Annie Dillard has become the hot poker to my mulled rum. A catalyst expanding my meager education. Someone I admire for her education and mind nakedly portrayed in “FOR THE TIME BEING.” My first full read of her. From micro to macro her trombone perception fascinates me. Though admittedly I am not confident of her conclusions -- none of which, so far, she has detailed.
Perhaps it is my perception, or lack thereof, or dullness, but given that statement, I confess I’m not really looking for a TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER membership. Having never found, definitively, a construct for my eclectic seeking for an identity probable to my needs.
Learning to read has surfaced as my greatest experience. Mother read to me at times, not often, but when she did, the memories remain. Add, the many and various phrases, words, constructs, cockleburs, that eclipse even my first sexual experience now. And I confess the several, well actually, many that followed linger at the back of the stove growing indifferent by comparison. Making love with, not to, is an art seldom shared.
It is true of me that mother castrated me with her accusations of incest . . . have I mentioned the mystery of my baby sitter and her kissing lessons? That preceded the accusation, at twelve years of age; not specific mind you but experientially something cataclysmic, taking nearly a lifetime to understand . . . the engine of my curiosity? Perhaps.
Soon to depart life I no longer mourn the lack of a woman into whom I could tango my soul. I remain something of a Boy Scout about sex. Too dedicated to love itself; tolerant to a point of ridiculous loyalty. Staying long after the slander and disdain became unbearable. Accustomed to being an inconvenient commodity, a stray, I have always struggled not to treat anyone else that way.
Apparently I am more turned on by a well defined mind than an ankle, knee or breast. An expensive education, nominal, but adequate for what ever remains of my life.
Bewildered at all my failures in relationships, I wander back and forth examining the details, to the limits of my capacity attempting to understand my part and responsibility. I think we all lose the love children and pets can give; not dependent upon anything -- eventually -- but the core of it. That which loves despite being burned alive. . . .or beaten to death.
I live to mine consciousness seeking an education outside the box of vocation or relationship to one individual. . . .all institutions seem tar babies to me. . . .caught in the thicket of thorns and murdered with ten thousand cuts.
121210 05:16 Anniversary
Death is not an end in itself but a beginning again. I do not know where my son or daughter are yet for me they remain not dust but vital elsewhere. Today is Randy’s anniversary, the day he died before my eyes. Swiftly followed by his internment; myself prostrate with grief beside him remaining broken until now thirty-six years later.
My dreams inform me of alternative attitudes. Remembering now the many wherein Randy’s mother remains fixed immutable conventional mired in her time and culture . . . so like my mother and the daughters one biological who died the adopted one abandoning me as it seems by her dearth words I did her at critical times.
While writing, sometimes, I leap away, not from boredom, or block, but seeking the words coincident to mine in time. Quotes being my favorite resource. Today is the anniversary of Emily Dickinson’s birth and the death of my maternal grandfather. I am less bewildered by any part, one or all, the events forming my now. All read and reconciled forming a bridge over which I will pass the pit of “The Holiday Season.” Traversed on thin air; alone.
Could it be that Santa Claus is more emblematic of God, giving free gifts unconditionally, than the one or several Saint Nicolas’? Or Buddha with a sack upon his back?
In any case I shall, as I did this former night, awake Christmas morn with gifts in my mouth and a spasmodically flashing star growing from my crown. The greatest of which is fearless faith in life as gift not punishment.
121211 04:23
During the intervening hours since I last wrote I became conscious of a new perspective on why and what I write. Time passes and I swim against it’s theft of my life. Discovering that it was not my children alone but for all the friends and acquaintances lost I annotate the world as I sense it. Astonished that I care instead of simply go berserk.
Grief being the darkness of love, the obverse is indifference. And why, in general, I avoid the box stores and commercial broadcasts of “holiday spirit.” I have a sense that I am not swimming but standing, a hoary old stone laved by the on rushing flow of time worn smooth; reconciled to the ebb and flow of creation. Sand blast being quicker than water or wind but more subtle than oblivion.
Had we met, at any point between Randy’s night and now, I would have told you first that I am the parent of two children past . . . that is not exclusively true of me, for I never had a life before now. It walked, talked, made gas; but enclosed within was this penchant for making cathedrals of words transparent.
So in some sense loss is finding a reason to go on living another minute, hour, day -- otherwise it would be like Jerzy Kosinski suffocating himself nude in the bathtub while holding a plastic grocery bag . . . now that’s real dedication; an intention fulfilled.
121209 13:02 education
© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved
