señor flogsbottom becomes an It
wanderlust (the grass is green everywhere)
even here.
it’s not easy living with me, I know. I’m the moodiest of critters, too often curled mollusk-like into my own shell, betimes bemoaning this or that or the whole kit n caboodle of my lot, tending to place blame for dissatisfactions wholesale on geography. poor chicago, it’s not to blame for my malaise, ultimately. but I can sure make it sound like it. to live with me is to attend an ongoing litany of plaint (hi, een) and confected concoctions of how fabulous it would be to move elsewhere in one direction or another– now closer to my family, now nearer friends, then away overseas, or what about just striking out behind the wheel across this great nation, no agenda, cameras and gazetteers in hand?
the noodling, you see, unto perpetuity– and I, for the most part, swept up inside its momentum, remain largely unaware of the impact of narratives I create, compulsively, in words thrown out across the airwaves of a room– until confronted by my partner’s, or on one or two memorable occasions my friends’, sheer sense of cognitive dissonance– you say again and again how you’re unhappy with this, how you’d just be happier with that…
the bittersweet truth is: the that is the forever elusive horizon, and this state of affairs is as it’s ever been. spinning dreams out this way and that is what I do. and it may from certain angles seem to contain only downside: continuous complaint, who wants it? so tedious– but underlying it nonetheless is the present, also cherished, if less volubly, and, at least in merciful retrospect, woven through with a thousand graces. the dilemma has in part to do with what folks have taken to calling “mindfulness”– that is, not having enough of it, not practicing it sufficiently to be… what? evolved? at peace with myself in the present?
peace in the present. peace amid motion and thrash of ongoing life. such a buddhist concept. I manage it ill. I am utterly western in my own thrash and whingeing. let us say I could be better: well, I will try. it’s foolish to leave a thing at that’s just how I am. cop out. but also I’d like to be kind of okay with, and see the value in, my own particular, flailing mish-mash. castles in the air can serve as seeds, take root given a fortuitous season, and climb and grow into something vivid, rooted, and real– or they can fly away over the water, so much dust into the view. only time sorts it all out.
so, at the same time that I discourse and fantasize about the multitudinous romances of Elsewhere, now I shop for a home to buy in chicago, a little piece of real estate in order to dig in, plant my garden, take root and claim this city as my own.
touching base/wood/the keys
ah, man, I’ve missed my little ibook– chris got it working again just last night and then was off to work super-early this morning, so here I lie, having my old type-in-bed time once more. an indeterminate brain is confronted by the opportunity…
honestly, I’ve felt a bit adrift without the tether of words composed here– facebook brings something else entirely– reconnections, semi-connections, a superficial sort of webbing, but webbing nonetheless– it’s brought me back into some form of contact with more than one lost friend, for which I’m enormously grateful– but the writing medium is altogether different, requiring by custom if not strict technical limitiation (as twitter) a tendency of hyper-abbreviation. this tenor is most surely the coin of the realm more generally, but as an expressive form it does little for real mulling through– my milieu. yes, I know, it isn’t as if vox (or for that matter wordpress, blogger or, heck, my trusty paper journal) has gone away, only myself that has elected to neglect the form– the medium itself remains available throughout my various distractions.
and to what do these distractions amount? little coherent cumulatively, I fear. there’s me, always inclining to weigh and measure. recently here and there been torturing myself for no good reason with google searches for people I no longer need any connection with– wretched, idle hands. I know better. well, at least the killing curiosity is soon exhausted with lack of any relevance, but it’s a waste of energy. and other wastes as well– time and self spent merely watching video, tuning out, dialling down the day. then there’s been some good reading (margaret atwood– and attending her gorgeous many-voiced book launch event downtown on friday). a weekend full of sleep, fighting off one of the many seasonal bugs flying around. glorious golden autumn days. car repairs etcetera.
adrift. diffuse. in need of locating a likely thread to stitch it all into some sense.
one thing tho: we’ve begun to plan weddinging for 2010– in our own idiosyncratic way, with sites of celebration in chicago and northern michigan– we’ve started sketching it out for ourselves, what’s wanted, what’s not wanted, how to accommodate the needs versus desires of those we love, how to make something authentic and real and delicious and right for ourselves, to relinquish any mar from the past’s damaged expectations– to begin anew, rightly and brilliantly, for ourselves.