October 25th, 2005 -- Traveling

Riding on a train brings back memories of flying when I was a kid. Train stations smell like airports, even if they don’t seem quite as glamorous. People are hurrying like they’ve all got somewhere important to go, and even if you know you’re 20 minutes early, the excitement and nervousness of the impending deadline grips you, and you find yourself with each foot rushing to get in front of the other, two horses racing neck-and-neck. If I was still the boy I remember, right about now is where the rubber-tipped toe of my sneaker would catch on the industrial tile floor of the airport, jerking my knees forward in front of my feet, bringing me down hard on the meaty flesh of my palms, emitting a loud squeak as they slid a bit before catching. I would have just enough time to feel embarrassed about the noise before the stinging pain set in. I’m not that boy now. I’m just as ungainly, but now I have a lot more to lose, and I don’t forget the pain as quickly as I used to, so I slow down a bit. The cold, nervous lump in my stomach quivers as I arrive at the boarding platform. I’m early, but I have nothing better to do, so I mount the stairs into the artificial-tasting air of the train.

Walking down the aisle of the train, I let my fingers glide across the top of each seat I pass, looking for the one I want to sit in. Again emotions come rippling out of me, but this time I’m picking a seat on the school bus. Yes, this is a better memory for right now. I should explain that by better I mean more accurate, because my memories of riding on the bus bring the same cold lump to my stomach, but I have none of the wonder and anticipation of a trip through the airport. I feel like everyone is watching, waiting to judge me based on my choice. Again I feel like I can’t get my bag close enough to me. I slide into my seat sideways. It’s not quite as easy as it I remember.

I used to have some fun on the bus. I used to wait until the bus driver wasn’t looking and then curl up on the floor between the seats. I could put my face next to the dirty floor and see all the way up to the front. It was a whole different place down there. Sure, you could see the same people, but instead of seeing their healthy round faces, you saw the dusty bottoms of their shoes, some on the ground, some dangling from above – tiny, fake-looking shoes on almost non-existent feet. It was cooler down there, too. That’s where I first realized that I could press my palms against the cold metal, but no matter how many times I did it, they never felt cold. If I got caught I would sit up straight on the tape-repaired seats, and stare at the metal corrugated backing of the seat in front of me, or explore the stickiness of the places where the tape was coming off of the poorly repaired rips in the upholstery. Sometimes I would be picked on. Sometimes I would have a good time talking and playing with the other kids. Always I would feel exposed.

As I look out the window now, I’m thinking about a game I still play to this day, even though it started back when I was still young enough to enjoy it without being afraid of someone finding out. There were two versions; either I’m controlling a giant hand or a running man. In either case the object I have is a part of me, connected to me. I can influence it but never control it completely. I take my imaginary hand and brush my fingers across the landscape, feeling every bush and tree, scraping my fingers along the telephone lines, feeling their smooth rubber, making sure to lift my fingers at each pole so as not to snag them. The grass on the hills, I imagine, feels like a shag carpet. When I used to play with the running man, he would run alongside the bus, jumping over and on top of each obstacle in turn, keeping pace, performing flips and somersaults for effect as he went. If anything got between us, though, he would have to run back and go around it, because we were connected. He was a part of me, of course, so breaking the connection was not an option. Come to think of it, I used to play a lot of games that involved escaping from my body, superseding physical possibility in favor of fantastic feats of flying, running, jumping, and shape-changing. Even then I hated the confines of my physical body. Oh, how I wish I could again be confined as little as I was then! I still play the games, but I can’t make myself believe it like I used to.

I’m traveling again, by fits and starts. I don’t often remember the way it used to be; I don’t often want to, even when the memories are good. Sometimes, though, when I’m feeling tired and the physical world seems a little farther away, my heart goes back without me, and when it returns it brings with it more than a tinge of remorse. I don’t like hearing the stories it tells about me and the way I used to be. Every time it does, I find that I can’t watch the streetlights pass in the night. Instead I’m staring at the reflection of my eyes, looking into the man I’ve become. I knew I would change someday, but I don’t want to think about why.

