A Year later, older...and probably shorter

Hello Emptiness,

The great void of anonymity and meaninglessness.

After a brief and mild scare thinking I’ve lost it for good (my account not anything serious), throwing some words down is the only right thing to do.  The dolls continue to increase in numbers, albeit somewhat slowly.  They sit on the shelf and mock me. But it’s been a swell year. The sunflowers are growing, all six of them. The herbs are flourishing.  Red basil, Thai Basil, Lemon basil, Thyme, (yes I’m listing it all, damnit), Oregano, Lemon balm, Lavender, Hyssop, Coriander, and some other shit.  For the first time in perhaps ever I would say it has been a year of progress But again, at a pace fitting for a dead snail in the mud. 

Writing  has been intermittent, as it seems with everything else, I can only do it when the mood takes me. Even this is a push. I’m only doing it because I’m talking to myself and I enjoy the sound of the keyboard.   There has to be a spark, an idea, or a dream.  Mostly, dreams. And heavens! Do I have some bizarro ones!

I realize one of the worst things anyone can do to another human being is to corner them while you talk about the dream you had last night.  To share a thing that hasn’t actually happened, probably quite impossible for it to happen, and with the excitement and amazement of a three year old talking about the sticker they got for drawing a horse that looks like a fish in red crayon.  I’m aware of this.   I grew up with a mom and a godmother who freely discussed these things and I would share my dreams and on a few occasions there were some strange synchronized dreaming events but I shall not go into that now.

 It’s normal for me. I’m very much a believer that dreams are the excrement of our brains. Processing the events around us we perceived and the unconscious things that we may not be immediately aware we pick up.  I’m kinda also on the side of the fence where, you know, maybe there is some extra stuff in all of that. Like maybe we pick up things  that cannot be gleaned in our daily experience of life. Almost as if there was another level of life or perception that generally we don’t  adhere to or recognize. Obviously I don’t know what it is, or how to explain it, and maybe my “feeling” is a trick of the light and nothing exists. Ultimately it doesn’t matter, I can choose to believe in these “extras” or not. On occasion I wake up and I have to starting tapping the keys to get the thing down. It’s rare but when it happens it’s a serious business.  I love when that happens. I love when the idea is there and all I have to do is the mundane work of writing.  My brain did the idea stuff without me trying. Ok, it’s madness but sometimes a really good story comes through and I think, “Holy Shit!!!!!”.  Many of  these ideas are teasers or little icebergs that could potentially lead to a deeper and more complex story but it has only gotten to that point with one story I’m and have been working on for so long that I’m embarrassed to say.

One story/ dream left me hoping for the thing to happen. In it I saw something so completely pure and unreal that all I wanted to do was look and be there. I still remember that feeling now. The importance of the present moment- in that moment-  ever clear and profound. Of course, with all of these things I don’t know what it means, how it pertains to me, or if placing meaning is to belittle something like a dream.  Why must there be meaning? Or, what if life is meaningless but we can give it whatever meaning we want just for the fun of it?

Anyway, I’ll have to find some meaning in order to get my ass out of bed in the morning so I better start searching now but in the meaningtime, I’m sharing the story dream I had quite some time ago. The one that left me content at the prospect of death (please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not talking about suicide or anything of that nature-I rather love this life I have been given whether by purpose or accident.  Even if  I’m just a glitch in the matrix, I’m enjoying myself, people and the world around me. ). And so I leave you now (cut to an empty auditorium) with your own meaning, your own existence and what that looks like for you.   A quick reminder that even if this is a meaningless existence, it doesn’t follow that we should all be assholes and make someone else’s experience of it a terrible or intolerable one. Don’t be a shit, don’t cause harm, do what is right (of course even saying this I know that “right” is not a solid material and more like water that ebbs and flows but still, you get my gist) and let’s at least try to treat each other with a degree of humanity. 

Be good or be good at it.

With Love,

-J

P.S. No images in this one. (but wouldn't it be cool to print dream images???) This calls for good ol' fashioned imagination. Try it! 'Hey Mikey he likes it!'

ok bye 4 realz.

