It All Boils Down to Four Options

I am shedding my skin. Literally. Following an enormous lapse of judgement that found me frolicking on the beach for hours on my second day in Florida without reapplying sunscreen even once, I have gone through several stages of hell and purgatory to arrive at this: Instead of dwelling on the dire prophecy of dermatologists everywhere that I cannot avoid the cancer that will soon cover my entire body, (gee, I seem to remember preaching at Veronica at one point during our endless sunsoaked and otherwise-soaked week that our skin is an organ!), I am choosing to look at this metaphorically.

Yesterday, in the middle of a marathon viewing of the first season of Deadwood on DVD, I suddenly realized during the 6th episode that I am going through a great metamorphosis! (I cried through episodes 3 and 4, tearily applying layers of moisure mousse whipped body lotion to my itchy skin. Chalk it up to transitioning back to the real world with $185 tickets, student loans and all the normal bullshit.) Some might look at me and see Job, beset with pestilence (the roofer says there is carpenter ant damage. Ching ching. Price goes up.), plague and loss. But no. Look at Deadwood! The town was visited by the plague and Andy, who was dying of smallpox, was dropped into the forest to die... and he recovered. Calamity Jane's nurturing tendencies became apparent to the doc, the dying preacher struggled with the thought that his relationship with god might just be chemicals in his head but maintained his goodness... and through the darkness the evil saloon-owner even seems somewhat benevolent.

Yesterday in the midst of my TV-induced stupor several connections popped into my head. First, the realization that the peeling of my skin was just the outer manifestation of inner transformation. Second, that this transformation was somehow connected with a search for whether our life simply consists of the physical and it's effects or whether there is "something else" at work. Third, that I must decide how to approach the rest of my life. Right now it looks like I have four options:

1. Like Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane: Fuck you, cocksucker. Get out of here and let me destroy myself whichever way I want.
2. Like the Hardware Store Owners: Get involved with other people, and do what I can to make society right.
3. Like the Whores: Give you a blow job and quietly lie in wait for the moment of escape.
4. Like the Preacher: Stoically endure my affliction while experiencing inner turmoil, anguish and doubt about the nature of reality.

Hmmm... unlike George Bush, I never was a very good decider. Anybody got any suggestions?

Later: How about this one, from the last episode of the first season, which I finished today:
"Announcing your plans is a good way to hear God laugh."

Going Down

Today I'm pondering the wideheld distain of the artistic life, the absence of depth of thought and the demand for conformity in our culture. And the avoidance of "going down".

“... in the deeps are the violence and terror of which psychology has warned us. But if you ride these monsters down, if you drop with them farther over the world’s rim, you find what our sciences cannot locate or name, the sub-strata, the ocean or matrix or ether which bouts the rest, which gives goodness its power for good, and evil its power for evil, the unified field: our complex and inexplicable caring for each other, and for our life together here. This is given. It is not learned.” -Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk

And I'm also thinking about this: "Writers make good bloggers, but does blogging affect good writing?" an article found through Hardcore Zen

Goodbye to the Bullshit

Goddamnsonofabitchmotherfucker! This is the text I sent to Veronica after contacting City Hall about the ticket (civil infraction) I received for not getting rid of a brush pile in the yard and neglecting to paint my shed in the specified time. "One hundred and eighty-five dollars for each offense," they said dispassionately. "It is due tomorrow." Thrown into a tizzy, I reverted to philosophical acrobatics. A familiar mind-bending series of rationalizations, a veritable contortionist's search for meaning! A human pretzel, taking "bending over and looking at the world upside down" to a new spinning plateau. Dizzy, I am ready to sacrifice myself to the gods of the mundane, to the devils of conformity, to the warm world of fitting-in. "But really, the shed has a mossy roof, weathered wooden shakes, many bunnies live in the brush pile, it is weathered and picturesque, hardly a sanitation problem!" I rehearse my defense, deciding on an amiable girl-next-door quality.

So what is the deeper meaning of all this? Aren't there more important things in the world than my stupid brush pile, my shed's supposed need of paint and wondering which neighbor complained about me? What is all of that in the total scheme of things? Here I go again, worrying, thinking, pondering, desiring meaning that transcends all the stupid stuff. But the scientist Horgan believes that there is no deep meaning.

