the state of things

If non-doing were synonymous with laziness or sulkiness I'd be the champion right now. I can't pinpoint the exact moment I left the fight, but at some point I did. I believe there's a gravity attached to all things. When we work we reach toward the ceiling of our limitations, sometimes beyond. When we cease work we begin our slide downward, naturally, towards the mean. From whence we came. It's not enough what I'm doing - even though I see myself making progress. I'm embarrassed and embarrassed at my embarrassment. The sting of it would not be so great if my ego were not so large.

Tonight could be the night.

I've never broken any hearts - nor has mine been broken by any other.
We break our own hearts when we fail to see what is in front of us.

It's strange how the sound of insecurity, the bell of insecurity rings "Me. Me. Me."

attachment

Every human relationship we get into we also have to find our way out of.

atlanta visit

No longer the need for showy signs of affection, I've accepted that I am married to it, bodily. Like aged love, it was enough to sit for a while together. The familiarity of the trees, the coldness and the moisture. The absence and quiet of winter. A few more months and the cicadas will fill it again with their love song.

lovers

a short poem from one stranger to another. handwritten, it was there then it was gone. in some pant pocket. set accidentally free amongst the keys or digging for the phone some grow in depth, in dimension. some are just an apparition. they flash then disappear. some hang shamelessly in there. words of smoke, of an early morning mist that burns off slowly. it was the sun on our last tuesday.

christmas in venice

The holiday season has finally caught up with Venice. It's raining and cold outside. I'm sitting on a bar stool at Hinano's listening to live blues, waiting for the moment when I'll have to get up and dance. I've seen Satin Blue perform before. They're usually on fire by the end of the first set. Until then, I nurse my Guinness and take stock of my surroundings. Christmas lights dangle from the awning across the street. People coming in have wet hair, pause to brush off their shoulders and take in the warmth. In the corner a couple are locked in an open-mouthed kiss. They have a small, protective entourage of beautiful people with them. At the table beside them two regulars in dirty jeans and plaid flannel shirts play pool. One of them bobs his head approvingly to the music while the other, taking a shot, exposes his fuzzy plumber's crack. I appreciate the juxtaposition. At the end of the bar a woman with braided hair, grinning madly, looks up from her notebook as the white-haired musician to her close right bends a note plaintively on his guitar...

coins

I woke up feeling a little raw this morning. I've been trying to place myself within the scheme of things. I suppose there's some big picture I'm in. Sort of a Where's Waldo type scenario where I can't seem to locate my self. I walked down to my local Starbucks, where everything and nothing takes place all day every day. An opportunity for kindness presented itself. A clear moment in which to act. But kindness is not the right word. It is too big of a word. To give and receive simultaneously. So it was also his gift to me, both of us recipients.  

I've been reflecting these last few days on my motivations. Specifically the ones behind efforts I make to improve or better my self. It seems there are two wells from which this impulse springs. One is inwardly arising, a voice of compassion and command. The other a reactionary ripple from my childhood. A habit. A hole in the development of my world view I'm still trying to fill or give meaning.

I must have always believed in the existence of unconditional love because I've spent a lifetime torturing my self for not being "good" enough to receive it. My desire to become worthy of love is paralleled only by my distrust of it. At some point we're all told something we believed existed doesn't, like Santa Claus. Love can be like this.

Interesting how two impulses to do something at least outwardly similar completely threaten to unseat each other. If I learn to trust my self and my impulse towards compassionate self-acceptance and growth I necessarily have to let go of the one centered solely around my belief that I am undeserving of said love. If I keep holding on to my distrust and need to "become" worthy I will always have a vested interest in my own failure - proving to myself once and for all there is no such thing as god. I mean love. Interesting how these are two sides of the same coin.

Everything you touch touches you back.

Amendment to the Prostitution

What I mean to say is that, in my view, sex and the process which results in sex (whether it be for recreation, for love, or procreation) should never be dehumanizing. And if it is, something has gone not just a little, but terribly wrong - for everyone.

alpha FAIL

A guy who needs to make other guys look bad in order to impress a girl or who thinks trying to make a girl feel stupid is going to raise the likelihood of him getting laid is a common, over-inflated, blowhard who needs lessons in self-respect. A woman who beds this kind of man is either actually stupid, comprehensively naive, or desperately attached to the act of sex as a means for personal validation. I don't know which is worse.

venice 5

blind spots

People seem quick to point out that others have not shared the same unique experiences as they... when trying to prove their own argument but tend to overlook the fact that, for this very reason, probably 95% of all their other opinions are completely baseless or taken on some authority other than their own direct experience, experimentation, or knowledge.

