, and the pursuit of not being borne down by the music i listen to (the things that remind me of where i’ve been, what i’ve done, and whom i’ve known, in other words), into the depths of remorse and might-have-beens. the vectors of certain tangents in my life are helical: not quite recursive, but they come back around, time and time again, and the where-i-was is in view for long, painful moments until i move up and away and around and back again.

i had to make a break with the one who haunted me all those years. it’s not a clean break, and if i think about it (or her) too much, it’s the one thing that can actually bring me to tears. it’s a regret, true and thorough. i had intended never to have such a thing, but there it is. i’ve cried more for her than i have for the mother of my children, but the tears, now, lack the power to sway me.

syntheschism

there’s a need for it like nothing i’ve ever known: a growing, changeful thing—a nuisance to itself and others—a thing that separates itself into anxiety, rhythm, bright darkness and understanding: things we tend to treasure, as if such things were remotely unique.

but it is a need. an intrinsic need: a part of the underlying conditions. a hopeful, insistent, semi-sentient, nearly-autonomous thing that seems to take control and drive us, and the only part about it that makes any sense is that those who experience it nearly invariably come to identify themselves by the virtue of its touch.

and then it changes, shifts, coalesces and divides again, trailing off in multiple directions, accomplishing different things, becoming far more than what was intended, sometimes until it’s far too large to rein back in. it becomes the light, the dark, the in-between, and eventually, it is everything and nothing: both more and less than what it was, and what we ever dared become.

it doesn’t matter what it is.

it is us.

an amalgam of what failed to become

i sit beneath the rain again. it pages down, an unwritten book that so many have read since time forgotten.

on nights like this, it hollows crevices in my mind, and slowly fills them with melancholy, nostalgia, and stupidly even hope.

i am of that nature, possessed of the ability to dream, but not only to dream, to segment the dreams from the reformulated memories, the fears of what remains unknown, and the brief foreshadowing of insights i will later fail to recognize.

i don’t see everything, but what i do see, i see quite well.

which is not to say i always glean the right impression. especially when the rain comes, and then with it, the thunder and the lightning redefine every thought before i ever have a chance to set them down.

i breathe an air that is flavored with, colored by, comprised of this rain, and i remember all the things i wanted long ago, and none of them stand in my future. and no matter how deeply this rain saturates this moment and me, i come no closer to bringing them back to life.

and everyone else, having read these pages since time began, probably knows them for exactly what they are.

things i would say (ii)

there was another reason for my wanting to hang out on the River Walk while the Spouse-Unit was down there. the vast majority of my adoptive mother’s watercolors is centered around the River Walk, and all of us used to accompany her to art shows and the like, many of which were hosted down on the River Walk as well. despite other issues, my return was a bit of homecoming in that regard, at least.

i said before that i shot the River Walk the most with the Lensbaby 3G because it does an effective job of how i probably actually saw things as a kid down there—focused upon whatever it was i was focused upon, and not much else. i saw a lot more on this trip than i shot, but i don’t think i saw enough.

(the double-entendres will be free today, by the way)

it took me the better part of fifteen years after i joined the Army to get full control over my creative expression again. i don’t blame anyone for that; it’s just the way things went, and my enlistment was entirely voluntary, albeit pressured. my adoptive mother always supported my musical endeavors, but never really encouraged any dabbling in the physical arts. in retrospect, i wish she had, but finding my own way into this was probably more appropriate in many regards.

if i could say anything to her, i would thank her for the artistic example, and even the inspiration, which she quietly and unobtrusively supplied. some of her old oil paintings are still in my head when i dream. and so very many of her works, as best as i can remember them, are what come to mind on those occasions when i slip and think of San Antonio as “home”.