Journal & Musing

  • locura

    I’ve been listening to a Spanish radio station and trying to not translate anything in my head. The longer I listen, the easier it is to distinguish one word from the next even when I don’t know what the words mean. I’m discovering that I understand what the radio people are saying better when I don’t try to understand.

    I asked a student from Mexico recently to say a sentence in Spanish so that I could see if I knew what he was saying.

    “El edificio se calló.”

    I knew neither of those words.

    Then I remembered edifice from The Fountain Head, and the rest fell into place.

    “That’s dark,” I said.

    “My brain is going to explode soon,” he said back with his hands grasping his head and his eyes locked on mine. I immediately understood the edifice metaphor.

    “You’re going to do great, Rodrigo. The mortar this class used to build your brain is stronger than whatever they used to hold these bricks up.”

    It’s AP Physics, and the students are taking their big test soon. And the mad instructor grins with sadistic joy and pride, knowing that they are going to blow the fucking test out of the water.

    This is my favorite part of the school year.

  • a beautiful discovery

    Driving home this afternoon in the misty grey, I listened to a song by an artist that someone shared with me a lifetime ago, and I was transported–not to that other time but to another realm. I was a living a surreal scene in a movie, floating through the trees down a narrow and winding road. Everything became clear during that drive. The world as we know it is spinning around as though flowing through a funnel, faster and faster, headed toward one inevitable destination. I’m not sure what that destination is, but my bones tell me it’s something wonderful. All the sorrows of my past and even my day dimmed in the light of this realization. I felt an overwhelming sense of hope and calm. Of peace. That no matter how badly things go between now and the end as we know it, everything will be okay.

    A long time ago I found myself, figuratively in every way, swimming in formulas and ideas, buried happily in a vast ocean of mathematics and physics. Drowning in dopamine. Today, after many days of foggy thinking, I re-wrapped my brain around rotational motion and all its fine intricacies, and everything came flooding back. The power of who knows how many minds ran through my veins, as music written by a genius is played by another and fed into the ears of an artist’s hand. I wrote, I dissected, and with that orgasmic victory of accomplishment and validation, I solved. I understood and proved to myself that I am what I thought I might have been once. That I am a part of something greater. I am not the amalgam of my experiences nor even a product of them. I am a part of something greater than I. I am the music that flows through the artist’s hand. I am the result of inspiration and a part of its formation. I am the ocean I drown in. I am Archimedes, Newton, and Mozart. I am the music of Phillip Glass, the keys on which his music is played, and the heart of the player though which his music is felt.

    And around with you I flow, as though through a funnel, spinning faster and faster into a singular moment, a singular existence. Yet, myself, I am. Because He made me. And everything that streams through my mind and fingers and even onto this screen is made for me for Him and by me by Him because all of it is a part of who I am as He made me to be. As He made you to be a part of my story as you read these words. As together we narrow in on a destination of His design, returning to a singularity and bursting through to the other side where a beautiful new world awaits. As I did today when I found myself. Again.

  • cleaning the house

    When cleaning my house I begin with one task. Generally picking up all the trash. Then when my house is fully clean, I assure myself I’m going to keep it this way. How hard could it be? And inevitably, the house is a wreck by the end of the week. But really. How hard could it be to throw the trash out in the first place? To put something back? To sweep a room at the end of the day?

    I have a big house with only two people living in it. We aren’t lazy, we are busy and tired. But honestly. How hard is it to get up and throw that napkin away?

    These are the things I think about when cleaning. Then when I’m living in my newly cleaned house, I am so comfortable that just one napkin on the side table isn’t doing any harm. Leaving my shoes tossed on the floor next to the couch is an easy fix. Putting that dish in the sink? So simple to deal with. Later.

    My house doesn’t get fully clean until I’m on vacation because I clean in chunks. I’ll get up and do a couple things, then go about my day doing whatever it is I want to do, which usually involves nothing at all, and then I clean a couple other things. I keep this up until the house is worthy of visitors and, frankly, of me. This process takes a long time, and it can’t happen when I’m not on vacation because the energy it takes to throw even that one new napkin away is too much to handle. But it’s not really. I just take advantage of my evenings to do nothing. And therein lies the problem.

    If I do just one thing a night, I should be good.

    This is where my past self would link the keeping of my house clean to something else, making a profound statement about life. But I don’t have it in me today. I’m just going to sit here and take advantage of my time to do nothing. I can write later. After all, what is writing but tiny words strung together? So easy.

  • Dear World,

    Who would’ve thought I’d be glad to go back to work? Having a week off definitely granted some much needed rest, but the cold, wet weather got me down. The sun is shining again, literally, and oddly I’m not sad to be at work while the skies are blue and the weather is warm. Time to get back into sorts. And shorts. That’s dumb. Pretend I didn’t write that last line.

    I’ve gotten into shape before, and I can do it again. I’ve got a little motivation sneaking in. Let’s see how I do. Oh, right, I forgot to mention that I have gotten out of shape. Changed my shape, even. I’m hoping the humility of wearing pants that are too small for me will keep me motivated.