"Horgan concludes that, 'all religions, including Buddhism, stem from our narcissistic wish to believe that the universe was created for our benefit,' while 'science tell us that we are incidental, accidental.' 'This is not a comforting viewpoint,' he says, 'but science, unlike religion, seeks the truth regardless of how it makes us feel.' He says that Buddhism is 'not radical enough to accommodate science's disturbing perspective." (Beep Beep! It's Me.)

WTF? I want meaning. So I'm liking Brad Warner's take on Horgan's viewpoint:

Buddhism has no arguments with science.The scientific view is perfectly true as far as it goes. But let's say you're walking down a deserted street at ten o'clock one winter's night. You come across a girl, about ten years old, sitting near the curb shivering because she has no coat and crying her eyes out. Now you could explain that scene in terms of emergent phenomena, or in terms of chemical reactions taking place within the body of a highly developed animal, or in terms of sociological theory. But is that really all there is to it? Is that the Truth of the matter? Do our words and symbols really encompass all that life really is? When you can explain something even extremely thoroughly and with pinpoint accuracy, have you really understood it? Lived it? And if this is clear in terms of the little scene I described above, how can we be so bold as to say that something as big as the whole universe is utterly without meaning? How, in fact, can we say so when we are confronted face to face with all of that meaning every single second of every single day?

Science is all well and good, no true Buddhist would ever argue with its conclusions and explanations so long as they were sound ones. But scientists are too prone to believe that not only can all things be explained empirically and represented symbolically -- which may be true, though I have doubts -- but that those explanations are an adequate basis by which human beings can live their lives. You can choose to explain your life and to try to live within your explanations, or you can choose to live your life as it is. Buddhism chooses the latter alternative.

You could argue that the meaning we perceive is just a chemical reaction within our brains, another emergent phenomenon. OK, I'd say, you're probably right. In terms of matter alone, this explanation works. And if you're satisfied with explanations like that, fine. I find them lacking.

The universe is more than just facts, more, even, than the sum of all the facts that make it up. The universe is meaningful. The universe is meaning -- as well as matter. The two are not different. Matter is meaning. To me, this is so apparent as to be absolutely undeniable. (don't drop that atomic bomb on me!)

How comforting to believe that something is undeniable. Well, I believe this: It is undeniable that we are going to die. Who knows what happens then? No one. So the absence of the fear of death is what we are after. At least that makes sense to me. Or at least the end of worrying about incidentals, sweating the small stuff, losing sleep over the goddamnsonofabitchmotherfuckering bullshit. Keeping an eye open for the love part. Making mistakes and then picking our sorry asses up off the ground and walking on. Making a Herculian effort, knowing we are prone to error, always being mindful to err on the side of love.

Kick out the jams, motherfuckers!

The End of the Pier

What can I say? Yesterday we wandered around town in a "last day daze" and walked to the end of the pier one more time. I listened to the local boys foul-mouth it for the tourists. A dolphin swam close by and the European visitors gasped. Throwing a mackerel back into the water a fisherman described how a shark can take all your line in a second. I looked up and below me great currents of small fish painted Van Gogh swirls in emerald water. Why is it, when faced with a great expanse of deep water, I always want to jump in?

This morning it is stormy in the north country, and outside the sky is dark as night. It is a downpour, and I think of Veronica in the Florida sun going about her life so practically and viewing the world so concretely. We are exact opposites, of course. I am swept away, carried under by the current after wandering too far in search of what I have never seen. Sisters. How could it be any other way?

By the way, do you think it is true that "chance encounters are what keep us going?" I finished Norwegian Wood on the beach in Florida and am now reading Kafka on the Shore. Do we attempt to create for ourselves here in Blogworld the "chance encounters" that we crave? Do we look for the shadow that makes ours darker? The half that disappeared when God took a knife and cut everybody down the middle?

Florida Fragments

Beach*Sand*Hand

I'm in Florida!

I made it to Florida last night, but not without spending many more hours than expected here:



Do you know where this is?

Veronica and I stayed up late talking and she is still in bed. Wimp! I'll try and send you a picture now and then.

A Good Word. A Twist.

"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." ~ John Donne 1624 (Quote found at BEEP!BEEP! IT'S ME!)

