September 2009 Archives

last week was punctured with moments that had a certain density to them, when i had to rush against time, against the stream, against the sun. and circles of rocks fell apart into piles that did not look like anything assembled by human hand. and things had to be brought together again, one word at a time, even the spaces carrying a certain weight. heaviness. meaning.

writing is a pleasant stream when it is free and when it can just develop at its own pace. but when it needs to be very precise and when the message is fragile and already expected to be flawed, then writing is painful and imperfect.
there is no way to say two things at once, there is no way to say precisely the exact thing meant and to hope that at the other end the recipient is going to understand things exactly the way they were... they were what... intended? there? true?
language is just a rough tool to work with at times. it makes possible to summon the entire world as we know it with just a simple set of letters arranged on a string, but on the other hand it can only play with the rules it is given, and it is a linear medium, one that has to rely on the attention and the memory of the writer and the reader too.
sorry for pointing out all the obvious stuff.

spoken language is richer at least. the tone of voice, the smell of the air, the light, a conversation in a shared space has a much richer meaning than a castrated, declawed email. or even a phone call. when language in spoken in a context that expects it to be a certain way, then it is a herculean task to pull back the planks bent into certain shapes, to open the blinds to somehow harmonize the angle of light coming into the conversation.
tough. tough. and also without a net. no preparation. just there. immediately there.

the cat smelled my elbow for a moment, then looked at me an a very concerned way. she fell asleep on my chest for about two hours. she forced me to allow her to heal me at least a little bit.
hope it all works out.

trying to calmly look at myself as if i were a spirit watching my body age at a pace that is very clear. today is a good day.
and there is a big difference between alone and lonely.

The little tree that I had decided to bring over from the Park Slope apartment a few years ago is now beginning to turn gently yellow again. I had removed all leaves from it somewhere in the middle of the season, so it was allowed to age an extra year in 2009. The colors might turn out more vibrant now that it realizes that it is indeed truly going to be fall.
A different tree right next to it, took maybe 9 months to recover from being transplanted into the new and actually smaller pot. I had almost given up on the little guy, and just as a test scratched on the thin bark a few weeks ago. Underneath the color was green. Life. And soon after the leaves came out after all. Spring in July. The fall is recognized here too. The colors are shifting. The tree is getting ready for colder months.

I seem to have more journeys in the next two months than I could have ever expected. There is going to be some traveling to places in the US. Perhaps Kansas, though I am not sure if I will be able to go. Then probably some places on the west coast. Maybe some places on the east coast. Maybe a few more places somewhere closer to the middle of the country.
And then, shortly after columbus day, we will take off and finally go to Japan. It is a bit as if I had been preparing for the trip for decades. And now I feel incredibly not ready. There are such huge gaps in what I would like to know before I go, I am not sure I will be able to bridge them. But I guess the most important thing is to be open and to discover, not to be completely prepared and disappoint one's never truly complete expectations.

One of the challenges is going to be to actually go to Japan and to be there. I have taught myself to work on my trips. And often there is the sense of the presence in one place being the important preparation for some other place.
Very much like what I just mentioned actually.

And then there is the urge to report, and to record. What kind of camera should I bring? What kind of camera should I maybe buy? And what will I write?
Am I going to post our status here, or on Facebook, or Twitter?
"Currently relaxing, far away from it all."... What a lie. Pathetic really.
I wonder how many moments will be truly actually experienced as those that will actually really happen then and there.
And perhaps such a thing does not exist?
Perhaps this very moment was lost to this very reflection here.
What could I have been doing right now?
And what are you doing here?

I guess a new season is coming and it will be followed by the next, then by the next. Other rhythms will define the angle at which we look into the light of the sun.
Pretty much like the little trees I happen to keep as pets out on the balcony.

I need to leave the house today, I guess. Maybe not.