    Goodnight, World. Don’t destroy yourself while I sleep. Or while I’m awake for that matter. Be kind.

  • disasters

    Today I’m baking without recipes. I’m not a baker, but I do like taking risks. Mini risks. A baking disaster is a comic disaster. A failed parachute is a true disaster, but I skydive, too. Other than jumping from airplanes, I keep my true risks to a minimum. Actually, that’s probably not true either. But I’m putting forth greater effort to maintain a risk-free lifestyle. I suppose baking without recipes is my way of compensating for the lack of danger in my life. If the lack of adrenalin gets me down, I’m comforted by warm cookies. At worst, I waste ingredients. At best, I feel both accomplished and comforted. Either way, I’m learning how to bake (and how not to).

    .

    A cold front has blown in again. Yesterday I took a nap with the windows open and a nice 80-degree breeze blowing through the house. Today I’m in flannel pajamas watching cold rain fall through bare trees from a sunless sky. Winter is trying super hard to make up for the warm weather. Spring themed items are in the stores, but I’m not convinced that winter is done with us. I’m not convinced that normalcy by any means is around the corner anytime soon. I say that because the place I live gets mildly cold in the winter and last year around this time we got snowed in for a week. Things aren’t normal. After the lockdown that began two years ago in March and snovid barely a year later, my subconscious is expecting another disaster to be just around the corner. My anxiety is up, and maybe that’s why I’m baking–it’s controlled risk with a side of comfort.

    I have the week off, anyhow, so I can be quietly anxious in the safety of my kitchen.

    And now I’ve lost motivation because I brought to the forefront of my mind those things that haunt me.

    I’m going to watch a movie now to distract me while I eat experimental cookies.

  • negatives

    Writing stories is hard sometimes. I’m thinking maybe I should just write the beginnings to stories and end them with a …

    That wouldn’t make me much of a storyteller. But if I’m writing for myself, then the endings might not matter.

    …

    I have the week off, and I’m going to spend it as I do every holiday — getting my shit together. Another journal, another diet reboot (excuse me, “lifestyle reboot” <eye roll>), another crack at exercise. I have reframed my habits. Instead of seeing habitual failures, I see healthy breaks in destructive behaviors. I see extending my life another year. Maybe after a while I’ll see those breaks grow longer until they meet up with each other and squeeze out the destructive behaviors. That’s the goal. Getting back to writing is part of that healthy reboot. But it’s a careful balance. Sitting around in a dark space with a computer in my lap does nothing for my physical wellbeing outside of eliminating stress.

    I’m also considering consolidating my writing blog with this one. But I like the setup of the other blog and I’ve already established it. But … ack … effort. Maybe I can add a link. HMMMM.

  • extensive lung capacity

    I just started writing again after a long absence. That’s not true. I write little notes on my phone all the time. This particular spot here is about a minute old, so I can’t say that I’ve been absent from here. What I have kept my distance from is sharing anything substantial, partly because I haven’t felt like sharing and partly because I haven’t written anything of substance in a long time. Too long. I don’t feel myself when I’m not spouting absurdities, and I haven’t been myself in a while. I’ve been living some version of myself that the real world sees. I’ve avoided the inner me. She never really knew herself any better than I did, and that’s likely why she writes or why she would write if I gave her the chance. Writing is reaching for words in the dark. It’s finding something that isn’t there and shining a light on it. She was always pretty good at pointing out the unobvious because her blindness to reality trained her to see the details that no one else could. But she I have had to live in the real world the past few years and have lost touch with the yummy details, those nuances that hide around corners and peek between the wooden slats of the fence as you pass by, like smiles in the negative spaces where the silhouettes of tree limbs curl around patches of blue sky.

    Nah. I’ve been aware of them. I’m discovering that inner me and outer me are actually the same me. In my second half-century I am finally able to reconcile the two. I’ve just been too busy for a pesky imagination.

    That’s what imaginations become when you get busy with real-life stuff: pesky.

    Anyway.

    I’m considering crawling back into this den of slippery words and making alphabet soup again. I could leave one foot out of the covers to balance my imaginary world with a little cold reality. Give my reality a little warm imagination. No need to be so polarized. Right? I think I need to at least try writing again. Seriously. Inner me needs to come up for a breath.

  • the struggle

    It’s in the dark where words are found. They run from the light where any old fool can pick through them. They like to be discovered and manipulated. They like to manipulate. The relationship between the writer and the words is symbiotic: a mutual benefit between the user and the used. Which is the used is up for debate. The struggle is real.

    And yet, writers continually allow themselves to be tortured by the need to seek and find the most elusive words. I often think of them, those words, as imps. But when coerced, when manipulated by the craftiest hands, they are beautiful. I fear the challenge and yearn for it all the same. More often than not, the words best me. Occasionally I win. But the harder the struggle and rarer the victory, the sweeter the joy. Like a drug, the accomplishment of good writing sends shockwaves through my veins. Such a silly thing, really, pining for fleeting moments of joy found in arranging funny symbols into anything remotely provocative to the senses.

    What is it like to master the art? I suppose it’s best I never find out. My life would cease to exist in the real world if I do, and I’m told that I’m needed there.