T is for to do.

 

Dear Ones,

The issue of now, the urgency of now is always a thorn in my side.  It just keeps on pricking.  I have some time-based tasks today; and I did three of the things, and then, you know, as a reward I went to do the thing I wanted to do; to read through the letter T in Alphabetical Diaries, and then, at "The fear...." I was struck by the obviousness of my thought patterns- I saw beyond task management to some notion that all my problems would be solved if I could only (fill in the blank)... and I knew I wanted to tell you this, and right away!  So that you might save yourself the entrapment of this kind of thinking.  Which is a long way of telling you that I interrupted myself, spurred on by the self-doubts of the narrator, to doubt myself in the same fashion, and to see, to have it dawn that this is how we are.

(Another interruption: a bird just came to the door, to eat insects from the spider web covered door frame).

(The elder cat is also miaowing).

The following of the thread through my discomfiture leads always to the oldest (and dearest?) of my ineptitudes- the one that I must have taken on as a 3 or 4 year old.  It proceeds like this: I think why didn't I do that task already?  And the answer is because you are foolish, lazy, etc.  Why am I foolish lazy, etc.?  Because I lack ambition, because I lack care, because, because, and why the lack of ambition?  Because, because, and it goes like this, all leading back towards the Ur failure, the Ur flaw.  Like a Greek tragedy.  It is because you (I, one, we) thought you did not fit in a way, we perceived a lack; criticized for a little something that you didn't or did have, and you think, in total sincerity and absolute mistakenness, that if you could just fix that thing, that Ur thing, all these other failings would cease to be.  All the problems of your inner world- relationships, contentedness, productiveness, self-worth- would evaporate in your sobriety, your eating discipline, your productive routine, your independence from sugar, caffeine, any manner of drugs or medications, your willful self-control, your optimism, your commitment to wellness, your non-smokingness, your fitness regime.  And here we are, trying as always, most abjectly & self-injuriously, to think of the whole generative life force of nature as being a thing to win at, to master.  

Yes, tears are appropriate here, because it is sad.  But, I hope, not hopeless.  May we see that our lives do not revolve around some ancient mistake or lack, may we feel that there is time enough to do some things; this or that, either or both, or neither, too.

Perspectives are Numerous.

 

Distancing Bench, Kimberly A. Kelzner, 2020.

Dear Listener,

I want it now, and that must be being in the moment, musn't it?  

I worked many years to learn to say yes to things, and now I find it was the wrong answer, and I have to train myself to say the much more difficult, but shorter, 'no.'  

I made a great confession; and I told how it made a lie of so much I had done; and my confessor answered that 'we need an ego, too, you know.'  Did I know that?

Join me, if you like, in asking yourself these questions, or, just play this song for the day, and read about the musical genre of the Murder Ballad.  Next week, we shall write our own Murder Ballads and put them in a safe place, like the Smithsonian, to be examined by the enlightened folks of the future!

fast fwd.

Dear Concerned,

I don't actually think they were simpler times; I think we just forgot all the myriad complications.  Once in a while, I get a glimpse of it, out of the corner of my eye; a kind of 'true memory' and it is pretty awful: there is doubt in abundance, and confusion; worry & sorrow are there too.

I am suggesting a kind of fast forward, no, not to the end of the pandemic, I mean something more utilitarian than that even:  I mean, what does it feel like to tell about now in a year or a week?  Let me try:

Everyday, with regularity, I searched for good news.  All I ever found were more reasons to worry.  From the people I knew, I received comfort of all kinds- I tried to send it in return.  I wrote, I called, I sent messages and packages.  I made things to give.  Making masks depressed me, not because I didn't want to wear one, but because it felt like such a tiny little blow against the enormity of the danger.  I did not like the virtual ways we used to connect.  Looking at myself felt silly and it sapped all my confidence and energy.  It turned me into a self-conscious 12 year old, which is something I did not want to be again.  The phrases and language that blossomed annoyed me- 'at the end of the day,' 'pivoting to the new reality,' 'the new normal.'  Why wouldn't people use a language of honesty, of candor?  Why did they hide behind these rubbishy jingles?  I studied daily the numbers and data- it was like a kind of ritual, a kind of penance and a way to bear witness.  People actually took to the streets, but things seemed mired in absolute endless repetition.  Everything fell apart, but it was all just barely taped together anyway.  What was hardest, was trying not to inflict suffering on others.  This is always so, but it seemed even harder than usual: why the hell were we even trying to work 'online?'  None of this make-work mattered much.  The real scare lay in what we were going to do with ourselves if nothing was required of us- it was alternately scintillating and frightening.  There was no reason to do much of anything.  I discovered that I communicate with words, but that isn't even half of the information in a conversation.  The flattening of interactions revealed how our culture and society obscures the elemental levels on which we actually function:  smell, small tells of movement, infinite and invisible physical cues.

And that, is some of what I will have learned, later, in the future.  Back in the olden times.

Now sky.

Dear Everyone,

I am so often amazed at the beauty we are offered from the sky.  Today there is this amazing texture and coloring in the sky.  It's a sky that demands setting out some chairs, and silently watching this vaporous spectacle together.  Join me!

Spectacular circumhorizontal arc.

The Way Now Sounds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Listener,

 

Remember that little waltz* that I look forward to playing in the future?  This is another song to play for today; and then, when it is tomorrow, we can say, Yes, 2016 sounded just like That.  I figure Chasing Shadows sounds like 2016, just like 1958 must have sounded like Well, All Right. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*  In case you don't recall it, you can hear it here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Soon is Here, Now.