a year ago i had written a lament on the eve of the day of the dead celebration in Oaxaca Mexico - all hallows eve - samhain · now one year later i am feeling flat, obtuse and alone in an entirely different culture. it is a blessing to write, for it is a communion with one who will always be the closest i can get to understanding what it means to be alive - myself. much of my indoctrination has been about convincing me that those closest to me held the key to my happiness - family. where i sit just now this was a hoax, perhaps not intentional, nor necessarily mean spirited - but cruel in its own twisted way. which means i am the same having been birthed out of the same cauldron · letting go of sanctimony has been a ripe challenge if only to tease from the strands of conceit a kernel of decorum so fleeting of mind . we are as Mr. Dylan said about the Titanic, though he was not only addressing the good ship democracy, but our planet writ large. how can we have allowed ourselves to be so ignobled by such rabble as those affect-cyphers seizing all and exacting more. Wasichu is such a marvelous expression “he who takes the fat from the bone” and so fits our approach to each other. i am considering a new blog - “the extinction chronicles”. it will be interesting to learn whether the name is available, and how much time it will take to quash readership - AI being the affective retard its progenitors. could only help but to reflect.
“how unkind” that i would point my digit in all directions as judge of all goodness in the world, when in fact i am as fraught with that same greed and rancor about which i rail · the journey seems to be about reconciling the good will you want to feel toward others with the ofttimes covertly unkind narrator of this story. more accurately i wonder about the benefit of sitting hour after hour divulging or puzzling issues that may or may not ever be read, though i have created “extinctionchronicles.blogspot.com” to act on that concern · i realized my last crush could not reciprocate warmth because, i believe, she found my habits worthy of correction · however that she is my last crush was determined more by lack of communication, myself being so loquacious and she so non-communicative. my fantasy about her judgment is literally based on interpreting a tea leaf gift from her. these tea leaves detoxify the liver and ameliorate other self-destructive habits. it was not a bottle of Jack Daniels, what was i to think¿ i’ve been shrunk · a 10 year long critique by one mental health professional or another · i think ever last human being should have an opportunity to peer deeply into the recesses of their upbringing - but if you voluntarily enter the lion’s den, remember there is no magic bullet, nor anyone on earth that can guide you to what is truth for yourself ·
i don’t know whether love will again perch at my doorstep or whether anything i can say or do will contribute to the preservation of a single DNA strand in our increasingly tenuous place on this molten rock covered by a film of oxygen and water· it is raining in anticipation of a larger rainfall - i live on the central coast of Viet Nam· i have loved the rain for the better part of my life, and just now evaluating the 400+ ml of a contraband local rice wine of indeterminate potency, but legitimate heritage i thought back to an entire adolescent day spent spent with Rick Grierson - splashing with abandon for what seemed like an eternity · the simple act of dancing around in what i’d been taught since potty training must be covered and dried out from seemed on that day more real than much supposed entertainment i’ve endured since · truth be told, damp cloth next to the skin for too long is just lame · i am in a house off of a rice field that 50 years ago the nation i paid taxes to committed some of the most heinous acts of the 20th century. there is not fuck all i can do to alter that truth, but i am able to make my own private reparation daily. i do not know how to rescue the world from itself, for i am having a challenge just rescuing myself from my self, or is it protecting my persona from the being that got hijacked in service of rectitude.
as a trained engineer and wannabe gangster of love, i have had to adapt and improvise to a myriad of environments - but whether that experience translates into action that might help pockets of humanity to survive which she has set upon herself - i d k ¿ i do know it is important to devise a coffin that i might fall into happily, for it sure as fuck doesn’t look like there is any sister of mercy out there gonna help me in my dotage - does that sound bitter¿ i’m thinking facetious, but then again i was 50+ before i understood “facetious” was not an insult ma was using to condemn my behavior, but rather an observation about the playfulness of one of her charges - such are the challenges of misunderstanding. ma now sits in a memory ward of a convalescent home equal to her financial standing, being plied with all the latest pharmaceuticals tailored to rich geriatrics - that she is 91 and having long since given up the ghost of meaning, is a non-player. whether she ever understood the lengths i had gone through to allay her concerns about her failure vis-a-vis my “worth”, i will never know, what i do know is that i have done all i could to give her respect and appreciation for her gift of life, while simultaneously examining my own confusion about the self-serving and aggrandizing clusterfuck she tried to inculcate into my very existence.
here i sit closer to death than birth and am alone · ma’s intransigent narcissism may have scarred much of my life, but with balance and love i may yet be able to transform the unintended but very real cruelty. this might have been the only flavor of my without pop - a man ma liked to disparage as “cute” · i owe a debt to pop - he was no saint, but got closer to the authentic than any other member of our blown-all-to-hell atomic family constellation. if i do find an unidealized love, it is because he could say “yeah, your mother was a victim” without an iota of rancor and in the next moment be sitting on a couch full of women, holding each of their hands in turn, as though he was doing them kindness - which in fact he was. i watched his same illimitable id wrap its arm around the waist of his caregiver; she might have been wiping his ass at the time - a hip fracture rendered him an invalid for the last 10 months of his life. he became the star of the morality play he never wrote but lived to the quick. just now i know what my next drawing project will be - a woman i’ve known “virtually” for more than a decade; she lives a day from where i sit. the incurable romantic in me would like to check the box marked “forever” but also understand that the simple act of study might be more valuable than any effort to redefine my personal history and perhaps a lot less challenging for her. what i have learned is a man can never own a woman’s heart - she will love you until she doesn’t anymore ·
jts 30/10/2019
http://stoanartst.com
reprinted with permission - all rights reserved
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