May 30th, 2005 -- Meeting Mike

Have you ever hated someone all your life? I'm sad to say I have. I wish it wasn't true, but I hate my uncle Mike. I've watched him abuse his family and bring down anyone who gets near him. I remember being left there overnight with my sister, and telling her not to cry while he was chasing my cousin through the house, beating him with a belt. I wish he would die. If only it were that simple. But unfortunately I know that if he did die, he would only hurt his family again. I don't love him, but I'm sure his children do.That's why this Saturday I took his hand and shook it, wishing the whole time I could wipe the distasteful oils from his pudgy fingers off of mine. That's why I had to make small talk with him, and why I excused myself to use the bathroom, hoping if I stalled long enough someone would take the seats across from him, and I could sit somewhere else. I got lucky.My only regret is that I didn't get to see my aunts more, because they were at the other end of the table. Still, hearing the signature cackles coming from their side was comforting. My mother's side of the family has in many ways been broken, their lives woven from a tangled loom of choices, some because of, some in spite of their tumultuous upbringing. Through it all, this is what I think of, what I remember when I'm feeling how much I love them: the powerful sound of the unabashed cackling of their laughter, defiant in the face of the world. It is this bittersweet love that made me eager to get in my parents' car and drive to a Mexican restaurant in a town I don't know and shake the hand of the man I hate so viscerally.

May 20th, 2005 -- Untitled

My eyes work just fine. Swathed in muscle, they twist and contract to track and bring into crystal-clear focus anything within the arc of their scope, and still I cannot see. My mind dutifully processes each image and retrieves a name, a place, a person that corresponds to each shape, but there is no meaning. I see a world learned by rote, devoid of relevance. This is not my home. I believe in the world, just as I believe in my mind. Everything I know I’ve learned through my senses. They are my only communication with the world. Why, then, can I not bring the two together in congruity? Why are my senses always at odds with my mind? My mind has been a sanctuary from the world, but I have been gathering myself together, bracing for the inevitable day when I cannot keep it out anymore. Someday the world will reach my mind, and it will be lost. The inevitable dispersion of my self will no doubt lead to my death. Why, then, do I reach out into the world? What could be worth the risk? I believe that my death is inevitable, but I believe just as strongly that good things can be avoided, and I don’t want that to happen.I can’t live my life alone and risk the chance of missing out on you, even if it buys me more time. If I expose myself to the world by being my body long enough to enjoy you for a while, then I will gain much more than I could possibly lose. When I am with you I am more than myself, and if I am more than myself, then I will not be gone when I die. I can bear the humiliation of being exposed to the world, because I know that it cannot see me, and you can. I want you to fill me until my senses are reversed, and though the world will never understand me, it will feel me and you through me, and when the day is over, I will lie down and rest my head, protected and warm in your lap, and sleep a dreamless sleep.

May 19th, 2005 -- A Thought on Thoughts

So now I’m thinking that maybe our thoughts, the natural medium of our self-expression, might be too vague, too impressionistic, based on templates of templates, such a long trail of similes that they are totally unsuitable for interpersonal communication.
I had always assumed that words were merely a social necessity, that our thoughts were so specific that there was a clear need for a method of communication that could quantify them, relate them to something tangible so that they could be assimilated by an unlike mind. This idea makes sense on one level. I’ve spent a great deal of my time trying to articulate my thoughts, and I can honestly say that I’ve never once truly felt that my exact message was received by anyone (although I’m forever in debt to those that have come the closest). I would consider myself to be someone with an adequately large vocabulary, but when it comes down to really letting someone know exactly how I feel, I always end up feeling like I’ve said almost what I wanted to. So it would make sense that my thoughts are just so specific, so focused that the words that have been created for general use would not be able to convey their meaning in its entirety.
But here is the one thing that bothers me. If my thoughts are so much more adequate at expressing my feelings, then where does my internal dialogue come from? I spend more time talking to myself in a day than anyone else, and when I say talking, I’m not strictly talking about vocalization. The point is that I communicate with myself using words. Why would I do that? Don’t I already know what I’m going to say before I form the words? It brings me back to thoughts in general, unprocessed thoughts, the impressions that pass before our mind’s eye, before we get a chance to think about what we’re thinking. Are these our true thoughts, our honest feelings, or are they just echoes of meaningless sensory input, just data to be cultivated and processed, incorporated into our internal dialogue? Maybe the reason why the idea of telepathy fails again and again to capture our imaginations is because the raw imagery, the sensory echoes and unfiltered emotions that burn the back of our mental retinas from time to time are no more meaningful than the words we would use to describe them, perhaps even less so. I just can’t shake the feeling that understanding this could bring me closer to understanding what everyone is saying to me. After all, if I’m almost saying what I mean, then I probably almost understand what they say.

And so it begins...

I'm starting over again, this time on blogspot. I'm going to republish some of the things I had on my old blog for starters so that I have them all in one place.