These days, my mind is fragmented between a thousand different points and sub-points. It is a pretty little mess, with subtle clarity that only I can recognize. Today especially, and this week in general, my thoughts aren’t complete enough to create an entry all its own. But as I’ve slowly employed the life-giving invention that is e-mail to reply to each of the girls I know and love all over the country (my many sisters, mostly), I’ve found ways to find momentary coherence. Fleeting lucidity.
So, by cutting and pasting, just as my large fifth grade computer teacher taught me to, I think I’ve found a way to describe my recent thoughts and existence far better than I could if I actually tried. I like that with an e-mail, I’m allowed to jump from place to place, with nothing more than a break in paragraph. So below you’ll find a hybrid e-mail to myself, and you all. Apologies to the girls, whom can no longer think of my tedious words as theirs alone. To them, more soon, I promise.
I put on a documentary about the Pacific Ocean for the band. One by one, they are falling asleep. And now I must see if they each have proper blankets and pillows. Bizarre, I know.
I’ve been taking lots of walks. I love my neighborhood. It has style, character, and crime. On any given walk, I can pick up a maple leaf that’s just beginning to show its dying passion, look up and make eye contact with someone that will either give me a nod of approval or stab me, and all the while I’m admiring the Parisian apartment building behind him.
I am happy to report that I like the grads here, they are decent people – most of them much older than me. So I happily take the role of the immature boy that should have never been accepted. On Saturday, some of us made Japanese paper in the sun, near the park, and it was beautiful. I was the one disregarding the instructions and splashing dry folks. Kindly asking if anyone wanted to throw the yellow frisbee disc. Only India, the border collie, wanted in. And I wouldn’t let her touch it, despite my new love for the furry creature that reminds me, yet again, of home. Because she would chew it. And I got that frisbee from a friend, and more importantly, threw it with an even better friend. A special girl from the very distant past.
I’ve become increasingly grateful for the simple gesture of your presence. It means a lot to me that you know where I live, and where I go during the day. It is a simple knowledge, but one you are better at acquiring than I am. I’m wrecked that I’m so poor by comparison, but glad still.
Tomorrow, I am to give a presentation to the graduates about the worst of subjects, myself. And then on Thursday morning I’m giving a slide presentation in Lawrence to two art classes at KU for 50 dollars a pop, which I think is wonderful. Because gas is a buttload. And I’m trying to get to California. I’ll crash at TJ’s place for those three days and then on Saturday I’ll drive to my parents house in Wichita to watch my Grandpa get remarried in our own back yard. He’ll have been married twice to my none, how bout that. My Grandmother died two weeks and a year ago.
We’ve both expressed our disdain for Wild At Heart. But I must confess that I’ve never even read a sentence of it. I’ve heard people quote it, and I’ve seen the way they live their lives, and I have foolishly decided I don’t like the book or anything it says. And I foolishly stand by those words. Because I don’t want to read about that stuff, I want to either do it, or have nothing to do with it. When some great romance comes I want to say “There are no words for this,” rather than “Oh, this is like chapter 3!” But in the meantime, why subscribe to one guy’s take on something I may never get to have? And more importantly, why not enter that experience without a backlog of vague advice and anecdotes? Why not fail and succeed for the first time, as if no man or woman had ever tried love? I want to think and say the naive bits, and to delusionally believe I’ve something original to say about the human condition and love. It may waste time, and it may bring more tears, but then the story of two would be theirs alone, with its own silent chapters.
I hope life is moving too quickly for you, as it is for me. I hope you are being bombarded by great stuff, sad stuff, weird stuff, and everything between. So that maybe, now and then, you’ll break down and cry for a while. Now go to sleep, and keep your pants on when you’re by the window.