Am I the only one who felt sorrow when we killed Abu Musab Osama al-Zarqawi? I don't condone his violent acts but he is a human being, and shouldn't cheering over anyone's death repulse us? Not to mention our complete seemingly collective indifference to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians? What ever happened to "hate the sin not the sinner," or "love your enemies" or "thou shalt not kill"? They are obviously empty platitudes to the Christians extremists, the only ones who have a voice in our society.

Much of what these right-wing "Christians" have to say sounds like satanic pea soup-spewing venom (perhaps it has always been this way. I mean really. What about the Salem witch trials?). They fixate on the very things they need to let go, like preventing gays from getting married along with making it harder for heterosexuals to divorce, trying to justify their wealth because God wants to bless them and killing people who aren't like them. They are hateful, selfish and arrogant whores in the house of power. They are haters.

It's easy to become a hater. When I hear one of my students talking trash about another student, I try and show them that they are acting just like the people they hate. They take on their "enemy's" behavior, saying nasty things about them and wanting to beat their ass, or other stupid bullshit. They always say, "They started it!" They won't budge. Fifteen year old kids just can't seem to understand (and neither can the aforementioned Christians) that it takes more strength of character and self-control to not mimic the behavior of their enemy. I appeal to their martial arts movie-watching sensibility and try to make it macho and sexy and cool to not act. But they don't get it. I beat my head against the wall.

And of course I am not immune to thinking myself in circles and becoming that which I hate. I start out talking about love and peace and end up wanting to wipe-out stupid fundamentalist anti-intellectual unimagininative Christians, (nearly half of whom think that human beings did not evolve, but were created by God in their present form within the last 10,000 years or so.)

I go searching for good words, not sappy or sentimental or obligatory, but filled with struggle and self-doubt and motivated by kindness and real love (which isn't always pretty but is never petty or cruel), and what do I find? Smart, funny, honest, humble, soul-searching Christian bloggers. Of course!

"What is in a name?... "

Click on the rose for an exploration of the ways Marilyn Manson's music and persona deliberately question traditional concepts of love and hate, beauty and ugliness, good and evil, faith and disbelief, fear and acceptance.

al-Zarqawi Propaganda

Abu Musab Saddam Osama al-Zarqawi was used by the Bush administration as part of the propaganda offensive leading up to the invasion of Iraq,

"... just around the time that the Bush Administration began changing its pretext for the conquest from "eliminating Iraq's [non-existent] weapons of mass destruction" to "fighting terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them over here." -Empire Burlesque

Predictably, Bush is calling al-Zarqawi's death "a severe blow to al-Qaeda and a victory in the global war on terror." But who believes even one thing that our "president" says?

Antiwar.com Blog points us to a June 7 posting on Strategy Page which predicted the death of al-Zarqawi:

Given that Zarqawi has become a loose cannon and that his actions are handicapping Al Qaeda's efforts, it seems reasonable to expect that an accident may befall him at some point in the near future. If handled right it can be made to look like he went out in a blaze of glory fighting American troops or that he was foully murdered. Either way, al Qaeda gets rid of a problem and gains another "martyr."... General Bill Caldwell has revealed that US forces relied on information that came from within Zarqawi’s own organization.

The Last Day

Today my co-teacher Amie and I will pack-up Everything in our room, which would be difficult if you weren't the sort who just tipped drawers upside down into boxes. I don't have patience for sorting, which sometimes works to my disadvantage but mostly to my credit, I like to think. Amie has been slowly packing for weeks, preparing for the big move. All of our boxes will be distributed to our new rooms ready to be unpacked by us when school reopens this fall. But Amie won't be there. She is moving to a different school and I am moving to a new room at the same (although millions of dollars bigger and better) school. The white flight community where I work is one of the fastest-growing counties in the country. I will miss Amie's diabolical laugh next year. I'm feeling quite lonely and lost already. We have been a team for four years and I have learned a lot from watching the way she interacts with the special ed students that she oversees.