I am continuously surprised at how impressive other people find even the smallest acts of authenticity.

This blog has, lately, become a place for notes. So, okay.

my apartment is a den of illness. my relationship to this singular room changes by the day. before it was quite rosy. a sanctuary in fact. now it is yellowed by its feverish occupant. this is like the difference between a stream which is flowing and one which is blocked.

today I long for atlanta. things don't seem so far away there. roads traversed many times become shortened by familiarity.

There is frequently something very real and worthwhile in that which I dismiss automatically. This is especially true when it comes to people. Today I saw how easily snobbery can turn into bigotry. How violent and inhumane sides are when taken. It was terrible. I haven't enough tears to shed for this poverty of perspective, for black and white, us and them. These days I feel I exist, more and more, in shades of grey.

Sitting at the window of Cow's End, coffee in hand, looking out the window. A man runs his fingers through his white/yellow hair seven times. He's not facing me, but I can tell he must be a few pounds overweight. Behind me a tupperware container holding loose tea scrapes against wood as it's removed then replaced on the top shelf. Outside a chubby toddler reaches out to touch a rainbow-colored macaw. He reaches with his right while holding a red plastic rake somewhat threateningly in his left. The owner of the bird, wearing khaki cargo pants, loafers with ankle socks, a Son of a Son of a Sailor Jimmy Buffet shirt and one large, gold-colored eagle buckle, rises from his chair and returns the bird, protectively, back to its perch on his shoulder.

That my clearest moments of perceiving tend to underline my error in perceiving itself. That these observations somehow reveal the nature of my particular obstructions. Walls over which I climb only to encounter another which I in turn mistake for reality.

what's required

On Friday Michael gave a brief description of Marge Barstow's certain kind of presence. It stood in clear contrast with my desire to feel Alexanderish, as though I've already "got" it. She must have worked long and hard on her self - far past someone only interested in looking or feeling knowledgeable. I suspect it's the same with any undertaking. Those of us who seek knowledge in order to gain attention, security or power don't get very far though we might think we have. I can't imagine anything less than a truly brave show of repeated, sincere, steadfast, commitment to love and selflessness could ever get anyone anywhere, really. And this cannot be faked. Remorse for undue cockiness and for being chronically self-involved. Horror. More horror. But somewhere past my egotism, narcissism and self-love, I have reason to believe there lies a world yet unknown to me. A world of subtlety, possibility and everlasting, indefatigable hope.

on want

Want has a voice and language all its own. It sounds like a capitalist, an auctioneer, a dealer. Want wants me to rationalize, to paint, to gloss-over. Want is irresponsibility. It tells me it is better to buy and sell (now!) than to know and be free. Want, you are a peddler, a carpetbagger, a taxman. Want, you are the ultimate salesman. There's nothing I bought from you I didn't already have. 

A tangible and immediate result of my first few weeks in Alexander training is that I am reminded more regularly that I have a choice. This new and sporadic freedom has made me feel braver emotionally. And I have undertaken a new commitment - one that may not last forever, but which feels authentic nonetheless. This commitment is to myself, to be as honest with myself as I would be with a trusted and impartial friend. It's an invitation to learn and to decide, more actively, the course of my life.

notes on like and dislike

Lately I've noticed how my observations of others turn immediately into like and dislike. This is automatic. How limited and incomplete my perceptions are when viewed through this lens. Like and dislike bar the door to my experience of empathy and compassion, and from taking the flaws of others impersonally, as they should be. That they cease being flaws. That they were never flaws. That this may be a sort of automatic degradation of the energy created from observation. That this degradation is due to my using the energy generated from observation to fuel my ego. How I use it to serve my sense of separateness and superiority. That this is self-serving and ego-protective. That this is not self-serving in its truest sense but degrading, literally.

I'm afraid to think about you. 
I lapse so easily into fantasy.
The fingers of my imagination
have no place in your feather
hair, plucking at your soft, perfect
ears or stroking the divot gently
concealed between your protrusion
of lower lip and plateau of chin.

my sister is beautiful

 

I found this video my sister took of her feet while going through wedding photos the other day.

Love is what got me through my 5 straight years of fasting for Ramadan working at a restaurant where chunks of brownie, vegetables and various kinds of fruit were literally at my fingertips and being called un-American by my family the time it happened to fall on Thanksgiving. I am sad to say the love that carried me through in the past has, over time, slipped into obligation. Sadder still is that I find myself incapable of carrying out this month-long commitment without it.

Today I performed for the first time since Italy.  It went better than I expected and certainly better than I deserved. As a result I am, again, a member of an Orchestra in which I play cello.