I’m torn between exploring love or death just now - “death” because it’s so fucking hot here, i think it might be a good idea to acclimate for where i’m headed; “love” because it is all that stands between us and complete annihilation of our species. Shit is starting to get real as they say in the hood - my real estate agent is vacating a “salaried exempt” position typical of the industry, which when the “economy” functions can be so lucrative that a mortgage is feasible, but when shit tanks - is vulnerable. The thing to keep in mind is that this position i’m describing is the exact position which the leader of the free world occupies. D_rump is mortgaged up to his neck and will do anything to remain solvent - including taking our nation’s wealth. My real estate agent is not that unscrupulous, but how do i aid someone betting a family’s future on the “infinite growth paradigm”¿ I don’t know. When we die, there is no debt, except the karmic payments we have assumed by our behavior. The physical reality of Newton’s 3rd law of Physics could be described as “Stevens’ 3rd law of Metaphysics” - for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction - do shit, and shit will come back around. The hitch to this inexorable truth can be found in the Bhagavad Gita which also points out the secret of human freedom is to do well without attachment to the results.
Fucking paradox - tell me g_d is not a broad with a wicked sense of humor. My sense is the mooks fucking shit up for all, have determined they are going to die and there is no retribution anywhere for any action they take in this earthly realm - they, by nothing more than their convictions are allowed to commit mayhem to their dying day · and there will be no, as the militarist euphemistically describe it, “blowback.” What if they are wrong - what if you are a curios megalomaniac with nothing but time on your hands and resources to point you toward this obscure but seditious discourse; and what if you’re wrong¿ What if James Joyce was prescient in his priest’s description of hell in the early novella “The Artist As a Young Man” was accurate? You may want to take a break now and do you “due diligence” as they say in the trade, just to see what may be in store for you if you misjudged the existential reality of “payback is motherfucker;” and if that is not enough of a caution - try Geoffrey Chaucers’ description of the “Summoners Tale” where the friars were well described at the asshole of Satan, wiggling and lurching from pain to pain. If that is not enough to give you pause in your reckless and ill-conceived destruction of a species, try taking your metallic intellect and plunging it into the emptiness of your own soul in search of substance without atmosphere - lost in space might be a bitch if you are dead as fuck.
Then there is love - ah love · what a remarkable rescue from so much loneliness. But what does it take to be worthy of that elixir of bliss blended with humility and warm heartedness¿ is it even real, or just another manipulated screen by someone with one hand on the keyboard, and the other in your pocket? I don’t Know - IDK · Bob Dylan sang this conundrum quite well, “I used to care, but things have changed.” well folks - here’s cheek, Bob · “you be lying” : “But what do i know?” - Michel de Montaigne. When i awoke from my appendectomy in 2005, i didn’t yet know my 3rd wife had already left me in all but spirit. I do remember the room - a pale pea green that oddly resembled he lack of pain that i’d been in for the past 36 or so hours. My last memory was looking into the face of the surgeon who was about to gut me - she was pretty in a blond-bored kind of way, and the only wit i had about me was to plead, “i’m a stone cutter and my stomach is really important to me, please be careful” to which she powerfully made clear my “faux pas,” by telling this soon to be anesthetized chit at L.A. County General - “I am careful with ALL my patients.” And so with great trepidation about some unconscious nurturing from a snarky, but lovely internist i’d just offended, i went under and learning to appreciate more fully how little control i have in this world. I awoke in a pale pea green room, without the pain that had incrementally increased until my diagnosis 30 hours into this medical journey. They finally plugged relief into the intravenous catheter i had watched a bored technician “cock sideways” after she had plunged it into my vein - (i’d asked at the time, 20 hour marker, “won’t that tear the vein” - to which she nodded an indifferent affirmative). Upon waking, all i could see was the arc of an enormous crescent shaped window with the skyline of a Los Angeles i’d been born to, but barely knew.
Behind my head i heard a voice emerge from through the fog of anesthesia and relief from 36 hours of nearly continuous pain; the voice said gently “breathe, breathe deeply,” so i did. I’d not seen my wife since she had dropped me off at County USC some 20 hours into the ordeal, and she was nowhere around as i regained consciousness - fuck i was just grateful to be alive · The young fellow in the bed across from mine, which had a top sheet but no pillowcase was wired and in incased on 3 of the limbs i could see. He had slid his motorbike into the the wall of the transition from the 5 south to the 110 north at Chaves Ravine - two knees and an elbow were crushed like the corners of a cardboard box, but he sounded cheery and happy to be alive - not unlike myself. I was told when they discovered me awake that as soon as i could take a shit · i could go home, meaning the “chit” was no longer ticking and i was no longer hawking my future to an illness i did not see coming - much like my roommate who’d be in hock for much, much longer. I commenced walking the halls, knowing medically the sooner you grow capillaries and the more you hydrate - the better you will recover - i was so amped on opioids that it didn’t matter who i talked to or where the fuck my wife was, we were all friends and so i took a shit and went home.
My wife arrived in my van and on our drive “home” that Thursday, she informed me - “I’m leaving you” · well what are you going to say - “don’t”, “please don’t” · i went back to work on Monday and when returning from my walk from the train station was accompanied by the local homies pressing me for “where you moving to, when are you leaving, what’s going on?,” clearly i had no clue but it was Monday and the El Camino hadn’t been driven in more than 5 days - the battery needed to be charged · i called my wife to explain that i was taking the car out to charge the battery, so if i wasn’t back when she got home - the battery had died · “try and reach me on the cell phone.” - she paused, this had been only the 2nd time we’d spoken since she’d picked my up from the hospital and had announced her plans, which i still not believe . .. “I moved out today,” she calmly explained, to which i replied “then i guess it doesn’t matter to you if the El Camino dies,” i had to hang up, my battery needed charging. I finally understood 15 years later and counting that she did her level best with what she had. It has probably taken that entire time to understand what a gift she had given me, leaving when she did. She was my love and my universe, and it will be no different now than when i draw my last breath - except there may be another who may have become my love and my universe . .. ··· i just don’t know; i do know that love is grand - though sometimes a bit bumpy.
jts 20/05/2020
http://stoanartst.blogspot.com
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