Yesterday my "ADD boys" finished their exam early, and knowing they couldn't handle the free time, I gave them a writing assignment. I told them it was their "time to beg for forgiveness" and explain what grade they thought they deserved. They were so truthful and cute in their little essays, confessing all of their transgressions ("I'm sorry I talked so much." "Please forgive me for sleeping that time." "We weren't so bad, were we Ms ____?") and hoping for the best. Many of them for years have slipped through the cracks, have chronic behavior problems and have come to expect the worst. Their lives are already permanently imprinted with "failure" at age 15. It pisses me off. But then I guess that is what we do. We group em we track em we spit out the ones destined for success and we spit out the ones destined to be the "have nots".

But I can't think about that right now, though I do like to beat my head against the wall. My latest head beating has been over the stupid Republicans and their stupid constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Oh, and of course this:

As a result of human overpopulation, and capitalism’s inherent greed, virtually all of the world’s great ecosystems are in decline or collapse. The earth’s ability to replenish herself and to sustain her immense biological diversity (biological capital) is being diminished. So we are living in the midst of one of the planet’s great extinction episodes and it is human induced. Sacred Ecology and Capitalism, by Charles Sullivan

The tree is gone. Apparently the birds are carrying on without it. I suppose I will carry on without it too.

Big Tree

I don't have much time. I hear it raining softly outside my bedroom window and the birds like it. They sing a soft song as earthworms rise to the surface of the earth soggy and motionless waiting to be carried away. A big tree rests on my lawn where it was blown over two weeks ago. Part of it is on my roof. The birds really seem to like it there. I sing a soft song, I will miss it when it is gone.

The First Gifts

Tiny scrolls of language
found inside Chinese umbrellas

The rotting fabric of golden weavings
picked from the garbage of Peru

A pebble once held loosely in the palm of a pilgrim
at the summit of Mount Tai

A field recording of your voice
scratchy and far-away
speaking of possibilities

Animal Thoroughfares

Is Insomnia an Act of Defiance?

Lack of sleep transports me to strange landscapes these days. In the middle of the night wielding my macho Mag-Lite weapon, I open the door to the wild night and rummage under the car seat in search of my debit card, earlier tossed carelessly onto the seat beside me and which I later find in my bed. A poetic and delightful discovery, I think. The neighborhood is a glowing mystery at this hour, a hazy colorless world busy with the rustlings of small animals who crisscross neighborhood yards on their busy thoroughfares. I am groggy and I am trespassing. The Garish People are asleep who detest brush piles have neighborhood meetings detailing the rules by which we must live and hate the invasion of small animals. Insomnia can be a rebel act, I suppose. Living against the grain for as long as I can remember, insomnia is its most basic form. A deep inner refusal to comply, to die. Being the exact opposite of my parents.

What Will Be My Last Thought at the End of Civilization?

My mind in the night surprisingly turns to Al Gore. What will be my last dying thought when civilization finally ends maybe tomorrow? Am I dying now? I make myself motionless, quietly assessing the workings of my inner organs and am left with inconclusive findings. If this is death it is surprisingly calm.

With What Shall I Clothe Myself?

I have thrown my clothes in a pile on the floor I hate them they are all wrong. The pile is heaved onto the bed and later ends up smushed into the closet where I occasionally catch glimpses of colors and fabrics that irritate me. I am cantankerous. Yanking out a tangled shirt I contemptuously throw it in the dryer imagining clouds of steam billowing into the cool darkness of the backyard. I hate to iron. I have always hated ironing. Well, maybe not always. Once upon a time a little girl pushed a heavy iron over her father's shirt for play. Georgia and Willa must have been in school then and my mother was happily cleaning and cooking and ironing and I stayed close to her through the day. She was busy and now she has mentally left me, not aware in her waking time that she still has a daughter named MJ. I exist only in the dreamscape of her past. I am gone. Is Georgia a good mother? How about Willa and good god, what about MJ? Have we stunted our children or have we provided too much freedom too much structure not enough opportunity too much responsibility a love deficit! were we smothering controlling demanding never satisfied did we teach them to engage with the world love learning can they squeeze maximum juice out of a lime in other words can they make a good Marguerita, cook and sew swing an axe build a house fix the plumbing will they thrive will they be happy be adored make money survive our disappearance, I shift position in darkness.

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

I am exhausted I think as I peruse the pile of books on my headboard choosing one that can carry me the furthest distance from where I am. I reach for mercy hope tolerance peace generosity courage compassion passion without which I am dead.

So Take What You May