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RED STAR

After class, the professor, a handsome man, told the few of us left behind the stars were out tonight.  The red star will be visible. I almost couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

Later that night, after Paul and I got the news, and I had told him the professor asked us if we’d ever ‘really seen the sky at night’,  I told him I'd nearly dropped the bomb. The first time I saw it, when the hatch opened and there was space before my eyes, I knew then I would have died happily up there. Utter darkness, silence and bliss.

I asked Paul, “If it worked before, why are we doing it again?”

“I don’t know” was all he said.

I believed him.

This wasn’t our first time.

We were riding in the huge grimy bus with all the seats taken out to store all of our gear. The floor was filthy. We rode through the narrow streets in this nameless city in the humidity and heat somewhere in South America. The world carried on. They all had no clue. I didn’t care. About them, about people. It wasn’t for them we wanted to do this, I wanted to do it anyway but it wouldn’t have mattered if I didn’t. Paul and I were the only ones who had done it before, in the past (in the future?) but we completely remembered how. It wasn’t clear if we were before or after the event. Time wasn’t clear to us yet. To anyone.

In our group, a few of them were on the ship last time, but I wasn’t sure if they recognized us.

The leader, the head, the father, if you will, he was the same from before. Hassock, I’m almost sure he was wearing the same sweater, but in the brilliance of the sunlight, the dirt and oil embedded in the wool gave off a sheen. I couldn’t tell this the last time, in the red lights everything looked fine.

Before we left our house I asked Paul if I should wash the dishes. He said yes. I was already worried because I remember last time how it pleased me so much to come back to find a few cups and plates left in the sink.

Hassock stopped the bus at a little store. I looked out, there was so much color everywhere. We were almost there and Hassock wanted to get us all a pint of Guinness before we made our last leg of the journey. He did this before too and this time I was so focused on the Guinness I didn’t offer him any money. (Did he do this? Wasn’t Hassock already up there?)

I didn’t like the way this felt.

Paul was staring straight ahead, we hardly spoke the entire journey. I knew what he was thinking. He had the same big knot I had in the pit of my stomach. Neither of us knew. The last time we didn’t know either, though, so that was a good sign. Last time, it was almost assured that our mission was a last resort and the likelihood of success, nevermind returning to Earth, was so far off the cards that we hadn’t bothered to tell anyone. It just had to be done.  We never questioned it, and we didn’t yesterday after the call came in. We just packed our bags, and left. We both agreed to keep it to ourselves again, and I did manage to leave some cups in the sink before we left. I did make sure to rinse them, though.

I kept thinking about that red star. Why would a beautiful thing want to hurt us? It was a throwaway thought because, It doesn’t Want. It just Is.

My knees were getting wobbly but it could have been the stout. I had a funny taste in my mouth. Strange how I couldn’t smell anything. But as I looked around, I was grateful for that.  Paul handed me a little notepad with details and instructions in case of his absence, and I handed him one, too.  You can’t prepare for everything up there, but a little thought goes a long way.

Our last trip, our first trip, the crew had been up there for some time. (yes, that’s right, this IS our first bus journey together. Why do I feel like I’m remembering it?) Their purpose was a separate issue, because our mission had come out of the blue. We all got lucky.  They were decent, I just can’t figure out if they remember us now? They don’t act like it, except for Hassock, but that may just be his character.

The first time, we had to hitch a ride on a carrier to catch up to their ship. Up until then it just felt like being on a plane at night, nothing real special.

But as we were transitioning into the big one, I caught my first glimpse of what a night sky truly looks like, in high definition. I heard what the night really sounds like, and the electricity all around us.  Man, I could have died right then. I didn’t give a shit about anything else. I was done. Where do you go from there? The earth was about to burn up but I was happy to let it. My heart was happy.

Paul dragged me in the ship and sat in a dark room with a tiny window for a long while before we had met the rest. We smoked and talked in whispers. He’s always so calm in these things. I wonder what he thinks about?